RICK'S REAL/REEL LIFE: Rope

Showing posts with label Rope. Show all posts

Saturday, January 9, 2021

Rope 1948

Rope: Farley Granger, James Stewart, and John Dall makes small talk about murder.

Rope is one of those films that was regarded as a disappointment upon release, but now has many fans who sing its revisionist praises.

This was Alfred Hitchcock’s grand experiment to create a cinematic effort that looked seamless, with no obvious cuts. What the cast and crew of Rope had to go through to achieve single takes that were about 10 minutes long was arduous, to say the least. It’s been discussed to the point of obsession, so I’ll only say that the end result looks like a beautifully filmed play. Rope actually was a Broadway drama, by the playwright of Gaslight, which ironically, movie fans often mistake the film version as Hitchcock’s work.

(R) Alfred Hitchcock, with his 'Rope' cast, on the film's only set.

Rope is the sum of very extreme parts, so I’ll focus on the positives of this film first. This was Hitchcock’s first film in color, and it’s very subtle for a ‘40s movie, when the creator of Technicolor’s wife—and “advisor”—Natalie Kalmus always wanted color to pop from the screen. The color, lighting, and cinematography are beautiful, but not in the showy studio era way.

Hitchcock creates his customary mood of suspense. The premise is grisly, but the execution is mild, reminding me of Night Must Fall, with the charming killer who kept a head in a hat box. The tension doesn’t come from the murder, but whether the pair will get away with the deed. Rope riffs on the Leopold/Loeb murder case as an inspiration, as Brandon (John Dall) and (Philip) Farley Granger kill for thrills and to prove their superiority.

John Dall and Farley Granger with their title co-star, who gives a more genuinely
taut performance than either of them!

They kill a fellow student they deem as inferior and hide the body in a trunk. The macabre kicker is they proceed to host a small dinner party, with the buffet served atop the trunk! The film happens in “real time”—for a movie, that is. Except for the opening, the entire film takes place in the murderers’ apartment. Obviously, these young college grads are rich, as their apartment is resplendent, and they aren’t exactly serving hotdogs and beer. The lavish skylight backdrop, while obviously artificial by today’s standards, is quite beautiful, and I found myself staring at it during the film’s dull patches.

The 'Rope' set got the best reviews upon its release.

Since the killers invited the victim’s father and fiancee to the party, tensions arise as to his whereabouts, as he was also expected as a guest. And once the mentor to the young men arrives, it becomes a cat and mouse game as to whether they can fool him, or if he will catch them in their web of lies.

As the "buffet" is cleared, the body is hiding in plain sight.

Rope is a more cerebral suspense film for Hitchcock, and perhaps disappoints fans who remember the movies that made his reputation in the ‘40s, or his spectaculars of the post-war era. For suspense lovers, the premise is still intriguing, and the execution is expertly smooth.

Rope's play-like presentation isn't helped by staging like this.

However, where Rope slacks is in the dialogue, the characters, and the key performances of the killers. Arthur Laurents, who was gay, wrote the screenplay and makes it clear that the two men are a couple, as Leopold and Loeb were said to be. But I feel Hitch’s influence on the story, both good and bad. The good is the subtle suspense. The bad is the occasional heavy-handed attempts at humor, as when the guests are trying to remember the name of a film they’ve just seen—Hitch’s Notorious.

'Rope's' John Dall and Farley Granger compete in a cinematic jaw-jutting contest.

The two leads are twisted villains and are played by two actors with no depth, charisma, or empathy. It’s a trick to play the star villain and at least make the audience want to understand you. Though John Dall and Farley Granger were both gay, like Brandon and Philip, they still aren’t up to the task. While Dall grandly overacts and makes as many faces as Farley, Granger does his hurt puppy dog routine, jutting his jaw to make his pout even more pronounced. The theatrical acting is from another era at its worst, because there were up and coming young actors who represented a more natural style of acting. Granger, to his credit, tried to expand his range and experience throughout his long career. Much like Richard Chamberlain, Farley was a teen idol first, known for his gorgeous looks, and later broke away from that mantle. As for the affected Dall, his film career ended quickly, for several speculated reasons, and his reputation rests mainly on two cult classics, Rope and Gun Crazy.

Farley Granger and his two go-to acting expressions: pouting & hurt puppy dog eyes.

Frankly, most of Rope’s cast doesn’t fare any better. They are archetypes, performed archly, with the kind of “smart” movie talk that I can’t abide. The New Yorker’s critic hit the nail on the head way back in ’48: "In addition to the fact that it has little or no movement, Rope is handicapped by some of the most relentlessly arch dialogue you ever heard."

Joan Chandler and Cedric Hardwicke give 'Rope's' most empathetic performances.

Constance Collier as the “colorful” party guest and Edith Evanson as the busybody maid are mildly amusing clichés. Douglas Dick is bland as the ex-boyfriend of the female lead. Dick Hogan as the victim, David, retired after this film—no comment! The notable exceptions are Cedric Hardwicke as David’s father, who underplays the worried dad, with genuine heart. Joan Chandler, whose brief career included playing John Garfield’s sweetheart in Humoresque, manages to convey a real person despite the overbearing dialogue. Finally, James Stewart is a rock as the college creeps’ former professor, for whom they seem to have a love/hate relationship. While Stewart was miscast as the sophisticated intellect, this is probably one of the last movies where Stewart seriously tones down his folksy “Jimmy” persona. And he’s really a supporting player, coming in midway into the action. That favor to Hitchcock paid off, when Stewart did three great Hitchcock movies with him in the ‘50s: Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo.

James Stewart is the murderers' one-time mentor, who should have skipped this soiree.

What’s irritating about Rope is that the two leads go to a great deal of trouble to lure their victim, kill him, and then in an act of bravado, hide his body in a trunk, and serve their guests from a buffet on that trunk. They then act like a couple of basket cases the moment the deed is done. Dall’s character sneers and postures, while Granger is as jumpy as an oversensitive cat. Genius professor Stewart is on to them from the get go—and he must a genius to guess that his hosts murdered someone and then hid the body beneath the dinner spread, right? I also found Stewart’s Rupert berating the bad boys for taking his “superman” superiority talk so literally, it feels like a cop out, given his earlier jibes about murder.

There’s a dualistic feel about Rope: from a technical and storytelling standpoint, it’s tense and taut; but the artificial acting and dialogue alienate one to the point of stupefaction.