Absolutely Fantastic

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This really is an exceptional film. The atmosphere and mood of the setting are expertly established and there is a real sense of foreboding in the slow build of the tension. I think the scene where the conversation with all the speculation of the crime is off-camera while it focuses on the maid clearing away the chest of the candlestick and food platters was one of the most successful scenes I've seen on film. You may therefore wonder why it is that I have only scored such a masterpiece an eight out of ten. Well, in terms of film-making I would say that it is one of Hitchcock's absolute finest works and thoroughly deserving of a ten but I didn't enjoy it enough to mark it at a ten - I enjoyed it, in its own way. I wouldn't watch it again. It was very clever, very well-done and I would seriously encourage anyone to watch this film. It deserved to be watched and I'm glad I watched it but I feel that now I've seen it, I no longer feel any desire to see it again. Some films are a one-time wonder and for me, this is one of them.

Reviews regarding Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece of "Rope," tended to be mixed when the film came out on release in 1948. Critics complained that "Rope" was in rather poor taste due to the subject matter. These days, the film is rightly regarded as one of Hitchcock's more original. It is a film that deals with the act of committing a murder for its own sake and how the people responsible decide who should live and who shouldn't. The people in question - including the victim - are three students who all know each other. The two killers are a gay couple who plot to kill their fellow student, on account of their supposed superiority over him. They commit their heinous act with no conscience and with no guilt. The plot concerns the attempts of the killers (John Dall and Farley Granger) to elude capture and to avoid any kind of suspicion falling upon them. After hiding the body in their apartment - where the killing takes place - they hold a dinner party for a few friends and acquaintances. Out of the two, Dall is the more conceited and arrogant. He puts on airs of his feeling superior and causing an atmosphere of tension with the girlfriend of the victim during the party. Granger is a lot more nervous and distracted by what has just occurred. You feel he will be the one who will give the game away. Hitchcock is carefully and methodically plotting the downfall of the killers from the film's opening scene. It is the appearance of James Stewart who plays the lecturer to the killers and the victim, that the film begins to change. From his first appearance, Stewart suspects that not all is what it appears to be. He senses bad vibes the moment he sees the two murderers. He begins to probe them in a subtle manner. The subject of homicide is brought into the discussion, purely on a theoretical basis or so it would appear. With such a conversation, Farley Granger's unease becomes more apparent and John Dall maintains his pomposity for the time being. The suspense builds to breaking point after nearly all the guests have left the apartment. James Stewart returns on the pretense of having left his hat behind. Now it is just the three actors for about the last 10 minutes or so and it is highly memorable. At this stage, both killers are at a low ebb, resistance wise. John Dall finally concedes defeat. Being callous right to the end, he expresses his lack of humanity by saying to James Stewart as he points to the hiding place: "Alright, I hope you like what you see." The camera cuts to a close up of the shock and disgust that Stewart feels at the gruesome discovery. The students try to appeal to their lecturer by trying to justify what they have done but it is all in vain. Stewart delivers some excellent dialogue when he denounces the actions of the killers, by explaining that the victim was a decent, sincere, gentle and civilised human being. It is an intense conclusion to a great film. It was hinted quite strongly in an early draft of the script, that the James Stewart character was sexually attracted to the murder victim and that his feelings were not reciprocated in the slightest. If any of that is true, I can't imagine James Stewart agreeing to be in the film as his kind of Republican politics would prevent him from being cast. As such, I believe the script was revised to eliminate any and all homosexual references to Stewart's character. Some critics felt that James Mason might have been a better choice for the pivotal role of the lecturer. I'm not saying Mason wouldn't have been good but I thought James Stewart did a good job. John Dall and Farley Granger did well as the two murderers and Cedric Hardwicke was effective as the victim's father. Hitchcock shot "Rope" in long, single takes and parts of the set were on wheels so as to make the photography more expressive. I feel all this adds to the film's value as a masterclass in filmmaking. I rate "Rope" as being one of Hitchcock's finest.

I didn't like this movie at all and am surprised at how highly many people rate it, some even considering it among Hitchcock's greatest. First, it's less a movie than a filming of a stage play. Everything about it is stagey, from the often artificiality of the dialogue to the relentless confining of physical space to a couple of rooms. You can almost see the actors moving to their assigned places, fading toward the back of the stage or moving toward the front according to which conversation the audience is meant to hear. The use of close- ups is a transparent attempt to mask the fact that it's only a filming of a stage play.There's not a trace of believability in the premise of a professor insisting he is completely serious in his Nietzsche-like views about some people being above morality, expounded at length, thinking murder is actually entirely acceptable, but later shocked and horrified when confronted by a real murder. It's one of those stock pieces of artifice common to drawing-room mysteries.James Stewart excels at the end in his decency and humanitarian outrage after discovering that his former students have committed murder. But he is totally miscast in the earlier parts where is is supposed to be a professor overtaken by unconventional ideas about morality and murder. He puts on a slight smile, trying to present an air of intellectual superiority, but it doesn't work at all. It doesn't suit James Stewart-- not because we know James Stewart from other roles but because it is too far from the man's essential nature (or perhaps beyond his acting abilities). George Sanders or Clifton could have pulled it off, but not James Stewart.

You know the quote about Actors being cattle. Hitchcock corrected saying he never said that actors were cattle what he said was that actors "should be treated" like cattle. Great actors give perfect performances in Hitchcok films. Think of Grant and Bergman in Notorious, Cotten in Shadow Of A Doubt not to mention Anthony Perkins in Psycho. Often the improbabilities of the plot become totally credible by the credibility of the performances. Here, John Dall and Farley Granger act and act to outrageously that it's impossible to believe they can get away with it for more than five minutes. Their characters are impossible to warm up to like it happened with Anthony Perkins in Psycho or with Colin Firth in Apartment Zero, no matter how sickly those characters are you can't help connect with their humanity. Hitchcock in Rope seemed much more taken by the technical wizardry and it is unquestionably fun to watch. So Rope provided me with superficial pleasures and sometimes that's enough.