Dubbing murder: censorship and manipulation in the Italian dubbing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the Italian context, censorial interventions and film manipulation through the practice of dubbing are not restricted to the Fascist era. In the decades that followed, official organisations continued to oversee film distribution of both domestic and international films, frequently withholding permission for public screenings when films did not conform to the conservative ideas espoused by those in power. In the 1950s, cinema was still regarded as a dangerous medium capable of influencing audiences and causing moral degradation. As a result, dubbing was still actively employed to change the linguistic content of films and make them more consistent with the Christian Democratic Party’s traditional values. This article examines an extreme case of film manipulation achieved through dubbing: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. The 1956 dubbed version of the movie can be considered at all effects an adaptation of the original: the suppression of the political and ideological components of the film, deemed immoral and perverse, significantly altered the plot and reduced the subversive nuances of all characters. Through an examination of archival documents preserved at the Ministry of Culture in Rome, I will show how censorship interfered to invisibly rewrite Rope, transforming it into a more reassuring and classic crime story.