In 1944, Alfred Hitchcock made a single-location thriller set in a lifeboat called, predictably, “Lifeboat.” And it was enough of a creative shot in the arm that the master of suspense would return to this idea periodically throughout his career. “Rope,” based on both the stage play by Patrick Hamilton and on the Leopold and Loeb crime, is arguably the most virtuosic and playful of these single-location thrillers.
Through a series of long, labyrinthine takes, Hitchcock establishes the impish murderers John Dall and Farley Granger) and their pseudo-inspiration, a publisher (Jimmy Stewart). The action plays out in almost real time, which only increases the dramatic tension.
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