Rope
Premiering in London in 1929 before moving to Broadway, this play, inspired by a true story, was adapted by Hitchcock into a film starring Jimmy Stewart.
They believed they had committed the perfect crime. In fact, university students Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo were so assured of how expertly they had covered up their heartless murder of a fellow undergraduate, they decided to throw a dinner party. Using the wooden chest that contains the corpse as a table, they invite everyone the victim knew, including his father.
But the gruesomeness of their depravity soon proves to be their undoing . . .
Patrick Hamilton
Patrick Hamilton (1904–1962) was born in West Sussex, England. After his mother withdrew him from Westminster School at the age of fifteen, Hamilton worked in the theater. At nineteen, he published his first novel and rapidly began making a name for himself. Hamilton’s finest works include Hangover Square—a Depression-era psychological thriller about intoxication, infatuation, and murder—and The Slaves of Solitude, a comedy about life behind the lines during World War II. Hamilton also enjoyed a flourishing career as a playwright. Many of his plays have been made into successful movies, most notably Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Rope, starring Jimmy Stewart, and George Cukor’s of Gaslight, which won Ingrid Bergman an Oscar Award.
