This is considered minor Hitchcock? For heaven's sake, why? Is it because the camera is the only thing there to remind us we're not watching a stage play? Is it that John Dall and Farley Granger, but mostly Dall, unevenly bridge the gap between playing it straight and hamming it up? Is it Jimmy Stewart's self-righteous monologue at the end?
If those are the reasons people give, then they must not get scared very easily. The performances and stage aspect are mere afterthoughts in this film, or at least should be. Although the acting isn't really that bada anyway, praticularly Granger) Certainly they're secondary to the great camera work and the unbearably creepy tension, set up as only the master can do it. Isn't it just like Hitchcock to have a conversation going on in the background but focus the camera on the housekeeper clearing the food off of a chest in which the murdered body has been deposited and then prepare to open the chest to put some books in it? Isn't it just like him to have Stewart question an increasingly nervous Granger as he plays the piano and one of those piano clock things ticks faster and faster, possibly leading to a confession from Granger? He even forces us to feel sympathy for two people who commit murder for fun and because they feel intellectualy superior, and succeeds pretty well. Those touches are further testament to the master's brilliance and knowhow at how to create suspense. If they sound cliched, they weren't then; he INVENTED those cliches, and even today they seem new and fresh in this film. There's also the fact that the movie is (supposed to be) filmed in real time. Yes, it's pretty obvious that cuts are being made whenever the camera pauses on someone's coat, but the shots of the sun slowly setting over the New York skyline as seen from the apartment window also do add clever commentary on the situations. (Bright when the murder's committed, clouded over before the party begins, slowly setting as the suspicion grows, etc.) This is a clever, highly suspenseful, creepy, and tense little film, and quintessential Hitchcock. It should be with his classics, and why it isn't is also a mystery.
If those are the reasons people give, then they must not get scared very easily. The performances and stage aspect are mere afterthoughts in this film, or at least should be. Although the acting isn't really that bada anyway, praticularly Granger) Certainly they're secondary to the great camera work and the unbearably creepy tension, set up as only the master can do it. Isn't it just like Hitchcock to have a conversation going on in the background but focus the camera on the housekeeper clearing the food off of a chest in which the murdered body has been deposited and then prepare to open the chest to put some books in it? Isn't it just like him to have Stewart question an increasingly nervous Granger as he plays the piano and one of those piano clock things ticks faster and faster, possibly leading to a confession from Granger? He even forces us to feel sympathy for two people who commit murder for fun and because they feel intellectualy superior, and succeeds pretty well. Those touches are further testament to the master's brilliance and knowhow at how to create suspense. If they sound cliched, they weren't then; he INVENTED those cliches, and even today they seem new and fresh in this film. There's also the fact that the movie is (supposed to be) filmed in real time. Yes, it's pretty obvious that cuts are being made whenever the camera pauses on someone's coat, but the shots of the sun slowly setting over the New York skyline as seen from the apartment window also do add clever commentary on the situations. (Bright when the murder's committed, clouded over before the party begins, slowly setting as the suspicion grows, etc.) This is a clever, highly suspenseful, creepy, and tense little film, and quintessential Hitchcock. It should be with his classics, and why it isn't is also a mystery.