014 - Rope & Swoon (The Leopold and Loeb Murder)

You probably know the trope of the "gay psycho killer" that's been around for decades (every boy just loves his mother, right?), but not all gay psycho killers are portrayed with quite the same insidious intent! In this week's episode of Cinema Very Gay, Jake and Kevin discuss two films inspired by the true crime story of the Leopold and Loeb murder of 1924, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope from 1948 and Swoon, directed by Tom Kalin in 1992. Hitchcock's Rope is not frequently remembered as one of his finest movies, but the queer coding of his two main characters, played by John Dall and Farley Granger, is hardly subtle. This movie follows two friends in real time as they host a dinner party for friends and family of the man they just murdered, while his body is hidden in the same room. It is only loosely based on how Leopold and Loeb were characterized in their trial (spoiler, they didn't get away with it and their trial was a media racket) and still manages to grip the audience and rope us along while their "perfect" crime unravels before them.  More directly inspired by the real-life Leopold and Loeb, Swoon is a fictional retelling of their romance and friendship leading up to the murder, and then the subsequent investigation and trial of the two. The movie stars Daniel Schlachet as Richard Loeb and Craig Chester as Nathan Leopold and definitely does not shy away from showing the queerness of the two killers. What do these movies say about the sexual repartee of tops and bottoms? Why is the gay psycho killer such a captivating trope? Is Rope actually a movie about edging? Swing by Cinema Very Gay wherever you get your podcasts and listen in to our new episode! We have also come to the long-awaited conclusion of our mini-series on the Eating Out series with the final installment, Eating Out: The Open Weekend. Somehow this movie was released in the same year as the 4th film, but sends the viewers on another roller coaster of quality. We aren't sure why Tiffany is even less present than the last film, or why Q. Allan Brocka leaned into an extremely tired transgender storyline, but at least we can reflect fondly on all the wonderful one-liners from throughout the series! BONUS: listen to our rock-solid pitch for the plot of the 6th Eating Out film.