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The 1940s represent the absolute pinnacle of suspense cinema. This was a decade shaped by global conflict and societal anxiety, conditions that created the perfect storm for stories of paranoia, betrayal, and psychological torment. From this crucible of uncertainty emerged the shadowy world of film noir, the sophisticated psychological thriller, and the modern spy film.

This definitive ranking showcases the ten greatest thrillers of the decade, films that entertained audiences and rewrote the rules of suspense cinema. Each entry on this list combines critical acclaim, box office success, and lasting cultural impact, representing the very best of what made 1940s thriller movies so enduringly powerful.

10. The Stranger (1946)

Director: Orson Welles

Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young

Orson Welles’s brutally effective post-war thriller operates on a premise both simple and terrifying: one of the architects of the Final Solution has escaped justice and now lives as a beloved...

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t just dip his toe into controversy in 1948, he swan-dived headfirst with Rope, a film that defied censors and delighted LGBTQ+ or queer-coded cinema devotees long before the industry knew what to make of either. Behind the curtain of this tightly wound thriller was a project laced with queerness, and a kind of narrative tension that burned through the glossy restrictions of the Hays Code like acid through celluloid.

Rope: A Story of Murder, Subtext, and Hidden Desires

Hitchcock’s first Technicolor film might have looked vibrant on the surface, but its real color came from what wasn’t being said. Beneath the elegant frames and champagne-drenched dialogue sat a story lifted from the bones of a real-life murder, with threads of queerness sewn in so tightly that even the censor boards couldn’t yank them loose.

Rope, inspired...

A great 1945 war movie called The Story of G.I. Joe led to Robert Mitchum's only Oscar nomination even though the celebrated actor deserved at least one more. Mitchum has starred in some of the best film noirs of all time, such as The Big Sleep (1978), Cape Fear (1962), and The Night of the Hunter (1955). Mitchum was so exceptional in his prime that Roger Ebert called him his favorite movie star. Despite his acclaim, Mitchum was only nominated for one Oscar in his career for 1945's The Story of G.I. Joe.

Mitchum's acting career left a legacy as a classic figure in both film noir movies and Westerns. He starred alongside John Wayne in the Western drama El Dorado (1966) and in the classic war film The Longest Day (1962). He first rose to prominence in 1944's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo alongside Spencer Tracey and Van Johnson. Because of his overwhelming influence on...

A rumor had been going around that Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope was being developed into a remake. And World of Reel is now confirming that the project is indeed happening and the film may be securing David Fincher to direct. Fincher was recently trying to develop a remake of another Alfred Hitchcock classic, Strangers on a Train, which was said to be eyeing Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck to star. However, now it seems as though Fincher is instead opting to remake Rope as, according to Netflix’s Kasey Moore, the film is moving forward. Denzel Washington and/or Charlize Theron may be up for roles in the film.

The plot synopsis for the Alfred Hitchcock original reads,

“Just before hosting a dinner party, Philip Morgan (Farley Granger) and Brandon Shaw (John Dall) strangle a mutual friend to death with a piece of rope, purely as a Nietzsche-inspired philosophical exercise.

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection: Volume 3 4K Uhd Box Set from Universal

Five more Alfred Hitchcock movies are coming to 4K Ultra HD: Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Torn Curtain, Topaz, and Frenzy. They’ll be available both individually ($19.99) and together in the third volume of The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection box set ($69.98) on October 31 via Universal.

1948’s Rope stars James Stewart, John Dall, and Farley Granger. 1956’s The Man Who Knew Too Much stars James Stewart and Doris Day. 1966’s Torn Curtain stars Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. 1969’s Topaz stars Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, and John Forsythe. 1972’s Frenzy stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, and Barry Foster.

All five thrillers have...

James "Jimmy" Stewart is a beloved national treasure and one of the few Hollywood stars of the golden era who maintained an unimpeachable reputation as a faithful husband and war hero. Despite his public persona as a "gee shucks" goody-two-shoes, Stewart's film roles were often more complex. Audiences in the 1950s struggled to accept Stewart's most dark and twisted role in Hitchcock's "Vertigo," but this wasn't the first time he had dipped his toe in murkier waters.

Stewart was best known for his instantly recognizable voice, a drawn-out drawl that was softly soothing, with line deliveries full of well-timed pauses. Stewart also stammered when his characters got excited or angry, which became another famous and much-imitated trademark. Despite only being an inch taller than Cary Grant, Stewart seemed much taller due to his slender frame and long face. He towered over his leading ladies, which increased the romanticism of...

Alfred Hitchcock is behind several decades' worth of celebrated films, but some of the English director's best works were adaptations of stage plays. "Dial M For Murder" was one such adaptation, based on Frederick Knott's Broadway hit concerning an affair, a murder plot, and the trial that followed. Meticulously plotted and visually sparse, the thriller has one of the most satisfying endings of any of Hitchcock's films.

"Dial M For Murder" came to him from one of his previous players. "Notorious" star Cary Grant brought the project to the filmmaker with ambitions to play a hired killer, an appealing role after the suave menace he showed years earlier in Hitchcock's "Suspicion." At the time, Hitchcock was with Warner Bros., who paid thousands of British pounds for the film rights from filmmaker Alexander Korda (who had previously acquired the rights for much cheaper). After previously scrapping a feature adaptation...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: Rope Where You Can Stream It: Shudder The Pitch: Two friends Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) strangle their other friend David Kentley (Dick […]

The post The Daily Stream: ‘Rope’ is Alfred Hitchcock’s Experimental Masterpiece appeared first on /Film.

Special Bonus Episode – Author/filmmaker/Hitchcock Laurent Bouzereau expert discusses five Hitchcock movies he wishes got more love.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (2020)

Rear Window (1954)

Psycho (1960)

Vertigo (1958)

The Birds (1963)

Matinee (1993)

Marnie (1964)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Rope (1948)

Dial M For Murder (1954)

Dr. No (1962)

Family Plot (1976)

Explorers (1985)

Body Double (1984)

Stage Fright (1950)

Scrooge (1951)

The Wrong Man (1956)

Citizen Kane (1941)

The Trouble With Harry (1955)

Suspicion (1941)

Torn Curtain (1966)

North By Northwest (1959)

Topaz (1969)

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Young And Innocent (1937)

Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

Under Capricorn (1949)

Jamaica Inn (1939)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Other Notable Items

Laurent’s book Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind The Man (2004)

The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection Blu-ray collection (2020)

Thomas Narcejac

James Stewart

Laurent’s Five Came Back TV series (2014)

Kim Novak

Vera Miles

Grace Kelly

Tippi Hedren

Cary Grant

Alain Resnais

Ray Milland

Anthony Dawson

The Tower Theater in Philadelphia

Bruce Dern

Rod Taylor

Jessica Tandy

Craig Wasson

Suzanne Pleshette...

Photo: 'Rope'/Warner Bros. Everyone has heard of Alfred Hitchcock classics such as Psycho (1960) and Dial M for Murder (1954), even six decades after their release. His films are a masterclass in creating suspense with slow-building tension. Most of his well-known movies are the ones with old Hollywood superstars such as Princess of Monaco Grace Kelly and James “Jimmy” Stewart. One of his underrated classics, which we will unpack here, is a striking masterclass in moviemaking; his 1948 film Rope. Rope can be termed as a “reverse whodunit”, as it starts with a murder which only the audience sees. They already know who did it, they’re waiting to see if anyone else figures it out. Two men, Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) kill their friend David (Dick Hogan) for the thrill of it and stage a grotesque dinner party with his family and friends, all the while...

“Hitchcock And Humor: Modes Of Comedy In Twelve Defining Films” by Wes D. Gehring

(McFarland; Isbn 978-1-4766-7356-1 print; 978-1-4766-3621-4 e-book; $39.95 retail)

“The Master Of Dark Comedy”

By Raymond Benson

Just about anything with film historian and media writer Wes D. Gehring’s name on it will be of quality. A professor of telecommunications at Ball State University in Indiana and author of the regular column “The Reel World” in USA Today magazine, Gehring has distinguished himself as an expert on comedy—especially as it has been utilized in the cinema.

Among Gehring’s several books that explore humor in film are tomes on Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Leo McCarey, Laurel and Hardy, Carole Lombard, W. C. Fields, and Frank Capra, as well as topical studies on dark comedy and screwball comedy.

Now comes Hitchcock and Humor, which evaluates the notion that the filmmaker who...

The Film Noir Foundation has helped revive yet another difficult-to-see noir gem — the murder cover-up tale begins with a shooting in a mansion and races across San Francisco to a finale given classic lines by director Felix Feist. And the casting: Saggy Lee J. Cobb as a romantic leading man? Sunny Jane Wyatt as a duplicitous killer? Bring it on!

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 81 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, John Dall, Lisa Howard, Harlan Warde, Tito Vuolo, Charles Arnt, Marjorie Bennett.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: David Weisbart

Production Design: Van Nest Polglase

Original Music: Louis Forbes

Written by Philip MacDonald, Seton I. Miller from his story.

Produced by Jack M. Warner

Directed by Felix E. Feist

In the late ’40s film noir was the default vehicle for ambitious filmmaking — after producing two early Anthony Mann noirs,...

Alfred Hitchcock celebrates his 119th birthday on August 13. Born in 1899, the director has long been revered as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. He also holds the unfortunate distinction of being one of Oscar’s biggest losers, with five Best Director nominations and no wins. Still, who needs an Oscar when you’ve impacted world cinema as significantly as “Hitch” has? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked from worst to best.

Known as “the Master of Suspense,” Hitchcock cut his teeth directing silent movies in his native England. With films like “The Lodger” (1927), he gained a reputation for helming tense and stylish psychological thrillers. With the invention of sound came an added element to Hitchcock’s work: a sly sense of humor.

He moved to America in 1940 to direct two films that earned Best Picture nominations: “Foreign Correspondent” and “Rebecca,...

The Warner Archive comes through with a film noir gem that still has the power to make one’s skin crawl, as a pair of circus sharpshooters go on the lam, using their skills to pull off cheap robberies. The clammy feeling of being cut off from society, having no place to go, is expressed in near-existential terms. Peggy Cummins’ cheap tease Annie Laurie Starr promises John Dall’s Bart Tare eternal love, but what good are promises from a psycho?

Gun Crazy

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1949 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date , 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger, Anabel Shaw, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young, Rusty Tamblyn, Morris Carnovsky.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: Harry Gerstad

Production Designer: Gordon Wiles

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Dalton Trumbo and MacKinlay Kantor from his short story

Produced by Frank King, Maurice King

Directed by...

Hollywood film actor who starred in the now-revered 1950 B-movie Gun Crazy, a forerunner of Bonnie and Clyde

The British actor Peggy Cummins, who has died aged 92, was discovered by the Hollywood mogul Darryl F Zanuck when she was a teenager and almost immediately given the lead in his big film of the age, Forever Amber, based on the historical romance by Kathleen Winsor. In 1946 she began filming the part of Amber St Clare, a young beauty making her way in 17th-century England, shooting opposite Vincent Price as Almsbury. Hundreds of stills were shot of her in period costume. But then the director was sacked, filming started all over again – and Cummins was replaced (as was Price).

A career that had promised so much for Cummins was reduced to small parts in big films and big parts in small pictures. Among these, her best known performance was in Gun Crazy (1950), directed by Joseph H Lewis,...

Turner Classic Movies continues with its Gay Hollywood presentations tonight and tomorrow morning, June 8–9. Seven movies will be shown about, featuring, directed, or produced by the following: Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Farley Granger, John Dall, Edmund Goulding, W. Somerset Maughan, Clifton Webb, Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, Charles Walters, DeWitt Bodeen, and Harriet Parsons. (One assumes that it's a mere coincidence that gay rumor subjects Cary Grant and Tyrone Power are also featured.) Night and Day (1946), which could also be considered part of TCM's homage to birthday girl Alexis Smith, who would have turned 96 today, is a Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a posh, heterosexualized version of Porter. As the warning goes, any similaries to real-life people and/or events found in Night and Day are a mere coincidence. The same goes for Words and Music (1948), a highly fictionalized version of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical partnership.

In the middle of the 20th century, Alfred Hitchcock made a career out of generating fear from the mundane. Psycho made us afraid to shower. The Birds had us looking toward the skies for more than just the pigeons looking to crap on our heads. And I’ll be damned if Rear Window didn’t get me to stop spying on my neighbors with a telescopic camera.

Those familiar with Hitchcock’s work likely know that his ability to instill dread stems from his knowledge about the difference between surprise and suspense. According to Hitchcock, to surprise, you simply need to set off a bomb in the middle of a scene. To create suspense, however, the audience needs to know the bomb is there. Suspense is the knowledge that two people are living their lives blissfully unaware that each moment could be their last. That’s why many of Hitchcock...

David Crow Aug 28, 2019

Alfred Hitchcock used the illusion of being shot in one take with Rope

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There once was an ambitious auteur who somehow convinced studios to gift-wrap him Hollywood money (and Hollywood stars) for what was ultimately an exercise in experimental filmmaking. Despite on the surface playing with genre tropes, his movie controversially used long shots and elaborate camera set-ups to create the illusion of one unbroken take and a deliberate pace.

… I am of course talking about the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope. Could it have been anything else?

Indeed, long before Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s majestic and strangely hypnotic Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Hitchcock also famously attempted the magic trick of a seemingly uninterrupted moviegoing experience. Granted, there are also major differences. For starters, Birdman is the far bigger triumph that led to Iñárritu proudly taking...

Jimmy Stewart collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock four times, but their first endeavor together was 1948’s “Rope,” based on the play by Patrick Hamilton. Inspired by the notorious killing of a 14-year-old boy by Leopold and Loeb in the 1920s, “Rope” is the second of Hitch’s “limited setting” films (after 1944’s “Lifeboat”) and takes place largely in the same apartment. It also sees Stewart as a dark, manipulative college professor (the ubiquitous good guys always make the best villains, don’t they?) who pushes two of his students (the terrific Farley Granger and John Dall) against each other, which leads them to do the unthinkable and commit murder. Read More: Watch: 9-Minute Video Essay Examines How Alfred Hitchcock Brilliantly Blocks A Scene In an experimental turn, “Rope” is Hitchcock’s first Technicolor film, and, for those who haven’t seen it, gives off the illusion that it is all shot...

Most of us love the Trumbo-Douglas-Kubrick thinking man's leftist gladiator epic, and after several iffy disc presentations this exacting digital restoration follows through on the photochemical reconstruction done 25 years ago. It looks incredibly good, almost too good to be a Blu-ray. Kirk contributes a new featurette interview, telling us that this is the show he'll be remembered for. Spartacus Blu-ray + Digital HD Universal Studios Home Entertainment 1960 / Color / 2:20 widescreen / 197 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 19.98 Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Woody Strode, John Gavin, Nina Foch, Herbert Lom, Charles McGraw, John Ireland, Nick Dennis, John Dall, Herbert Lom, Joanna Barnes, Harold J. Stone, Peter Brocco, John Hoyt, Richard Farnsworth, George Kennedy. Cinematography by Russell Metty Music by Alex North Edited by Robert Lawrence Produced by Kirk Douglas and Edward Lewis Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo Based on the novel by Howard Fast Produced by...

The most brilliant trick of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rope is that it takes place in real time. The second most brilliant trick is that co-star John Dall looks unnervingly like a 1940s era Jason Sudeikis. The result is that, in addition to being the textbook example of a bottle thriller, there’s a sense of incredible magic contained in how the film was made. The same way we marvel at the Cuaron/Lubezki artistry of That Scene from Children of Men, Rope elicits its own brand of awe thanks to Hitchcock, DPs William Skall and Joseph Valentine, and editor William Ziegler. Fortunately, Vashi Nedomansky has compiled a video of the 10 hidden edits in the film (for everyone interested in knowing how the lady is sawed in half) and written an accompanying exploration of the simple, clever techniques. The dissolve efforts are fairly noticeable — and have always been — but they provide an interesting version of a subtle act...

Movies and television have a long history of casting effeminate gay men as the bad guys – the added layer of “otherness” is a popular way of making a villain all the more loathsome to a mainstream audience. While recent years have brought us several notable subversions of this idea with aggressively masculine gay villains (Strike Back‘s James Leatherby, Dexter‘s Ivan Sirko), the hissing, scheming gay baddie has always been the more popular stock-in-trade.

Whether explicitly gay or just “coded” that way to slip past the sensors, these guys represent some of cinema’s most notable acts of heteronormative villainy.

Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) — 300

Much has been made about the fact that a movie that could otherwise have doubled as an International Male swimwear catalog went out of its way to present evil King Xerxes as a prissy, jewelry-crazed predatory homosexual (despite the fact that the actual Xerxes is portrayed...

Cruising stars Al Pacino as a leather-clad undercover cop… who’s not a member of the Village People

Just as your favorite TV series may be getting ready to take the summer off – or get canceled (goodbye, The New Normal) – entertainment buffs needn’t look too far to find a wealth of memorable gay movies that are well worth watching again and again. (Hello, Netflix!)

These films may not be perfect. In fact, some are downright offensive by today’s standards. But they are all in some way groundbreaking for their time period and considered in sequence they provide a record of mainstream culture’s changing attitudes towards gay men.

Feeling nostalgic? Can’t get enough body hair? Want to experience the celluloid life pre-Stonewall? Here’s our guide to some of the most notable (and gayest) old-school flicks from before the millennium.

Rope (1948)

While most films from the pre-Stonewall...

Deanna Durbin: Ephemeral fame (photo: Deanna Durbin in 1981) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: 'Sweet Monster.'"] Unlike Greta Garbo, whose mystique remained basically intact following her retirement in 1941, Deanna Durbin’s popularity faded away much like that of the vast majority of celebrities who were removed — or who chose to remove themselves — from public view. Despite the advent of home video and classic-movie cable channels, Durbin remains virtually unknown to the vast majority of those who weren’t around in her heyday in the ’30s and ’40s. Yet, although relatively few in number, she continues to have her ardent fans. There are a handful of websites devoted to Deanna Durbin and her film and recording careers, chiefly among them the appropriately titled "Deanna Durbin Devotees." Fade Out Charles David, Deanna Durbin’s husband of 48 years, died in March 1999, at the age of 92; Institut Pasteur medical researcher Peter H. David is their only son. Durbin also had a daughter,...

Deanna Durbin: Highest-paid actress in the world [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin in the '40s: From Wholesome Musicals to Film Noir Sex Worker."] Despite several missteps in the handling of her career, David Shipman states that Deanna Durbin was Hollywood’s (and the world’s) highest-paid actress in both 1945 and 1947. In 1946, Durbin’s earnings of $323,477 trailed only Bette Davis’ $328,000 at Warner Bros. Those are impressive rankings (and wages), but ironically Durbin’s high earnings ultimately harmed her career. By the mid-’40s, her domestic box-office allure was beginning to fade, a situation surely worsened by World War II closing off most of Hollywood’s top international markets. As a result, Universal, since 1947 a new entity known as Universal-International, was unwilling to spend extra money in their star’s already costly vehicles. That’s a similar predicament to the one faced by silent-era superstar John Gilbert at MGM in the early ’30s: the studio had to pay Gilbert an exorbitant salary that made his movies much...

The Friday Noir column has been tugging along at a steady pace for well over a year at this point. After being privy to so many double-crosses, back stabbings, bleak outlooks and cynical one-liners, it feels like the right time to shine some proverbial light on the sinister world of film noir. What follows is a list of five previously movies reviewed that best exemplify many of the alluring qualities of this fondly remembered and frequently emulated genre.

Some pertinent details details about the list below need be shared with the readers in the hopes of anticipating and preventing any head scratching. First, the list is comprised strictly of films from the classic noir era, thus limiting the candidates to such films made and released in the mid 1940s up until the late 1950s. Neonoirs, and there are excellent ones, make no mistake about it, are therefore ineligible. The list...

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Written by Seton I. Miller and Philip MacDonald

Directed by Felix E. Feist

U.S.A. 1950

Underestimation is arguably one of Man’s greatest flaws. Once an individual has settled into a false sense of security, or is perhaps convinced of his or her own superiority against all possible odds, the lone variable to disrupt that security shall always arrive with the worst possible timing. Anybody would be hard pressed to not admit to a time when that most unwise habits befell them. Even when weighing the opposition and potential variables, the factor that shall ultimately prove to be their undoing can easily be the least anticipated. In crime movies, the culprits frequently attempt to plan the perfect caper or murder, only to be undone by the simplest of clues left behind. The unexpected harbinger of doom could be a piece of evidence, just as it might be a person,...

Cute-as-a-button, self-owned homosexual Sal Mineo would've been 74 today, which is pretty young considering the man garnered the first of his two Oscar nominations 57 years ago. Rebel Without a Cause made him a star, and though the actor's career went through ups and downs until his murder in 1976, he's legendary for his sheer talent and unprecedented openness about his sexual orientation. Mineo came out in the late '60s, and that decision wasn't even popular among some of his homosexual contemporaries. (Looking at you, Roddy McDowall.)

As a gay man who cares about film history, I find myself seeking out homosexual stories in the subtexts and subversive moments of old films because none existed in the foreground. Watch Anthony Perkins as a gunshy soldier in Friendly Persuasion. Watch Farley Granger gulp libidinously next to John Dall in Rope. You can't help but discover shards of gayness in these parts, whether they're intentionally presented or not,...

Gun Crazy (also known as Deadly is the Female)

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis

Written by MacKinlay Kantor, Dalton Trumbo and co.

U.S.A., 1950

An argument can be made that almost every movie made is, in some fashion or another, about obsession. Individuals are always obsessing over some things, namely their top interests. However stimulating and healthy some might be, several others carry the potential to be downright vile. The 1950, Joseph H. Lewis directed Gun Crazy, as the title suggests, is very clearly about an obsession, unsubtly so in fact. Loving guns might, might, make one a police officer, or a guard, or a marine, or any field in which guns are, let us say, put to good use, sort of. Being so fascinated with fire arms is a double-edged sword, mind you. The tool’s predominant utility is to kill, after all. With such dire consequences linked with the weapon,...

A master of suspense, Hitchcock delights in toying with his audience, repelling and luring his viewers into the scene of a crime – and nowhere more audaciously than in Rope

Rope isn't Hitchcock's best film, but it's one of his most audacious. With this movie, the master of suspense turns a nail-biting setpiece into a full-length feature, and shows us the ugly flipside of the violent thrillers that made his name. Murder in the movies is usually more about motive than consequence. The bad guys have it coming, and killers are much more interesting before they start repenting their crimes. But Rope rejects that formula by taking inspiration from a real-life murder, a particularly cold-hearted one, and rubbernecking on its aftermath.

Rope is the dark shadow of Rear Window, a film Hitchcock made six years later, also with James Stewart, also set in a smart city apartment. In the later film our voyeurism,...

Farley Granger "didn't fear the homoerotic subtext of either of the films he did for Hitchcock," writes Farran Nehme in the run-up to the For the Love of Film III Blogathon. "Mind you, in his autobiography Granger says he spent years disappointing critics and interviewers when asked about discussions with Hitchcock about just what was going on between Rope's two main characters: 'What discussions? It was 1948.' That didn't mean, though, that Granger himself and co-star John Dall were clueless." And as for Strangers on a Train (1951): "Given a role of ambiguous morality, he increases the questions about the character, rather than trying to emphasize the good-Guy qualities."

Charles Lyons for Filmmaker on Annette Insdorf's Philip Kaufman: "The first book-length assessment of Kaufman's oeuvre, which will reach 14 films when Hemingway and Gellhorn premieres on HBO in May [it also screens Out of Competition at Cannes], Philip Kaufman is a shrewd and very readable study.

Rope (1948) Director: Alfred Hitchcock Writer: Hume Cronyn (Adaptation), Arthur Laurents (Screenplay), Patrick Hamilton (Play), Ben Hecht Stars: James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger Studio: Warner Bros. There arent many horror films that portray their first and only murder within the first five minutes of the film, but then Alfred Hitchcock was never much one for convention. Ropes singular hapless victim is dispensed with quickly and…...

Some of you may know that I'm, erm, protective when it comes to Anthony Perkins, the single most gorgeous-and-fragile-and-complex-and-intelligent star of the past hundred (thousand) years. But guess what? Hollywood understands my fearsome love, because it officially cast W.E.'s James D'Arcy, a total Perkins doppelganger with the same brooding vulnerability, as the man himself in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, an adaptation of Stephen Rebello's juicy behind-the-scenes look at The Master of Suspense's most famous film. Not to brag, but I called D'Arcy's resemblance to Perkins way back in August. He's Perkins + a soupcon of Patrick Wilson. Sold.

As previously announced, Hitchcock will be played by Anthony Hopkins, his wife Alma by Helen Mirren, and the cool Janet Leigh by Scarlett Johansson. I'm down with Hopkins and Mirren, but the Johansson casting strikes me as a bit off. This leads me to today's topic: Which...

Passes Now on Sale Now for Four-Day Festival,

Coming to Hollywood April 12-15, 2012

Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and “Baby Peggy” Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.

Also announced today, the festival will feature the North American premiere of a new 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir’s powerful Pow drama Grand Illusion (1937), widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. And the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will provide a live musical accompaniment for a screening of the silent Douglas Fairbanks fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

Minnelli and Grey are slated to join TCM’s own Robert Osborne to kick off the four-day, star-studded event with a gala opening-night world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration Cabaret (1971), the film for which the...

Chicago – The unmistakable silhouette of the Master of Suspense will be cast over the Music Box Theatre during the final days of the holiday season. Ten of Alfred Hitchcock’s most beloved masterworks will be presented on the big screen in inspired double bills that illustrate the startling range and enduring brilliance of the legendary filmmaker.

Even if moviegoers have seen these titles eight dozen times on DVD, they will be amazed at how fresh the films play when screened in a packed theater. No filmmaker knew how to delight and frighten an audience better than Hitchcock. When Robert Osborne held a free screening of “North by Northwest” at the Music Box last year, it felt as if the picture had been made yesterday.

Every punchline scored a belly laugh, every moment of delicious tension caused viewers to lean forward in anticipation, and when the film ended, the packed house broke out into extended,...

We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.

Real time – in which the plot of the film covers the same amount of time as it takes to watch – can be a blessing or a curse. When a film calls attention to it, real time can become a gimmicky distraction. On the other hand, it can add a real sense of urgency if the film just allows the events to unfold before us. There are a number of different ways filmmakers use it. For example, the action may be primarily set in one location. Other ways it is used involve hostage situations, characters waiting for something, or simply following characters around from place to place. It can be a tricky thing to pull off perfectly. So I’m deciding that as long as the film makes a real attempt, and the majority of the action takes place in real time, it is fair game.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled additional programming and events for the 2012 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival, including a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures. Robert Evans, longtime producer and former head of production for Paramount, is set to take part in the tribute, which will focus on the studio’s 1970s renaissance. In addition, the TCM Classic Film Festival is slated to include a look at The Noir Style, a tribute to legendary costume designer Travis Banton, a look at art deco in the movies, a collection of early cinematic rarities and much more.

TCM.s own Robert Osborne will once again serve as official host for the four-day, star-studded event, which will take pace Thursday, April 12 . Sunday, April 15, 2012, in Hollywood. Passes are on sale now through the official festival website: http://www.tcm.com/festival.

The Paramount Renaissance

The TCM Classic Film Festival will...

Bette Davis on TCM: The Old Maid, Now, Voyager, The Working Man Bette Davis has a cameo in John Paul Jones (1959), which happens to be an insufferable bore despite the presence of Robert Stack in the title role, and she plays second banana to Spencer Tracy in the run-of-the-Warners-mill prison drama 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), but she is at the center of The Corn Is Green (1945) as Miss Lily Moffat, a teacher in a poor Welsh mining town. Now, Voyager's Irving Rapper directed this film adaptation of Emlyn Williams' semi-autobiographical play — and it shows. Davis is a little too stiff in Ethel Barrymore's Broadway role, John Dall fails to convey his character's emotional turmoil, the dialogue has a theatrical lilt to it, and for the most part the potentially compelling drama feels stilted. Had William Wyler directed The Corn Is Green, it would have been a fantastic movie.

This article was originally published in 2006 when I kicked off the Personal Canon Project but I'm trying to get all the articles back online. 'The 100 movies I most think about when I think about the movies.'

Rope (1948)  Directed by Alfred Hitchcock | Screenplay by Arthur Laurents, Hume Cronyn, and Ben Hecht based on the play "Rope's End" by Patrick Hamilton | Starring: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger and Cedric Hardwicke | Production Company Transatlantic Pictures and Warner Bros | Released 08/28/48

Hitchcock and the Continuous Shot

Alfred Hitchcock served as auteur-theory training wheels for me. I doubt I'm alone in this. Perhaps it's the confines of his chosen genre that throw his presence as a director into such unmistakable relief. Or maybe it's his celebrity, cultivated through that famous profile, press-baiting soundbites, celebrated fetishes, and television fame. But what it comes down to is this: when watching a Hitchcock film, even uneducated moviegoers,...

Washington Post When the war ended, he returned to Hollywood and was loaned by his studio to Hitchcock for “Rope” in 1948. In the film, based on the 1924 Leopold and Loeb case,...

We look back at Farley Granger's movie career, from the two masterpieces he made with Alfred Hitchcock to Luchino Visconti's operatic melodrama Senso

Spotted doing a cockney accent in a play while still at high school, Farley Granger was signed to a seven-year deal by MGM in 1943 and soon put to work alongside Anne Baxter and Dana Andrews in The North Star, a pro-Soviet war film about the sufferings of a Ukrainian village under the Nazi yoke.

With a script by blacklistee Lillian Hellman, The North Star – later reissued under the title Armored Attack! – was cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a prime example of Hollywood communist propaganda.

After one more film – The Purple Heart (1944) – and a spell in the navy where he discovered his bisexuality, Granger found himself cast in what would become his breakthrough film, They Live by Night. Shot in 1947, Nicholas Ray...

Actor who rose to fame in Hitchcock's Rope and Strangers On a Train, but refused to conform to Hollywood pressures

Early on in his career, the actor Farley Granger, who has died aged 85, worked with several of the world's greatest directors, including Alfred Hitchcock on Rope (1948) and Strangers On a Train (1951), Nicholas Ray on They Live By Night (1949) and Luchino Visconti on Senso (1953). Yet Granger failed to sustain the momentum of those years, meandering into television, some stage work and often indifferent European and American movies.

The reasons were complicated, owing much to his sexuality and an unwillingness to conform to Hollywood pressures, notably from his contract studio, MGM, and Samuel Goldwyn. Granger refused to play the publicity or marrying game common among gay and bisexual stars and turned down roles he considered unsuitable, earning a reputation – in his own words – for being "a naughty boy".

He was also the victim of bad luck,...

By Lita Robinson - March 30, 2011

Hitchcock fans, it's time to mourn; Farley Granger has passed on at the of age 85.

Known in his later years for his turn in "Hawaii 5-0," "The Six Million Dollar Man," and "Love Boat," Granger's star first rose in 1948, when he headlined the strange (and strangely short) Hitchcock picture "Rope" with John Dall and Jimmy Stewart. His reputation really soared, however, after he landed the top role in another Hitchcock picture, "Strangers on a Train." The year was 1951.

In it, Granger plays a social-climbing tennis star anxious to dump his wife for a more glamorous Senator's daughter (played by Ruth Roman). After happening upon an effete stranger, played indelibly by Robert Walker, Granger's character unwittingly gets drawn into a murder plot when he thinks he's just having an innocent conversation. The film rapidly becomes a metaphor for Communist infiltration, government conspiracy (this was Hitch's only film shot in Washington,...

Everett Collection

Actor Farley Granger has died of natural causes at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.

Granger was best known for his roles in tow Alfred Hitchcock movies, “Rope” and “Strangers on a Train.” He was chosen for stardom as a teen by Samuel Goldwyn’s talent scouts and came up through the old studio system.Watch a clip of Granger acting alongside John Dall in “Rope.”...

In a career spanning several decades, Farley Granger is known best for starring in Nicholas Ray’s classic noir romance They Live By Night and two Alfred Hitchcock-directed efforts with legendary homosexual subtexts, Rope and Strangers on a Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night is considered by many critics to be one of his finest film performances. Set during the Depression, the movie chronicles the romance of a young couple trying to escape the small-town life of crime in which they have become ensnared. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold and Loeb murder case, Granger and co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as two affluent young men, who set out to commit the perfect murder...

There are Famous Monsters…and then there are famous monsters.

Both Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were inspired by the real-life crimes of mass murderer Ed Gein; The Silence of the Lambs, book and film, incorporated character traits of multiple serial killers in the depiction of Jame Gumb, the psychopath hunted by FBI agent Clarice Starling — with a little help from the imprisoned Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, himself a (still-mysterious) amalgam of stranger-than-fiction monsters of past and present.

While the profoundly disturbing thriller Se7en reeked with authentic nihilism, and films like Dawn of the Dead and Hostel took blood-soaked pains to offer satiric commentaries on the sorry state of humanity, there’s an entire genre of films that bypass the more commercial goals of “escapism” in favor of more directly dramatizing the horrific tales we’ve read about in the newspapers, pored over in paperback, or seen described...

Exhausted the classic canon? Fed up with the current cinema of remakes, reboots and reimaginings? This week The Cold Case talks to Peggy Cummins, the star of a stylish, gritty noir classic made 60 years ago this summer.

While film noir detectives, desperados and dames are known for their direct dialogue, the titles of their capers are surprisingly soft-boiled: Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Where The Sidewalk Ends... they're all pretty oblique. Not so one of the greatest -- yet least seen -- of the species. As a title, Gun Crazy hits you right between the eyes to describe its protagonist, Bart Tare, played by John Dall, who since childhood has been obsessed with firearms. Equally vivid, though, is the original-release title Deadly Is The Female, which perfectly fits the femme fatale of the piece, Peggy Cummins' sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr.