Films of Ideas: Rope w/Nicci Gerrard & Sean French

Past Present Future

D&HR Media Ltd

History, News, Society & Culture, Politics, Philosophy

4.7 • 747 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today it’s the first in our series of live episodes recorded at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the crime writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (aka Nicci French) about Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), based on Patrick Hamilton’s play of the same name, itself based on the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb. What is the true subject of this film: murder, sex, morality or something else? Why is James Stewart so hopelessly miscast? And how does all this connect to Nietzsche? If you are still looking for Christmas presents we have 6- and 12-month gift subscriptions to PPF+ giving access to all our bonus episodes, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – which can be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day! ⁠https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts⁠ Next time: My Dinner with Andre w/Lee Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:48.2	Price and participation may vary, present, future, the History of Ideas
1:04.9	podcast. Today, we are beginning a season that will run over the Christmas period, which is a set of recordings
1:12.1	of episodes that we made live at the Regent Street Cinema this autumn, with special guests
1:18.0	discussing a series of films that we had just screened, and we're starting today with a conversation
1:24.2	about Alfred Hitchcock's Rep, a film about murder,
1:28.2	but also based on a real-life case in which two students were believed
1:33.5	to have been inspired to commit murder by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche.
1:37.8	And our guests who are going to be discussing Rope with me
1:40.7	are the unique and uniquely successful crime writing husband and wife duo
1:45.4	Nikki Gerard and Sean French who write under the name Nikki French. We are going to be talking
	...

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