At 15:54 23/08/2001 +1000, you wrote:

>Tonight (Thursday 23 August) the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing
>Arts presents the world premiere of a stage adaptation of  the ROPE
>screenplay by Arthur Laurents (as opposed to the original play by
>Patrick Hamilton).

The actor playing the Stewart Granger part must have been carefully
selected for his piano-playing ability. I have grade 8 piano (and organ)
and adore Debussy, Milhaud, Poulenc and Satie, but find 'Mouvements
Perpetueux no. 1' virtually impossible.  My right hand just won't stretch
enough to hit the 10-semitone gaps, for starters.  Rubenstein's
transcription of Manuel de Falla's 'Ritual del Fuego' is kids  stuff
compared to that.  With the possible exception of Rachmaninov's entire
output and Granados' 'El Pelele', IMHO, this is the most technically
difficult piece ever written for solo piano, and I'd love to know whether
Stewart Granger really played it in the fillm, and if not, who played for
the dub (having viewed the sequences in an original 35mm IB print on a
Steenbeck in slow motion, the synch looks incredibly convincing - if he is
dubbed, the technicians who synched it should all have got Oscars).

Funny - I saw Chabrol's 'Merci Pour le Chocolat' the other day and thought
that the dubbing of Lizst's 'Funerailles' (which was acknowledged in the
closing credits) was quite convincing -  but nowhere near the accuracy of
'Rope', if indeed the latter was a dub.

L
------------------------------------
Dr. Leo Enticknap
Director, Northern Region Film and Television Archive
School of Law, Arts and Humanities
Room M616, Middlesbrough Tower
University of Teesside
Middlesbrough  TS1 3BA
United Kingdom
Tel. 01642 384022
Brainfryer: 07710 417383

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