Rope (play)

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Rope is a 1929 British stage play by Patrick Hamilton. It is a thriller whose gruesome subject matter has been likened to the Grand Guignol style of theatre.

It was first presented by the Repertory Players at the Strand Theatre, London, on 3 March 1929. The first West End production was at the Ambassadors Theatre on 25 April 1929. Retitled Rope's End, the play opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre, then still named the Theatre Masque, on 13 September 1929. The play was published as Rope's End by Samuel French Inc. in 1933.

The setting is an apartment in Mayfair, London, in the 1920s. The story, based loosely on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, is about two students, Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo (whom Brandon calls "Granno" for short), who murder fellow student Ronald Kentley as an expression of their supposed intellectual superiority.

The setting was transferred to 1940s New York, and the names of the murderers were changed to Brandon Shaw and Philip Morgan, in Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film version. The victim's name was changed to David Kentley, but the film's title reverted back to the original Rope. (In fact, the names of all the characters, except for Rupert Cadell, were changed in the film.) This is, so far, the only film version of the play.