Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the next installment of A Movie A Week.
[For those who new to the column, A Movie A Week is just that, a dedicated way for me explore vintage cinema every week. I’ll review a movie every Monday and each one will be connected to the one before it via a common thread, either an actor, director, writer, producer or some other crew member. Each film, pulled from my DVD shelf or recorded on the home DVR (I heart TCM) will be one I haven’t seen.]
Okay, fuck me. I think the Movie Geek Karma Gods are making me pay for getting audiences with Robert Downey Jr., James Cameron, Jon Favreau, Rachel McAdams (grrroowwwl), Mila Kunis (double grrooowwwlll) and Terry Gilliam at Comic-Con.
First they gave me the Nerd AIDS (known as the common head cold if not caught at Comic-Con), which I’m 99% sure I caught from ZOMBIELAND director Ruben Fleischer and then they struck down my computer with yet another logic board issue.
It was pretty entertaining, actually. Instead of just freezing up my Mac’s screen would literally end up looking like a frozen NES game with little blocks of pixels blinking in random places. Unlike Super Mario Bros I couldn’t just pull my video card and blow on it to make it work and now my computer is in the shop.
I was on my way back home after an impromptu road trip to Los Angeles (a pilgrimage to see Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy and Gremlins Workprint… as well as a Roger Corman double feature with Mr. Corman live and in person!) and was literally in the middle of writing up this week’s AMAW when my computer froze for good.
Shit happens, but I wasn’t very happy. I was late on the last AMAW because of Comic-Con and a visit to Toronto and here I was without a working computer for a few days.
If you’re at all curious, I’m now working off of a few year old back up computer that is very slow and has a continually running fan that annoys the hell out of me, but it works, so there’s that. At least until I get my computer back from the shop early next week.
I was about halfway through my write-up of Alfred Hitchcock’s ROPE when my system went down, but thankfully I really loved the movie so I don’t mind going over that stuff again.
We this AMAW follows James Stewart over from CALL NORTHSIDE 777. In fact ROPE was released that very same year and marked Stewart’s first collaboration with Hitch.
This film’s notoriety comes from how Hitch shot it, opting for a stage-like feeling, making the audience feeling like they’re watching a play by not cutting often and when he does he tries to hide the edits.
I knew about this approach, but I realized instantly I had no idea what the actual movie was about. I guess that speaks volumes about Hitchcock as a director… that I could know one of his films solely on the technical way he filmed it.
The flick opens with a city street, then pan and slow push in on a shaded window. One of the only non-hidden cuts happens and we’re inside this apartment seeing young John Dall and young Farley Granger strangling a man to death, each with their hand on one end of a rope with this poor bastard’s neck in the middle.
Turns out these two young fellas are a bit on the crazy side, with Dall being the alpha male. They subscribe to a theory taught to them by one of their college professors that murder isn’t inherently wrong, but is only reserved for those who are special. That society’s rules are for the inferior.
The man they kill in this opening scene is a friend of theirs who has never done them any wrong. But these two are fucking crazy and just want to pull of a murder.
You know they’re crazy when they kill their friend off moments before a dinner party with all their mutual friends… and the victim’s own parents!
Granger is a nervous wreck. He’s not right in the head, but he immediately feels paranoid about getting caught. Dall on the other hand is cocksure… so much so that he’s not only inviting all their mutual friends, the victim’s parents and his girlfriend, but he also put the invitation out to the very same college professor that put it in his mind that he might be superior enough to commit murder and get away with it.
This is where Jimmy Stewart comes in, playing Rupert Cadell, the teacher.
It is this aspect I loved the most about the film. It’s a cat and mouse tale, a battle of wits between the young, confident murderer and his unwitting teacher.
Dall is such a prick in this movie. He makes the deceased’s parents literally eat off of their son’s deathbox, putting the body in a box in the living room and adorning it with the night’s wine and food. He’s flaunting it, dropping hints to Stewart and seeing if his old mentor catches on.
The exact opposite of Dall’s character is Granger who goes more and more insane with guilt and anxiety over being caught as the party goes on that eventually he’s reduced to little more than a blubbering mess.
Hitchcock’s decision to film this like a play is inspired. The takes are all long, nearing 10 minutes each if the trivia is correct… the length of the magazine, each take ending in a push in to someone’s back or something similar so the beginning of the next is hidden in the pull out of their back.
It’s not the smoothest of transitions, but Hitch very smartly chooses to having other bridging moments, like making this cut in the middle of a conversation so that one person asks a question and the other answers at the beginning of the next cut.
Filming it this way adds to the claustrophobia of the small apartment. I felt that more than any other character I was relating to Granger’s nervous ninny and I’d be surprised if Hitchcock intended anything else as the filmmaking choices all add up to emphasize the feeling that the world is shrinking and everybody’s eyes are being drawn to him.
I have no idea how hard this was to shoot and how much time they needed for it, but I can imagine it was a grueling task. All the actors are on the ball and deliver their performances without feeling theatrical. Somehow they manage to give subtle film performances in 10 minute blocks, not given the ability to focus those performances in 3-7 second bursts.
It’s a fascinating experiment and one that is pulled off without a hitch (yuk-yuk-yuk). Even more importantly the filmmaking adds to the story being told. I don’t think this particular story could have been told better if filmed in the standard way.
Even though I think it’d be a horrible idea, I couldn’t help but picture a remake and think of who the modern actors would be if such a thing happened. I know it doesn’t really work age-wise, but Dall reminded me a lot of Ben Affleck and Granger had me thinking of Topher Grace. Grace I’m sure could knock that neurotic performance off.
The real question is who could pull of Stewart’s role, that of the conflicted teacher who unintentionally inspires the murder of one of his students. What Stewart brings to the role is a quiet confidence that turns into a shocked sadness as what his kinda half-hearted hypothetical hatched. Tom Hanks has my vote if someone wants to redo this story.
But we all know if a remake happened the filmmakers would probably shoot it as a typical movie and take away everything that makes this film stand out. It wouldn’t be an actor’s showcase anymore, but a twist-and-turns thriller. Bleh.
Final Thoughts: Hitchock crafted a taut little movie with a strong focus on the actors’ ability to play long scenes naturally. It’s a quick flick at only 80 minutes, but that keeps the pace going, not allowing Hitchcock to drag any aspect on for too long. It’s a very fun and supremely entertaining flick, but that should be a given. I mean… it is Hitchcock…
Upcoming A Movie A Week Titles:
Monday, August 17th: THE SEVENTH CROSS (1944)
Monday, August 24th: TRACK OF THE CAT (1954)
Monday, August 31st: THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)
Monday, September 7th: THE MAYOR OF HELL (1933)
As you can probably tell I’m not doing what I did with CALL NORTHSIDE 777 and holding the AMAW until Monday. I’ll keep my schedule going and have the next one up Monday. We’ll be following actor Hume Cronyn (who wrote the ROPE adaptation along with Arthur Laurents) to Fred Zinnemann’s THE SEVENTH CROSS starring Spencer Tracy, so keep your eyes peeled for that one come Monday… barring another computer catastrophe, of course.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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