Two college friends commit “the perfect murder” and invite the victim’s family and friends for a dinner party while the dead body is still in their apartment. Made to look as if it was shot in one continuous long take and loosely based on real-ife murderers/lovers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, Rope is perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s most fascinating foray into gay subtext (the casting of queer actors John Dall and Farley Granger as the two perpetrators surely was not a coincidence). Playing the two evil twinks’ former headmaster, James Stewart gives one of his best performances as his suspicions begin to arise while the evening progresses.