Rope

Rope. Alfred Hitchcock. 1948.

I started watching this on the plane from San Francisco, but I didn’t finish it.

Let’s watch the last half.

I really like Hitchcock, of course, but while watching this on the plane, I was kinda… er… bored? Is that the word? Bored? Is it?

I think it is. The movie seemed to me more like a sophomoric exercise than a… movie? Perhaps the problem is the less than riveting performances by the two murderers?

I know, I know, blah blah no cuts blah blah. But it’s just a showcase for scenery chewing, and watching the last half of the movie doesn’t convince me otherwise.

Perhaps the documentary footage on this bluray will be enlightening.

The screenwriter explains the problems translating the original play into American:

The trouble was, when you translated the English dialogue, it became very homosexual. Unintentionally.

Or…

Oh, right! The Stewart part was supposed to be done by Cary Grant! That would have made more sense. But Grant turned it down because of obvious reasons.

Oh oh oh! The writer didn’t write the scene with the initial murder! So the tension in the movie would be whether there was a body in that damned chest or not! That sounds like a much better movie!