7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Two wealthy young men try to commit the perfect crime by murdering a friend.
Starring: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance CollierMystery | 100% |
Psychological thriller | 84% |
Romance | 50% |
Crime | 39% |
Thriller | 37% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 2.0
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A man confronts his accuser atop the Statue of Liberty, where one false move will spell death. A wolf in sheep's clothing allows the beast lurking within to bear its teeth. A housemaster slowly, oh so slowly, pieces together the heinous crime perpetrated by two former students. A woman searches for clues in a suspected murderer's apartment just as the man returns home. Four people work to keep the demise of a fellow smalltown resident a secret from a local deputy. An assassin's gun slides out from behind a curtain as an ordinary man races to thwart his plot. An airplane buzzes then roars past as a man dives for cover. The hiss of a shower masks the approach of a madman with a knife in his hand. Countless birds gather on a jungle gym as a woman smokes a cigarette nearby. A husband barges into his new wife's bedroom and has his way with her as she retreats into a near-catatonic state. A physicist discovers killing a man isn't as easy as it might seem, wrestling with his victim right up until the violent end. A purple dress billows out beneath a dying woman like spilled blood. A serial killer retrieves his pin from a woman's grasp, one dead finger at a time. A fake psychic tries to squirm out of a thief's vice-like grip as he pushes a syringe closer and closer. Be it drama, horror or comedy, psychological stunner, monster movie or international spy thriller, is it any mystery that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master of Suspense? Is it any wonder his movies still hold hypnotic sway over filmfans all these years later?
During a party, a teacher begins to suspect two of his former students of having committed a murder...
Rope's 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer is something of a step down from the striking, utterly faithful presentations that accompany Saboteur and Shadow of a Doubt. Key aspects of Universal's remastering showcase the film's high definition promise; other aspects of the resulting image, though, indicate a complete ground-up restoration is in order. First, the good, which far outweighs the bad. Detail is rewarding -- revelatory even -- with crisp edges, precisely resolved fine textures, and a pleasing veneer of grain. Closeups are particularly strong and boast the sort of nuances that demand to be noticed and appreciated. Yes, slight artificial sharpening halos are visible from time to time, and yes, the opening murder is a murky and unfaltering mess, but none of it leads to any lingering disappointment or distraction. Print damage is in short supply too, as are any encoding anomalies. In fact, there are only a few issues worth noting. Colors are subdued on the whole, skintones are a touch muddy and under-saturated, faint flickering is visible and red color fringe affects several shots. (Rope was shot using three-strip Technicolor, a process which hinged on the perfect alignment of three color separation negatives. If the red layer is a hair off, thin red lines occasionally appear that behave a bit like edge halos.) In the end, Rope's presentation will satisfy the casual viewer but leave more diligent videophiles anxious for a definitive restoration.
Universal's two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix is rather hit or miss, although it hits far more often than it misses. The film's first, fourth and seventh tracking shots are prone to unevenness and thin voices -- both presumably inherent to the original audio elements, both at their relative worst in the first shot -- and the score is somewhat cramped now and again. Otherwise, all is as it should be. Dialogue is intelligible and neatly grounded, effects are clean and clear (stagy though they may be), hiss isn't an issue and any noise floor has been subdued without impacting the integrity of the soundscape. Rope's AV presentation isn't the best of the Masterpiece Collection bunch, but it certainly isn't the worst.
I've seen Rope more than a dozen times over the years and yet it never fails to command my complete attention. Dall and Stewart are two ends of the same live wire, Hitchcock's control of his experiment allows substance to trump style, and the third act is one of the director's most exciting, even if it involves little more than two intellectual and philosophical adversaries talking. It's a film I hope finds new life on Blu-ray, despite its somewhat problematic AV presentation. Thankfully, its video transfer and DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix are decidedly decent, making this one easy to recommend, flaws or no.
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