Great reaction! I’d really be interested in your take on Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW. While the set is somewhat more elaborate than ROPE’s it’s still basically a one set movie.
This is one of the movies I always recommend to people. The premise is wild, and it just builds and builds from there. Not an ounce of fat in this film. If I remember correctly, the set had movable walls they could get out of the way during a take in order to get different camera angles. There are ten cuts in total: five hidden and five regular hard cuts that brilliantly emphasize certain key moments. Having long uninterrupted takes forces the viewer to just sit and stew in the tension. And yes, Brandon is such a smug bastard I knew you'd love him.
It's easy with our riches of media and modern forms to get dismissive of theatre style one-room dramas and acting. Then you see a masterclass like Rope and remember that the whole thrill of this style is just how much can be done with so little by those at the top of the game.
Have you done Rear Window? Prime Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. I love you watching old classic movies. It’s perfect. Philadelphia story is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s genuinely funny 1940.
I'm so glad someone else loves this film. It was filmed very much like a play and the acting style has aged and I think that's why it's not seen as much. It should get wider acclaim. An outstanding film.
Hitchcock had rtwo types of stories that really interested him the most: the isolated psychological thriller and the innocent man on the run chase thriller. In my Hitchcock class the films I showed I think the most illustrative of his worldview are The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie and Frenzy. So hoping you'll check them out soon although I know that's a tall order. I am going to watch your NOTORIOUS reaction right now.
Hitchcock class was one of my favorite things. I thought I knew the films. And I did superficially. But breaking down the storytelling has elevated my enjoyment and made me rewatch these films over and over.
Yes it's very underrated on TH-cam, which is the case for some other Hitchcock films such as Shadow of a Doubt and The 39 Steps, which are also unlikely to ever win any Patreon poll. John Dall is so good in this as Brandon. The audience normally praise the big Hollywood star Jimmy Stewart, but Dall is the main focus here even if he is lesser known. And the dialogue is great. It's got something of a post-WW2 anti-fascist message, though the original play by Patrick Hamilton was done in 1929.
Shadow of a Doubt may well be my favorite Hitchcock movie. It not only has one of the most fascinating movie villains of all time, but also a surprisingly warm and heartfelt portrait of his family. I love that movie to bits.
Great movie. It's never talked about as one of the great AH movies, but it's up there with Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, etc...To basically turn a stage play into a suspenseful thriller is an achievement on its own. But the acting, dialogue, cinematography, etc... are some of the best work he's ever produced. Rear Window, Lifeboat, and Dial M for Murder are 3 other AH movies you should check out as well. They all are self contained like Rope.
Dial M for Murder is in a similar vein, I expect you would enjoy that. Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are all great as well. Thanks for the reaction and giving old movies a chance.
I saw the post right when I opened TH-cam and I clicked instantly. I knew you were going to love Brandon so much and get so much joy out of it. As much as I love Psycho, this is probably my favorite Hitchcock film.
Such a great movie. Basically, a play. So funny that these "geniuses" didn't even make it through the evening without being discovered. ahaha. Brilliant direction. Lots of tension.Terrific performances. I love Jimmy Stewart. Just about everything he has done.
Farley Granger- the killer in the brown suit- was also in another Hitchcock film, "Strangers On a Train" he plays a tennis pro who gets mixed-up in a murder committed by someone else.
It's like being high & paranoid in a room full of people ... looking from one to the other with a heightened sense of awareness. Or maybe not high but guilty of murder!
One of my tops as well. I've adored this movie since I first watched it as a teen in the late 90s/early 00s. I loved the creative cuts to maintain the feel of a stage presentation (being based on the 1928 Patrick Hamilton play), I loved the concept, I loved the characters (Brandon mainly). This is actually my son's favorite movie as well. Thanks for reacting/reviewing!
3:56 Many years ago circa mid 70s at a holiday meal, my family was discussing film and this movie came up. My grandfather was the head of the pathology department at a medical school and we had all played "perfect murder" since birth. My grandmother, also a scientist, had a hobby for writing ciphers, puzzles, and Agatha Christie/Woodhouse type parodies. Sometimes we forgot how unusual our dinner conversations were. So this time, we had some art school graduate student friends of my parents over. The pretentiousness was thicker than the gravy. They chose to lay in to this masterpiece. Calling it unrealistic that Brandon put rope in the kitchen drawer. My dad casually got up and grabbed the junk drawer in the kitchen and brought it to the dining room table. He proceeded to lift up all the stuff like rope and ice pick that were in there and say how he could murder someone with it. Soon half our family were grabbing house hold items from the drawer or just within reach that could be used to kill, subdue or torture some one. My gran chiming in on how to dispose of them or buy time, build an alibi with common house hold cleaners or fake diaries made from the free calendar from the bank in the junk drawer. The look on the artsy students faces is one of my cherished childhood memories. Good times.
Actually took a Hitchcock class as an elective course at UCLA - class took place in the theater, all of the films were remastered by UCLA archives. I miss those days... Living in Oblivion
I enjoyed your reaction to "Rope." Indeed, the suspense in this movie is in not knowing when the murder will be revealed and what will tip a person off to it. Fun facts: beside the fact that the movie is loosely based upon the Leopold and Loeb case, Alfred Hitchcock found ways to get around the censors when it came to the LGBT subtext in the movie, which he referred to as "it." Also, the gay couple in the movie was portrayed by LGBT actors in real life (John Dall was gay, Farley Granger was bi). Looking forward to seeing more of your reactions to classic movies!
The action takes place during 80 minutes one afternoon and evening. Therefore, the sky outside the window has to gradually darken during the movie. How did Hitchcock do that? Can you guess? Hitchcock has even greater than this, for example "Psycho," "Rear Window," "North by Northwest," "Marnie," "Strangers on a Train," "Vertigo," "Suspicion," "The Lady Vanishes," and many more.
@@joebloggs396 Especially on TH-cam. No one has ever reacted to "Marnie," "Suspicion," "The Lady Vanishes," "The 39 Steps," etc., etc. I recently gave a list of good Hitchcock movies to a reactor and he did only those movies from my list that had already been done on TH-cam.
Great review of a great film. BTW, one thing I noticed last viewing was that Brandon is more of a coward than Phillip. While Brandon want's to take all the glory for doing something so "clever", who did the deed? Phillip.
I realize this may come off as insulting but sincerely kudos on clocking the Leopold and Lobe case. Then again I should have known better since you were among the few smart enough to react to Person of Interest
I see you already reacted to Rear Window (which for my money is Hitchcock at his finest, though my personal favorite is Notorious) - should you be interested in other classics and in case you haven't seen them - check out Casablanca (sheer perfection) and All About Eve (the best written script in all of Hollywood history)
Loosely based on Leopold and Loeb. The movies _Compulsion, Swoon,_ and _Murder by Numbers_ also are. For a movie based on a similar but not similar New Zealand murder case, see _Heavenly Creatures._
Fantastic reaction, right from the very beginning where you recognized the similarities between them and Leopold & Lowe. Love this movie, in my top five Hitchcocks. Hey, definitely put "Strangers On A Train" on your list if you want top shelf Hitchcock, textbook him as master of suspense, super tight movie (I'm in complete agreement with you about "tightness"), visually spectacular, incredible acting.......that's from like, two or three years later after "Rope". Fantastic movie. If you like "Rope", definitely watch "Strangers On A Train". It's as spectacular in its black & white photography as "Rope" is in its color. That one is in my top five most definitely.
John Dall is fantastic in this movie...just the right mix of charming and sinister! I think Jimmy Stewart was miscast here (but he is still charismatic nonetheless) playing the intellectual professor...a better choice for the role would have been a detached, elegant English actor, like George Sanders (who was in Hitchcock's films Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca) or James Mason.
@@AT-rr2xw I think the stage play does more or less hint at a Rupert and Brandon having been lovers in the past. The way I heard it, Hitchcock & co didn't think they could get away with adding a gay professor to the mix, on top of everything else (no pun intended). I mean, it's pretty obvious that Brandon and Phillip are living together and that there's a single bedroom in the apartment. That's probably as far as they could take it in that time. If I remember correctly, Stewart didn't count this movie among his best work, because he too considered he had been miscast. Sanders or Mason could have been great in the role, indeed.
@@naiderl James Mason might have been a great choice, but George Sanders in particular would have been interesting to see. Only a few years before, he had played Lord Henry (a character who, like Rupert, enjoyed making shocking/provocative statements) in the film version of *The Picture of Dorian Gray* (1945), based on the novel by gay icon Oscar Wilde.
No no no no, Rupert doesn’t realize his words have meaning (come to Jesus moments so to speak) that’s what I thought the first time I watched it…then I watched it again and started to notice some hidden clues that once seen are so obvious you can’t unsee it. Rupert is a freaking Charles Manson…The murder Brandon and Phillip committed is Ruperts work of art…securing his status as the true superior being, and now he gets to see two more people killed by the justice system all while remaining “innocent” and making him a hero…all from seeds he had planted years before. Rupert is the “true superior” so to speak because he was able to commit the perfect murders vicariously through other people and no one would ever be able to suspect or prove it. Brandon is secretly in love with Rupert and wants to impress him, Rupert knows this and so he manipulates Brandon who becomes one of his victims when he is “hypothetically executed” in the future unknown part of the story. After discovering this I watched it again and it’s so obvious I felt dumb for not seeing it before and it made me LOVE THIS FILM EVEN MORE! This movie ties as my all time favorite movie along with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca…something I didn’t think was possible. Great review!
Good choice man. This movie always leaves me feeling sick to my stomach with how they kept that body there intentionally. At least the one dude anyway.
I really enjoyed your reaction to this. You're right about it being very loosely based on (or perhaps "inspired by" is closer to the truth) Leopold & Loeb, and, like L&L, there is clearly the STRONG implication here that Phillip & Brandon are more than just friends. Phillip clearly both idolizes and is terrified by Brandon, and the sexual tension between them is THICK. Scrolling through your list of videos, the only other Hitchcock film that I notice you've reacted to is Notorious, which is a great film, but you should consider several others, including Psycho, Rear Window (maybe my favorite), North by Northwest, The Birds, and the often overlooked Strangers On A Train, which has one of the most gripping "set pieces" ever, at the climax of the film.
Thank you for reviewing older movies. Almost none of the reacting crew go back further than the 80s.
I’ve seen Plenty of reactors go back decades including back to the 30s.
I hope he does more Hitchcock
Yes. It’s based on Leopold and Loeb.
This film walked so Scream and even tv shows like Hannibal could run.
Absolutely excellent film
Great reaction! I’d really be interested in your take on Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW. While the set is somewhat more elaborate than ROPE’s it’s still basically a one set movie.
This is one of the movies I always recommend to people. The premise is wild, and it just builds and builds from there. Not an ounce of fat in this film. If I remember correctly, the set had movable walls they could get out of the way during a take in order to get different camera angles. There are ten cuts in total: five hidden and five regular hard cuts that brilliantly emphasize certain key moments. Having long uninterrupted takes forces the viewer to just sit and stew in the tension. And yes, Brandon is such a smug bastard I knew you'd love him.
It's easy with our riches of media and modern forms to get dismissive of theatre style one-room dramas and acting. Then you see a masterclass like Rope and remember that the whole thrill of this style is just how much can be done with so little by those at the top of the game.
I just discovered Rope the other day . I absolutely love the apartment decor this whole movie was amazing .
Have you done Rear Window? Prime Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. I love you watching old classic movies. It’s perfect. Philadelphia story is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s genuinely funny 1940.
I'm so glad someone else loves this film. It was filmed very much like a play and the acting style has aged and I think that's why it's not seen as much. It should get wider acclaim. An outstanding film.
Hitchcock had rtwo types of stories that really interested him the most: the isolated psychological thriller and the innocent man on the run chase thriller. In my Hitchcock class the films I showed I think the most illustrative of his worldview are The 39 Steps, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie and Frenzy. So hoping you'll check them out soon although I know that's a tall order. I am going to watch your NOTORIOUS reaction right now.
Hitchcock class was one of my favorite things. I thought I knew the films. And I did superficially. But breaking down the storytelling has elevated my enjoyment and made me rewatch these films over and over.
I enjoy dramas like this one that take place at a single location. So much can change and be revealed within a limited space.
Yes it's very underrated on TH-cam, which is the case for some other Hitchcock films such as Shadow of a Doubt and The 39 Steps, which are also unlikely to ever win any Patreon poll.
John Dall is so good in this as Brandon. The audience normally praise the big Hollywood star Jimmy Stewart, but Dall is the main focus here even if he is lesser known. And the dialogue is great. It's got something of a post-WW2 anti-fascist message, though the original play by Patrick Hamilton was done in 1929.
Shadow of a Doubt may well be my favorite Hitchcock movie. It not only has one of the most fascinating movie villains of all time, but also a surprisingly warm and heartfelt portrait of his family. I love that movie to bits.
I loved that you had all of the appropriate reactions at the right times. Especially with Phillip's just losing it every 5 minutes.
Great movie. It's never talked about as one of the great AH movies, but it's up there with Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Psycho, Shadow of a Doubt, The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, etc...To basically turn a stage play into a suspenseful thriller is an achievement on its own. But the acting, dialogue, cinematography, etc... are some of the best work he's ever produced. Rear Window, Lifeboat, and Dial M for Murder are 3 other AH movies you should check out as well. They all are self contained like Rope.
One of my favourite films ❤
Dial M for Murder is in a similar vein, I expect you would enjoy that.
Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are all great as well.
Thanks for the reaction and giving old movies a chance.
I saw the post right when I opened TH-cam and I clicked instantly. I knew you were going to love Brandon so much and get so much joy out of it. As much as I love Psycho, this is probably my favorite Hitchcock film.
Brandon is all-time.
it's good to see you amused by the subtle, wry dialogue!
Such a great movie. Basically, a play. So funny that these "geniuses" didn't even make it through the evening without being discovered. ahaha. Brilliant direction. Lots of tension.Terrific performances. I love Jimmy Stewart. Just about everything he has done.
Well it was based on a play.
Leopold & Loeb didn't do much better.
Dial M for Murder is another great Hitchcock film.
Farley Granger- the killer in the brown suit- was also in another Hitchcock film, "Strangers On a Train" he plays a tennis pro who gets mixed-up in a murder committed by someone else.
Farley Granger also.plays a startlingly different role in *Hans Christian Andersen* (1952).
More Hitchcock Jim ! North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt. All of them top notch.
This is in my top five movies ! I love it !
One of my favorite movies.
Not enough reactors react to this movie. It’s a great psychological thriller.
Rope is great. My favorite Hitchcock is Rear Window.
This was such a fun reaction! Yes, Brandon was an amazing character! John Dall's performance was brilliant!
It's like being high & paranoid in a room full of people ... looking from one to the other with a heightened sense of awareness. Or maybe not high but guilty of murder!
One of my tops as well. I've adored this movie since I first watched it as a teen in the late 90s/early 00s. I loved the creative cuts to maintain the feel of a stage presentation (being based on the 1928 Patrick Hamilton play), I loved the concept, I loved the characters (Brandon mainly). This is actually my son's favorite movie as well. Thanks for reacting/reviewing!
I watched it for the first time about 10 years ago and loved it. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did.
One of my favorite plays to film. Great to watch your reaction, Jimmy.
Have you seen Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men"?
3:56 Many years ago circa mid 70s at a holiday meal, my family was discussing film and this movie came up.
My grandfather was the head of the pathology department at a medical school and we had all played "perfect murder" since birth. My grandmother, also a scientist, had a hobby for writing ciphers, puzzles, and Agatha Christie/Woodhouse type parodies. Sometimes we forgot how unusual our dinner conversations were.
So this time, we had some art school graduate student friends of my parents over. The pretentiousness was thicker than the gravy. They chose to lay in to this masterpiece. Calling it unrealistic that Brandon put rope in the kitchen drawer.
My dad casually got up and grabbed the junk drawer in the kitchen and brought it to the dining room table. He proceeded to lift up all the stuff like rope and ice pick that were in there and say how he could murder someone with it. Soon half our family were grabbing house hold items from the drawer or just within reach that could be used to kill, subdue or torture some one. My gran chiming in on how to dispose of them or buy time, build an alibi with common house hold cleaners or fake diaries made from the free calendar from the bank in the junk drawer.
The look on the artsy students faces is one of my cherished childhood memories.
Good times.
Actually took a Hitchcock class as an elective course at UCLA - class took place in the theater, all of the films were remastered by UCLA archives. I miss those days...
Living in Oblivion
This is Hitchcock, keep reviewing his movies. He is the king of suspense.
Good reaction... Hitchcock's Spellbound 1945 is also worth watching. You van find it on TH-cam
The Man Who Knows Too Much is another good Alfred Hitchcock movie
About time. I've been waiting for you to do this forever. Thanks JMac.
Such a well done suspenseful movie!
Sooo good! Btw, the actor who plays Philip is Jamie Lee Curtis' father
Jamie Lee Curtis’ father is Tony Curtis not Farley Granger.
Have you seen It's A Wonderful Life? That's an excellent Jimmy Stewart movie. Christmas is coming up, and that's typically when people watch it.
I enjoyed your reaction to "Rope." Indeed, the suspense in this movie is in not knowing when the murder will be revealed and what will tip a person off to it.
Fun facts: beside the fact that the movie is loosely based upon the Leopold and Loeb case, Alfred Hitchcock found ways to get around the censors when it came to the LGBT subtext in the movie, which he referred to as "it." Also, the gay couple in the movie was portrayed by LGBT actors in real life (John Dall was gay, Farley Granger was bi).
Looking forward to seeing more of your reactions to classic movies!
Thanks ❤️
Since you like psychological thrillers, I suggest you react to the Manchurian candidate with Angela Lansbury and Michael Rennie.
I think the term you were looking for is "exposition."
Rear Window is worth a watch. North by Northwest is also great.
Please do the EARLY Hitchcock classics The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes.
Fantastic
I you haven't seen it, I would recommend seeing, "Rear Window". Also another Hitchcock classic starring Jimmy Stewart.
The action takes place during 80 minutes one afternoon and evening. Therefore, the sky outside the window has to gradually darken during the movie. How did Hitchcock do that? Can you guess?
Hitchcock has even greater than this, for example "Psycho," "Rear Window," "North by Northwest," "Marnie," "Strangers on a Train," "Vertigo," "Suspicion," "The Lady Vanishes," and many more.
Vertigo and Psycho are great, but some of his best are lesser known.
@@joebloggs396 Especially on TH-cam. No one has ever reacted to "Marnie," "Suspicion," "The Lady Vanishes," "The 39 Steps," etc., etc. I recently gave a list of good Hitchcock movies to a reactor and he did only those movies from my list that had already been done on TH-cam.
@@brandonflorida1092 On principle I won't watch another reaction to Rear Window, I've seen enough anyway.
“The Birds” (1963) is worth watching again! But yes, it is frightening 😅.
Great review of a great film. BTW, one thing I noticed last viewing was that Brandon is more of a coward than Phillip. While Brandon want's to take all the glory for doing something so "clever", who did the deed? Phillip.
I realize this may come off as insulting but sincerely kudos on clocking the Leopold and Lobe case. Then again I should have known better since you were among the few smart enough to react to Person of Interest
I see you already reacted to Rear Window (which for my money is Hitchcock at his finest, though my personal favorite is Notorious) - should you be interested in other classics and in case you haven't seen them - check out Casablanca (sheer perfection) and All About Eve (the best written script in all of Hollywood history)
Loosely based on Leopold and Loeb. The movies _Compulsion, Swoon,_ and _Murder by Numbers_ also are. For a movie based on a similar but not similar New Zealand murder case, see _Heavenly Creatures._
I wonder particularly what Jimmy would think of *Compulsion* (1959), which adheres much more closely to the facts of the real case.
Fantastic reaction, right from the very beginning where you recognized the similarities between them and Leopold & Lowe. Love this movie, in my top five Hitchcocks. Hey, definitely put "Strangers On A Train" on your list if you want top shelf Hitchcock, textbook him as master of suspense, super tight movie (I'm in complete agreement with you about "tightness"), visually spectacular, incredible acting.......that's from like, two or three years later after "Rope". Fantastic movie. If you like "Rope", definitely watch "Strangers On A Train". It's as spectacular in its black & white photography as "Rope" is in its color. That one is in my top five most definitely.
I thought this ended with Rupert opening the chest and that was the last scene…maybe I’m remembering a different movie though…
Someone please tell me that there's a musical called Something Something 😊😅
Not to my knowledge, but there's a 2015 musical called *Something Rotten!*
John Dall is fantastic in this movie...just the right mix of charming and sinister! I think Jimmy Stewart was miscast here (but he is still charismatic nonetheless) playing the intellectual professor...a better choice for the role would have been a detached, elegant English actor, like George Sanders (who was in Hitchcock's films Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca) or James Mason.
I heard that Rupert was also meant to be gay or at least be part of the homoerotic vibe, but Stewart refused.
@@AT-rr2xw I think the stage play does more or less hint at a Rupert and Brandon having been lovers in the past. The way I heard it, Hitchcock & co didn't think they could get away with adding a gay professor to the mix, on top of everything else (no pun intended). I mean, it's pretty obvious that Brandon and Phillip are living together and that there's a single bedroom in the apartment. That's probably as far as they could take it in that time.
If I remember correctly, Stewart didn't count this movie among his best work, because he too considered he had been miscast. Sanders or Mason could have been great in the role, indeed.
@@naiderl James Mason might have been a great choice, but George Sanders in particular would have been interesting to see. Only a few years before, he had played Lord Henry (a character who, like Rupert, enjoyed making shocking/provocative statements) in the film version of *The Picture of Dorian Gray* (1945), based on the novel by gay icon Oscar Wilde.
Please watch Thunderheart starring Val Kilmer
No no no no, Rupert doesn’t realize his words have meaning (come to Jesus moments so to speak) that’s what I thought the first time I watched it…then I watched it again and started to notice some hidden clues that once seen are so obvious you can’t unsee it. Rupert is a freaking Charles Manson…The murder Brandon and Phillip committed is Ruperts work of art…securing his status as the true superior being, and now he gets to see two more people killed by the justice system all while remaining “innocent” and making him a hero…all from seeds he had planted years before. Rupert is the “true superior” so to speak because he was able to commit the perfect murders vicariously through other people and no one would ever be able to suspect or prove it. Brandon is secretly in love with Rupert and wants to impress him, Rupert knows this and so he manipulates Brandon who becomes one of his victims when he is “hypothetically executed” in the future unknown part of the story. After discovering this I watched it again and it’s so obvious I felt dumb for not seeing it before and it made me LOVE THIS FILM EVEN MORE! This movie ties as my all time favorite movie along with Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca…something I didn’t think was possible. Great review!
You should check out Rear Window. Good shit
Good choice man. This movie always leaves me feeling sick to my stomach with how they kept that body there intentionally. At least the one dude anyway.
How long would it take to start smelling bad, anyways?
@@AT-rr2xw Probably a few days.
May I recommend Dial M for murder and Rear Window.
One of the least known classics. Long scene!
I have only two words for you. Rear Window.
I really enjoyed your reaction to this. You're right about it being very loosely based on (or perhaps "inspired by" is closer to the truth) Leopold & Loeb, and, like L&L, there is clearly the STRONG implication here that Phillip & Brandon are more than just friends. Phillip clearly both idolizes and is terrified by Brandon, and the sexual tension between them is THICK. Scrolling through your list of videos, the only other Hitchcock film that I notice you've reacted to is Notorious, which is a great film, but you should consider several others, including Psycho, Rear Window (maybe my favorite), North by Northwest, The Birds, and the often overlooked Strangers On A Train, which has one of the most gripping "set pieces" ever, at the climax of the film.