Rope Unleashed

Rope Unleashed (2001)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Entertaining making of featurette features interviews with Pat Hitchcock, Hume Cronyn, Arthur Laurents and Farley Granger as they discuss Alfred Hitchcock's ROPE. Pat doesn't have too much to say throughout the thing nor does Cronyn outside of explaining how he ended up writing a treatment early on in production. From here the majority of the screen time is devoted to screenwriter Laurents who is clearly not overly impressed with the movie. I will say that I'm a huge fan of the movie and feel it to be an underrated gem so hearing some of Laurents comments took me by surprised. I don't mind the fact that we have different opinions on the movie but it is refreshing watching one of these featurettes and not just have it being some love fest where everyone talks about how great everything was. Laurents starts off talking about how no one wanted to be reminded that this story was based on an actual case and there's also talk of why people wanted every bit of the homosexuality left out. There's talk of Cary Grant turning down the James Stewart role and then the screenwriters goes on to talk about why Stewart was bad in the part. Laurents also talks about his objection to Hitchcock showing the murder early on and how this killed all the suspense in the movie. Granger also talks about how difficult it was shooting in ten minute rounds as the cast had to remember their lines, watch their step and it appears the director was more interested in the technical side of things. No matter your opinion on the film you should find yourself entertained by this featurette. Again, it's good that the studio allowed the writer to speak his mind on issues that he had with the film even if I didn't agree with him. It's also fun hearing from Granger who gets to discuss what it was like working with the famed director.

This is the featurette on the DVD of Rope. It consists of interviews with one of the stars, the two writers and the daughter, as well as clips of the film(it spoils it, of course, in fact, it does so in the first of the 32 and a half minutes of the running time of this). The main subject here is that the movie was really clearly about homosexuality(as the two leads' roles are, and as Stewart's character was at least meant to be... once he was cast, it kind of went away, because, well, he was a boy scout, nearly anything you saw him in... R.I.P.), at the time referred to as "it", since no one could handle that it even existed(and that may be the main reason it bombed), and then various things where Laurent is refreshingly(for a Bouzereau documentary, those usually steer clear of controversy) honest about and critical of Hitchcock(R.I.P.), including his direction and, as he points out, some tension is lost because we know that there's a dead body in the chest, on account of the first thing we see after the opening credits. This is interesting and informational. There is disturbing content and a little violence in it. I recommend this to any fan of Alfred. 7/10

Despite many of the particulars involved with the production being dead before this film was made in 2001, it's a very good making of featurette. In fact, it's better, in my opinion, than the feature about which it talks! Now I need to mention that I am far less a fan of "Rope" than most folks and I listed quite a few mistakes with the film in my review of it. So, despite being made by the great Alfred Hitchcock, I really think it's overrated. BUT, this small film about the movie was excellent.

The film features three of those who helped make the film--Hume Cronyn (who adapted the screenplay) and Arthur Laurents (the writer) and Farley Granger (who starred as one of the two killers in "Rope"). Most of the time, however, it's Laurents who talks during the film--and he looks amazingly good for a man his age--as did Granger.

The film is packed full of background material that bring the actual movie to life. I enjoyed Laurents' discussion of the obvious gay subtext of "Rope" and how that was handled. I also agreed with a few of the criticisms it had of the film--and any negative criticism of the feature is rare in a making of film--very rare. For example, Laurents feels that Hitchcock should NOT have shown the murder, as it took away from the level of suspense in the film--and I heartily agree. Also, he felt that James Stewart was wrong for the role--mostly because he was a 'boy scout' playing the morally ambiguous and presumably gay professor--a strange fit, indeed! Overall, there is a lot more information--including a few clips with Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia, (who played supporting roles in a few of his films).