Hitchcock's first fully color film (Spellbound has a few color tinted frames) and it is an early technicolor to boot. The color here is in pretty fine, if "velvetly," form. As technicolor "advanced" it got a great deal more garish by the mid 1950's. I've seen some reviews that complain about the color effect of this film, and, of course, to each their own; but my "own" is that I like it and enjoy it. It's far and away better than the orangey color of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). The screenplay is an adaptation of yet another play, this time written by Patrick Hamilton. However, of all the plays that Hitchcock brought to the big screen, this one "plays out" almost exactly like a play. It starts out inside the apartment of Brandon (John Dall) and Philip (Farley Granger [RIP!]), the two experimental murderers, it never wavers from the play like atmosphere found there. The story of two university students murdering a fellow student for vaguely Nietzchean philosophical reasons, supposedly put into their heads by a mentor Rupert Cadal (James Stewart) is loosely based on the truly horrifying case of Leopold and Loeb. After the murder the two throw a party, perversely inviting the dead man's parents and girlfriend and Cadal....who, as the evening progresses, begins to unravel (pun intended) the whole affair
No comments:
Post a Comment