Rope (1948 Alfred Hitchcock)

Based on Patrick Hamilton's play, itself inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case, and the first attempt to film continuously - well, except for that one cut from chicken-strangler Granger to Stewart - which could have been executed with a whip pan. Hume Cronyn, with almost no writing credits, developed the screenplay, which was also worked on by Arthur Laurents, who was having an affair with Farley Granger. There's plenty of humour, black and straightforward. The gay undercurrent ultimately put off Cary Grant who was to star - there's a reference to a film of his and Bergman's - I think it must have been Notorious! So it was the first of many successful Stewart-Hitchcock pairings.

Cedric Hardwicke (Suspicion), John Dall (Gun Crazy), Farley Granger, Constance Collier (An Ideal Husband), Douglas Dick, Joan Chandler, Edith Evanson.

Love that living NYC backdrop (designed by Perry Ferguson), which is almost a character in itself, and we both noticed the red-green strobing at the end which prefigures Vertigo. But more than that it can be seen as an early version of Rear Window, with its setting in a single apartment and its lack of film score. It's also Hitch's first colour film and it's cannily lit by Joseph Valentine and William Skall to avoid ugly light shadows.

Some terrific camera stuff e.g. housekeeper gradually clearing away the chest; the way Stewart pictures the last moments of the murdered man.