''Rope'' is a 1948 American

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

directed by

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

, based on the 1929 play of the same title by Patrick Hamilton. The film was adapted by Hume Cronyn with a screenplay by

Arthur Laurents Arthur Laurents (July 14, 1917 – May 5, 2011) was an American playwright, theatre director, film producer and screenwriter. With a career spanning seven decades he received numerous accolades including two Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award, ...

.''Rope Unleashed – Making Of'' (2000) – documentary on the

Universal Studios Universal Studios may refer to: * Universal Studios, Inc., an American media and entertainment conglomerate ** Universal Pictures, an American film studio ** Universal Studios Lot, a film and television studio complex * Various theme parks operat ...

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

of the film. The film was produced by Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein as the first of their

Transatlantic Pictures Transatlantic Pictures was founded by Alfred Hitchcock and longtime associate Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein, Sidney Bernstein at the end of World War II in preparation for the end of Hitchcock's contract with David O. Selznick in 1947. In 1945, ...

productions. Starring

James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military aviator. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morali ...

, John Dall and Farley Granger, this is the first of Hitchcock's

Technicolor Technicolor is a family of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and ...

films, and is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as four long shots through the use of stitched-together

long take In filmmaking, a long take (also called a continuous take, continuous shot, or oner) is Shot (filmmaking), shot with a duration much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera mov ...

s. It is the second of Hitchcock's "limited setting" films, the first being '' Lifeboat'' (1944). The original play was said to be inspired by the real-life murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924 by

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

Plot

Two brilliant young aesthetes, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, strangle to death their former classmate from prep school, David Kentley, in their

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

penthouse apartment. They commit the crime as an intellectual exercise: they want to prove their superiority by committing the " perfect murder". After hiding the body in a large antique wooden chest, Brandon and Phillip host a dinner party at the apartment, which has a panoramic view of Manhattan's skyline. The guests, who are unaware of what has happened, include the victim's father, Mr. Kentley, and aunt, Mrs. Atwater; his mother is unable to attend because of a cold. Also present are David's fiancée, Janet Walker, and her former lover, Kenneth Lawrence, who was once David's close friend. Brandon decides to use the chest containing the body as a

buffet A buffet is a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners serve themselves. A form of '' service à la française'', buffets are offered at various places including hotels, restaurants, and many social eve ...

table for the food, just before their housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, arrives to help with the party. Brandon and Phillip's idea for the murder was inspired years earlier by conversations with their prep-school housemaster, publisher Rupert Cadell. While they were at school, Rupert had discussed with them, in an apparently approving way, the intellectual concepts of

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

Superman Superman is a superhero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, which first appeared in the comic book ''Action Comics'' Action Comics 1, #1, published in the United States on April 18, 1938.The copyright date of ''Action Comics ...

, as a means of showing one's superiority over others. He, too, is among the guests at the party since Brandon, in particular, thinks that he would approve of their "work of art." Brandon's subtle hints about David's absence indirectly lead to a discussion on the "art of murder." Brandon appears calm and in control, although when he first speaks to Rupert, he is nervously excited and stammering. Phillip, on the other hand, is visibly upset and morose. He does not conceal it well and starts to drink too much. When David's aunt, Mrs. Atwater, who fancies herself a fortune-teller, tells Phillip that his hands will bring him great fame, she refers to his skill at the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, but he appears to think this refers to the notoriety of being a strangler. However, much of the conversation focuses on David, whose strange absence worries the guests. A suspicious Rupert quizzes a fidgety Phillip about this and some of the inconsistencies raised in conversation. For example, Phillip vehemently denies ever strangling a

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

at the Shaws' farm, although Rupert has seen Phillip strangle several. Phillip later complains to Brandon about having had a "rotten evening," not because of David's murder, but because of Rupert's questioning. As the evening goes on, David's father and fiancée begin to worry because he has neither arrived nor phoned. Brandon increases the tension by playing matchmaker between Janet and Kenneth. The body is almost discovered when Mrs. Wilson begins tidying up and tries to open the chest before she is intercepted by Brandon. Mrs. Kentley calls, overwrought because she has not heard from David, and Mr. Kentley decides to leave. He takes with him some first edition books Brandon has given him, tied together with the rope Brandon and Phillip used to strangle his son. When Rupert leaves, Mrs. Wilson accidentally hands him David's monogrammed hat, further arousing his suspicion. Rupert returns to the apartment a short while after everyone else has departed, pretending that he has left his cigarette case behind. He asks for a drink and then stays to theorize about David's disappearance. He is encouraged by Brandon, who hopes Rupert will understand and even applaud their deed. A drunk Phillip, unable to bear it anymore, throws a glass and accuses Rupert of playing cat-and-mouse games with him and Brandon. Rupert seizes Brandon's gun from Phillip and insists on examining the chest over Brandon's objections. He lifts the lid of the chest and finds the body inside. He is horrified and ashamed, realizing that Brandon and Phillip used his own rhetoric to rationalize murder. Rupert disavows all his previous talk of superiority and inferiority, and fires several shots out the window to attract attention. As the police arrive, Rupert sits on a chair next to the chest, Phillip begins to play the piano, and Brandon continues to drink.

Cast

File:James Stewart in Rope trailer.jpg,

as Rupert Cadell File:John Dall in Rope trailer.jpg, John Dall as Brandon Shaw File:Farley Granger in Rope trailer.jpg, Farley Granger as Phillip Morgan File:Joan Chandler in Rope trailer.jpg, Joan Chandler as Janet Walker File:Cedric Hardwicke in Rope trailer.jpg, Sir

Cedric Hardwicke Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned over 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and hi ...

as Mr. Henry Kentley File:Constance Collier in Rope trailer.jpg, Constance Collier as Mrs. Anita Atwater File:Douglas Dick in Rope trailer.jpg,

Douglas Dick Douglas Harvey Dick (November 20, 1920 – December 19, 2015) was an American actor and occasional screenwriter. His most famous role came in the 1948 film ''Rope''. In 1971, Dick left the entertainment industry to work as a psychologist. Earl ...

as Kenneth Lawrence File:Edith Evanson in Rope trailer.jpg, Edith Evanson as Mrs. Wilson File:DickHogan.ShedNoTears.1948.jpg, Dick Hogan as David Kentley

Production

The film is one of Hitchcock's most

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

and "one of the most interesting experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box-office names", abandoning many standard film techniques to allow for the long unbroken scenes. Each shot ran continuously for up to ten minutes (the camera's film capacity) without interruption. It was shot on a single set, aside from the opening

establishing shot An establishing shot in filmmaking and television production sets up, or establishes, the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of ...

street scene under the credits. Camera moves were carefully planned and there was almost no editing. The walls of the set were on rollers and could silently be moved out of the way to make way for the camera and then replaced when they were to come back into the shot. Prop men constantly had to move the furniture and other props out of the way of the large

camera, and then ensure they were replaced in the correct location. A team of soundmen and camera operators kept the camera and microphones in constant motion, as the actors kept to a carefully choreographed set of cues. This filming technique, which conveys the impression of continuous action, also serves to lengthen the duration of the action in the mind of the viewer. In a 2002 article in ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'',

Antonio Damasio Antonio Damasio (; born 25 February 1944) is a Portuguese neuroscientist. He is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, and, add ...

argues that the time frame covered by the movie, which lasts 80 minutes and is supposed to be in "real time", is actually longer—a little more than 100 minutes. This, he states, is accomplished by speeding up the action: the formal dinner lasts only 20 minutes, the sun sets too quickly and so on. Actor James Stewart found the whole process highly exasperating, saying: "The really important thing being rehearsed here is the camera, not the actors!" Much later, Stewart said of the film: "It was worth trying—nobody but Hitch would have tried it. But it really didn't work." The cyclorama in the background was the largest backing ever used on a

sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a large, soundproof structure, building or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or te ...

. It included models of the

Empire State The Empire State is a nickname for the U.S. state of New York, adopted in the 1800s. It has been incorporated into the names of several state buildings and events. The source of the nickname is unknown and has puzzled many historians; as Ameri ...

and

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

buildings. Numerous chimneys smoke, lights come on in buildings, neon signs light up and the sunset slowly unfolds as the movie progresses. Within the course of the film, the clouds—made of spun glass—change position and shape eight times.

Homosexual subtext

Recent reviews and criticism of ''Rope'' have noticed a

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

subtext between the characters Brandon and Phillip, even though homosexuality was a highly controversial theme for the 1940s. The

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

on which the film was based explicitly portrays Brandon and Phillip as being in a homosexual relationship. John Dall, who played Brandon, is believed to have been gay, as was screenwriter

, while co-star Farley Granger was

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

. Interviewed by

Vito Russo Vito Russo (; July 11, 1946 – November 7, 1990) was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book '' The Celluloid Closet'' (1981, revised edition 1987), described in ''The New York Ti ...

for Russo's 1981 book '' The Celluloid Closet'', Laurents stated: "We never discussed, Hitch and I, whether the characters in ''Rope'' were homosexuals, but I thought it was apparent." In the 1995 documentary film adaptation of Russo's book, Laurents says: "I don't think the censors at that time realized this was about gay people. They didn't have a clue what was and what wasn't, that's how it got by." In the same documentary, Granger says of Brandon and Phillip: "We knew that they were gay, yeah, sure. I mean, nobody said anything about it—this was 1947, let's not forget that! But that was one of the points of the film, in a way."

Long takes

Hitchcock shot long unbroken takes lasting up to ten minutes (the length of a film camera magazine), involving carefully choreographed camera and actor movement, though most shots in the film wound up being shorter. Every other segment ends by panning against or tracking into an object—a man's jacket blocking the entire screen, or the back of a piece of furniture, for example. In this way, Hitchcock effectively masked half the cuts in the film. However, at the end of 20 minutes (two magazines of film make one reel of film on the projector in the movie theater), the projectionist—when the film was shown in theaters—had to change reels. On these changeovers, Hitchcock cuts to a new camera setup, deliberately not disguising the cut. A description of the beginning and end of each segment follows. Ropetrailer

Hitchcock told

François Truffaut François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. He came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin as a ...

in the book-length '' Hitchcock/Truffaut'' (

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

, 1967) that he ended up re-shooting the last four or five segments because he was dissatisfied with the color of the sunset. Hitchcock used this long-take approach again to a lesser extent on his next film, '' Under Capricorn'' (1949), and in a very limited way in his film ''

Stage Fright Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia that may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, real or imagined, whether actually or potentially (for example, when perf ...

'' (1950).

Director's cameo

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance is a signature occurrence in most of his films. At 55:19 into the film, a red neon sign in the far background showing Hitchcock's trademark profile starts blinking. As the guests are escorted to the door, actors Joan Chandler and Douglas Dick stop to have a few words and the sign flashes in the background several times. There is some debate as to whether Hitchcock makes another cameo earlier in the film. In the making-of documentary, ''Rope Unleashed'', Arthur Laurents says that Hitchcock can be seen walking down the Manhattan street immediately after the

title sequence A title screen (also called an opening screen or intro) is the method by which films or television show, television programmes present their title and key filmmaking, production and cast members, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound (often an op ...

.Interview with

in the making-of documentary, ''Rope Unleashed''. The individual significantly resembles Hitchcock, yet some believe that it is a myth. In ''The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock'', Thomas M. Leitch claims that the production records in the Warner Bros. archive show that the neon sign is Hitchcock's only appearance in the entire film.

Production credits

The production credits on the film were as follows: * Director –

* Writing –

(screenplay), Hume Cronyn (adaptation) * Cinematography –

Joseph Valentine Joseph A. Valentine (July 24, 1900 in New York City, as ''Giuseppe Valentino'' – May 18, 1949 in (Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, Cheviot Hills, California) was an Italian-American cinematographer, five-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best C ...

and William V. Skall (directors of photography) * Art direction – Perry Ferguson (art director), Emile Kuri and Howard Bristol (set decorators) * Technicolor color director – Natalie Kalmus * Production manager – Fred Ahern * Film editor – William H. Ziegler * Assistant director – Lowell J. Farrell * Makeup artist – Perc Westmore * Operators of camera movement – Edward Fitzgerald, Paul G. Hill, Richard Emmons, Morris Rosen * Sound – Al Riggs * Lighting technician – Jim Potevin * Music – Leo F. Forbstein (musical director), The Three Suns (radio sequence) * Costumes –

Adrian Adrian is a form of the Latin given name Adrianus or Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria from the Venetic and Illyrian word ''adur'', meaning "sea" or "water". The Adria was until the 8th century BC the ma ...

(Miss Chandler's dress)

Reception

Box office

According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $2,028,000 domestically and $720,000 overseas.

Critical response

Contemporary reviews were mixed. '' Variety'' wrote:

Hitchcock could have chosen a more entertaining subject with which to use the arresting camera and staging technique displayed in ''Rope'' ... The continuous action and the extremely mobile camera are technical features of which industry craftsmen will make much, but to the layman audience effect is of a distracting interest.

Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though some ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote:

The novelty of the picture is not in the drama itself, it being a plainly deliberate and rather thin exercise in suspense, but merely in the method which Mr. Hitchcock has used to stretch the intended tension for the length of the little stunt. And, with due regard for his daring (and for that of Transatlantic Films), one must bluntly observe that the method is neither effective nor does it appear that it could be.

The ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

''s Mae Tinee was candid about her reactions:

If Mr. Hitchcock's purpose in producing this macabre tale of murder was to shock and horrify, he has succeeded all too well. The opening scene is sickeningly graphic, establishing a feeling of revulsion which seldom left me during the entire film....Undeniably clever in all of its aspects, this film is a gruesome affair and—to me, at least—was a gruelling spectacle, not recommended to the sensitive.

John McCarten of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' wrote:

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.

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' found that the actors, "for the most part, are excellent", but that, "as a film, much of the suspense of the story and the drama of the original written material has been lost because the continual movement within a confined space, although more fluid, is slower and more tiring to watch than a film which has been edited by the conventional method." '' Harrison's Reports'' gave the film a very positive review, calling it "an exceptionally fine psychological thriller" with "excellent" acting and "an ingenious technique, and under Hitchcock's superb handling it serves to heighten the atmosphere of mounting suspense and suspicion". Edwin Schallert of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' wrote:

It is unusual enough to shine more as a technical tour de force than as a moving sort of film ... The interesting experimental values in this Hitchcock production could never be denied, yet I would not rate it one of his best.

In ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''s 1948 review, the play that the film was based on is called an "intelligent and hideously exciting melodrama" though "in turning it into a movie for mass distribution, much of the edge sblunted" explaining: On its theatrical release in 1948, ''Rope'' performed poorly at the box office. In ''Rope Unleashed'', screenwriter Arthur Laurents attributed this failure to audience uneasiness with the homosexual undertones in the relationship between the two lead characters. Nearly 36 years later,

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who was the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in 2000. ...

, also of ''The New York Times'', called the "seldom seen" and "underrated" film "full of the kind of self-conscious

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia ...

s and breezy ripostes that once defined wit and decadence in the Broadway theater"; it is a film "less concerned with the characters and their moral dilemmas than with how they look, sound and move, and with the overall spectacle of how a perfect crime goes wrong".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

wrote in 1984: "Alfred Hitchcock called ''Rope'' an 'experiment that didn't work out', and he was happy to see it kept out of release for most of three decades", but went on to say that "''Rope'' remains one of the most interesting experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box-office names, and it's worth seeing ...." A

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

review of the DVD release, in 2001, called the film "technically and socially bold" and pointed out that given "how primitive the Technicolor process was back then", the DVD's image quality is "by those standards quite astonishing"; the release's "2.0 mono mix" was clear and reasonably strong, though "distortion creeps into the music". ''Rope'' holds a score of 93% on the review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "As formally audacious as it is narratively brilliant, ''Rope'' connects a powerful ensemble in service of a darkly satisfying crime thriller from a master of the genre".

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a weighted average, reports a score of 73 out of 100 based on reviews from ten critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Notes

References

Sources

External links

* * *
Trailer for ''Rope''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rope (Film) 1948 films 1948 crime drama films 1940s crime thriller films 1940s LGBTQ-related films 1940s psychological thriller films American crime drama films American crime thriller films American films based on plays American LGBTQ-related films American psychological thriller films 1940s English-language films Films à clef Films about educators Films about murder Films based on the Leopold and Loeb murder Films directed by Alfred Hitchcock Films produced by Alfred Hitchcock Films set in apartment buildings Films set in Manhattan Films shot in Los Angeles County, California Films with screenplays by Hume Cronyn LGBTQ-related crime drama films LGBTQ-related crime thriller films Warner Bros. films Films with screenplays by Arthur Laurents 1940s American films English-language crime drama films English-language crime thriller films Films based on works by Patrick Hamilton Articles containing video clips

Plot

Cast

Production

Homosexual subtext

Long takes

Director's cameo

Production credits

Reception

Box office

Critical response

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links