The first collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and his future mainstay James Stewart resulted in this witty, elegant mystery thriller which happens in real time. Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan, two intellectually brilliant young men strangle a former classmate David Kentley simply for sport, so they would commit a “perfect murder”. They organize a dinner party with David’s body hidden in a wooden chest used as a buffet table, inviting a whole bunch of people close to David – his parents, his fiancé, his best friend. Among the guests is Rupert Cadell, the housemaster of Brandon and Phillip’s prep-school who’s been a great influence on their overall worldview and philosophy. Brandon is excited and eager to impress his role model, almost as if wanting to be found out by him, while Phillip is visibly shaken and keeps making contradictory statements which make people question David’s absence. By the time the party is done, everyone is worried about David, but Cadell is growing more and more suspicious. Upon his leaving he is mistakenly given David’s hat with his own initials. Later he returns to the apartment under the pretense that he has forgotten his cigarette case. As Cadell theorizes about David’s disappearance, Phillip breaks down and practically confesses to the crime, after which Cadell discovers the body hidden in the wooden chest. As he fires a gun to signal for the police, Cadell is disgusted that his teachings have influenced such an atrocious act.