Strangers on a Train (1951)
Horrible Bosses-
Kurt Buckman: Yeah. Yeah. Like Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers on a Train’, right?
Nick Hendricks: I haven’t seen that. Did they…
Dale Arbus: The Danny DeVito movie. It’s funny.
Kurt Buckman: [sarcastically] Yeah. Yeah. That famous Alfred Hitchcock, Danny DeVito movie. That’s the one he’s…
Based on screenplay Raymond Chandler, Whitfield Cook and Czenzi Ormonde which in turn is based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. This is one of my favourite Hitchcock movies, it has that great criss cross story line and tremendously morbid subject matter. Crazy Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony meets handsome playboy tennis star Farley Granger as Guy Haines. While together on a train journey Bruno explains a plan he has to kill his hated father, while Haines he discovers is trying to get a divorce from his adulterous wife so he can marry socialite Anne Morton (Ruth Roman) ,he explains that if they swap murders then they both have an alibi and no motive. Haines laughs off Bruno's story as just the talk of a drunk. But Bruno has other ideas. Robert Walker is magnificent as Bruno, a lazy spoiled man who despises his rich father because he wants Bruno to work for a living. Bruno gives the appearance of a sane man but is clearly bonkers especially when anyone dares to antagonise him. As usual there's lots of lovely bits of black humour, when a little boy shots him with his cap gun Bruno bursts the little boys balloon just out of spite. Guy Haines wife Miriam Joyce Haines (Kasey Rogers ) is portrayed as pretty much a slut, she openly admits to being pregnant by another man and is spied on by Bruno while on a date with two men, so as an audience we don't really have much sympathy for her. This is one of those perfect Hitchcock movies, a classic morbid tale, with an innocent man trapped in a cobweb of someone's else making. The only minor criticism is that Bruno starts outwardly showing what a maniac he is, especially when he gate crashes a party and strangles a woman to show her how to commit a murder. Apart from that this is a tight little nourish thriller and anyone who is a fan of the film Shadow Of A Doubt will love this film I'm sure.
out of 5