Rope (1948)

I wonder what would have happened if Hitchcock and Don Simpson got together?  
Not that Hitch only made movies that you could describe on one sentence but Rope is one of the more brief concepts to sell-there's a party and the hosts have killed the guest of honour and he's actually in a box under the nibbles. Even if the cynical were say 'And that's a movie?', they would concede they were curious to see how that sustains a feature length.
The good news that Rope is a great way to spend 80mins. It's all killer-no filler. I even think it could be longer by a little bit but I recognise that it's more potent in its short form.
The best surprise of Rope is that it's brilliantly written and-AND acted. It has the great whippet-fast, witty dialogue so indicative of the 30's and 40's; great pearls of stuff like this:-
'Brandon's spoken of you'
'Did he do me justice? '
'Do you deserve justice?'
And ⅔'s of those lines were delivered by James Stewart. I'm no great watcher of his films but he's great here as this deadpan blackly-comic scholar. You may remember Farley Granger from Strangers on a Train; here he plays the complete opposite character- a disturbed young man with nervous murderous intent. His partner and dominating force in the relationship is played by John Dall,  who confusingly has a somewhat striking resemblance to Jimmy Stewart but he's a great malevolent force of undercurrent evil in this piece. He's just bad to the bone.  Both these guys have just killed for the thrill of killing, just to say they could and no better reason and the Farley Granger character is as complicit but you get the feeling that he's being lead by the John Dall character, who thinks he's too clever to get caught but still wants to rub his actions in people's faces to the point of inviting their victims family to the party(!) Needless to say, Jimmy Stewart's Columbo routine throws a spanner on the works these guys's plans.
Another reason why Rope is recognised is because it'll go 10-15mins without cutting; all the action takes place on the same set but it's pedantic to say why when it does make cuts(purely for changing film reasons, I'm sure), they seem like the least subtle, most obvious cuts you'll ever see but that might just be me.
But like I say, Rope is the real deal. A classic film, in every sense and not particularly dated in many ways.
I know Don Simpson wouldn't have liked the name Rope, he would have found that too subtle and i know he wouldn't have suggested 'Box' but i'm sure he might have been vying for 'Chest', maybe...


I watched Rope (1948) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Going The Distance (2010)...