SYNOPSIS: Brandon and Philip are two young men who share a New York apartment. They consider themselves intellectually superior to their friend David Kentley and as a consequence decide to murder him. Together they strangle David with a rope and placing the body in an old chest, they proceed to hold a small party. The guests include David's father, his fiancée Janet and their old schoolteacher Rupert from whom they mistakenly took their ideas. As Brandon becomes increasingly more daring, Rupert begins to suspect.
This is a brilliant movie by the master of suspense - Alfred Hitchcock.
The film is one of Hitchcock’s most experimental and "one of the most interesting experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box-office names, abandoning many standard film techniques to allow for the long unbroken scenes. Each shot ran continuously for up to ten minutes without interruption. It was shot on a single set, aside from the opening establishing shot street scene. Camera moves were planned in advance and there was almost no editing.
The walls of the set were on rollers and could silently be moved out of the way to make way for the camera, and then replaced when they were to come back into shot. Prop men also had to constantly move the furniture and other props out of the way of the large Technicolor camera, and then ensure they were replaced in the correct location. A team of soundmen and camera operators kept the camera and microphones in constant motion, as the actors kept to a carefully choreographed set of cues.
The extraordinary cyclorama in the background was the largest backing ever used on a sound stage .It included models of the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings. Numerous chimneys smoke, lights come on in buildings, neon signs light up, and the sunset slowly unfolds as the movie progressed. At about one hour into the film, a red neon sign in the far background showing Hitchcock's profile with "Reduco"—the fictitious weight loss product he used for his appearance in Lifeboat (1944)—is visible for just a moment. Within the course of the film, the clouds—made of spun glass—change position and shape a total of eight times.
This has to be my all time favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The extraordinary cyclorama in the background was the largest backing ever used on a sound stage .It included models of the Empire State and the Chrysler buildings. Numerous chimneys smoke, lights come on in buildings, neon signs light up, and the sunset slowly unfolds as the movie progressed. At about one hour into the film, a red neon sign in the far background showing Hitchcock's profile with "Reduco"—the fictitious weight loss product he used for his appearance in Lifeboat (1944)—is visible for just a moment. Within the course of the film, the clouds—made of spun glass—change position and shape a total of eight times.
This has to be my all time favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie.
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