Writing on a Classic: Rope (1948), Part 2

by Brent Reid
  • Revisiting more contemporary and modern critical appreciation
  • Alfred Hitchcock presents a “real-time” play – and it’s a real killer!
  • Film’s complex filming techniques pushed technological boundaries
  • Underappreciated at the time, it’s now one of his best known and loved

Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

RopeWriting on a Classic, Pt 2: More writing; Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Production and home video

Rope aka Nodo alla gola (1948, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) Italian 1956 four sheet poster by Luigi Martinati

“Knot in the throat” Italian 1956 four sheet poster by Luigi Martinati, who completed several beautiful works for Hitch’s Warner Bros. films and died on his birthday, New Year’s Eve 1983, at the age of 90.

Revolutionary No-Pause Filming on Rope Stresses New Pic Technique
Pre-rehearsal technique worked out so well on Rope, which Alfred Hitchcock and Sidney L. Bernstein have just completed for Warners release, that producing duo will use a great deal of the same method in shooting Under Capricorn and Dark Duty, their next two. Actual lensing time was 10 days, plus five. days of retakes, but complete schedule was 36 days, including intense rehearsals.

Final budget for the 85-minute Technicolor picture is reportedly $1,500,000. It would have run well over $2,000,000 if lensed in the routine manner, according to an official report, but it would have been well under $1,500,000 if it hadn’t been for the retakes. Latter were unavoidable because of the unique manner in which the film was made. Producers learned a lot in filming the precedent-maker, and their findings will be put to use in the future.

Hitchcock, who directed, never said “Cut” on any scene until the camera had rolled between six and nine minutes without a halt. In other words, roughly 11% of the picture was finished in less than 10 minutes, while the rest of the lenses in Hollywood grind out about 1% of the picture in an eight-hour day. A total of 45 takes wrapped up the picture, with 11 pages of dialog gobbled up on each shot. Revolutionary screen treatment is considered by technicians here as ranking with the introduction of the closeup, the camera boom and sound. However, it should be remembered that no 10-day shooting schedule completes the pictures, because days of careful rehearsal are necessary with camera crew and actors before each reel is shot.

Past Experiments
Hitchcock had experimented with the technique on isolated sequences in Spellbound, Notorious and The Paradine Case. Deal for shooting an entire picture in this manner grew out of Bernstein’s ideas about shooting entire performance of Shakespeare at the Old Vic, in order to preserve on film roles by Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and others of that company. Pair adapted the idea to Rope, from Patrick Hamilton’s play, Rope’s End, shooting it with stage technique under sound stage conditions. Camera ostensibly never stops. because screenplay has no time lapses, taking place in an hour-and-a-half in one apartment.

Wild walls, term used to designate detachable flats, were used for the collapsible apartment. Hung on overhead tracks and pulled manually, sides of the apartment slid away, allowing the camera to follow actors through narrow doors. Camera returns, without a halt with the actors, keeping the walls just out of the lens angle until they close. Then the camera swings around to show a solid room. With as many as 40 setups in, one reel, it was a trick for electricians. And if an actor fluffed or a light went wrong the whole reel was junked and started over again. That accounts for those five days of retakes. It’s also the reason grips responsible for camera movements are getting screen credit in Rope for the first time in flickerdom’s history.

Cast and crew on the set of Rope (1948, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Cast and crew on the set of Rope

Alamy, Bridgeman, Getty, Imago, Shutterstock

During rehearsals the floor was marked with numbered circles. Markings were removed for the take, and plotted on a board from which a script supervisor signalled the camera crew on every move during the 950-foot shot, which is the limit on a Technicolor reel. The 30 distinct camera moves in film’s second reel indicates the speed and precision with which the crew worked. At the start of the reel the camera is facing south. On completing the trip through the collapsible apartment it faces north. This is Hitchcock’s first Technicolor picture. He uses the tint principally to note change in the time of day, keeping it subdued at all times and recording color as the eye receives it, with no glaring contrast.

Cast includes James Stewart, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, John Dall, Farley Granger, Edith Evanson, Dick Hogan, Joan Chandler and. Douglas Dick. Hitchcock appears, too, as usual. This time his phiz is on a neon “Reduco” sign on the side of a miniature building seen from the apartment. Director stresses that Rope was an unusual stint—hence, “How you would apply the all-over method to another film where you have a lot of sets. I don’t know, although we are definitely going to use it a good deal in our next two pictures, and probably more and more after that as it becomes more practicable. It’s true I made Paradine in 85 days, against 36 for Rope, but prior to that Spellbound was made in 48, so you can’t always pin it down. If we had needed more retakes it’s entirely possible Rope would have gone as long as Spellbound, But there’s no denying it helps the budget.”

Bernstein pointed out that the money lost on Technicolor wastage because of fluffs and technical errors was made up for by cutting corners in other ways. Cast wasn’t too top-heavy, and reels that were shot without necessity of retakes made up for other losses. Warners will release film in the fall, Bernstein said. Transatlantic tees off with this picture. – Mike Connoly, Variety


Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) US MCA LaserDisc

James Stewart stars with Farley Granger and John Dall in this highly-charged 1948 Alfred Hitchcock thriller that’s intrigued fans because of its chilling subject matter and unique “unedited” cinematic style.

Brandon (John Dall) and Philip (Farley Granger) are two friends who have just strangled their college classmate, David, to establish their status as “superior” beings. They then proceed to invite his family and mutual friends to dinner—with David’s body stuffed in a trunk to be used as a buffet table for the unusual and macabre party about to follow. The guests begin to arrive. They include David’s father (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), his aunt (Constance Collier), his girlfriend, Janet (Joan Chandler), his rival in love, Kenneth (Douglas Dick), and, most intriguing of all, their former teacher and mentor Rupert Cadell (James Stewart). It was Cadell’s teachings that inspired them to murder.

As the evening goes on, the guests begin to wonder why David himself hasn’t shown up. Philip, the weaker of the infamous pair, begins to crack when Brandon gives David’s father a stack of books tied with the rope that strangled his son. The observant Cadell begins to suspect that something is terribly wrong with this strange social occasion. He concocts a ruse that allows him to come back to their apartment after the party has broken up. Before the night is over, he discovers how brutally his students have twisted his own academic theories.

Inspired by the real-life Leopold-Loeb murder, Rope is one of the Master of Suspense’s most daring films. Out of circulation for over 20 years, it’s finally back, as thrilling and thought-provoking as ever. – US MCA LaserDisc (1985) LDDb


James Stewart stars with Farley Granger and John Dall in a highly-charged thriller inspired by the real-life Leopold-Loeb murder case. Granger and Dall give riveting performances as two friends who strangle a classmate for intellectual thrills, then proceed to throw a party for the victim’s family and friends – with the body stuffed inside the trunk they use for a buffet table. As the killers turn the conversation to committing the “perfect murder”, their former teacher (Stewart) becomes increasingly suspicious. Before the night is over, the professor will discover how brutally his students have turned his academic theories into chilling reality in Hitchcock’s spellbinding excursion into the macabre.

The background of the Rope set was a giant cyclorama with clouds of spun glass and miniatures of the New York skyline lit by 2,000 incandescent bulbs and 200 neon signs. As the action takes place – the clouds move, the sun sets and the lights come on in the city. – PAL Universal DVDs (2001)

RopeWriting on a Classic, Pt 2: More writing; Collectors Guide, Pt 2: Production and home video


This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.

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