An experimental film by Hitchcock which works as a piece of interest but misfires a lot as a film. It started life, unsurprisingly, as a play and Hitch wanted to film it as one and so he set out to film it entirely in one go. Of course he could only film 10 minutes at a time with the length of reels they had so to keep his desired continuity he has the screen blacked out momentarily, usually as somebody moves in front of the camera. Unfortunately it's not always done seamlessly.
It's the story of two students who feel so intellectually siperior thewy believe that not only can they murder someone, but host a dinner party straight after the deed with the body hidden in a trunk on top of which they place the food. The murdered boy's parents are two of the guest, as is Jimmy Stewart as the boys tutor. Stewart is visibly uncomfortable in the role and gives an uncharacteristic poor performance. There are a few nice touches but you never lose the feeling that Hitchcock is experimenting and the whole thing lacks any real suspense. It's clever and worth seeing, just to see how he does it, but it's not one of his classics.
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