"A slow moving train ride". 1951 Hitchcock film on DVD.
Added 11/17/2009
It's not a bad film for Hitchcock, it contains many themes, that the filmmaker is most notable for, like: murder, suspense, and drama.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Added 8/10/2009
This is another great Hitchcock film that will leave you breathless the last 10 minutes or so. There is a build up of tension as the drama unfolds. Guy Haines is really captivating and full of reason and logic that is "right on." Bruno, on the other hand, is psychotic, manipulative, and paranoid. The fact that these two men didn't know each other prior to their meeting on a train is amazing. How fast they uncover motives and moves. Some people think this film is better than "Psycho," but I'll let you decide for yourself.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Strangers... On A Train!
Added 7/18/2009
Gotta be one of my top Hitchcock films... it's just so good. Check it out!
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Brilliant from beginning to end
Added 7/6/2009
From the very first shot of this classic chiller, we are aware we're in the hands of a master. We see two cabs pull up at Washington's Union Station and two men get out. The camera focuses only on their feet. One is wearing pin stripes and extravagant black and white shoes, the other "sensible" sober footwear. The camera stays on the feet until they bump into each other on the train.
The plot of this Patricia Highsmith novel is well-known. Two strangers meet. One is haunted by a demanding and unforgiving father, the other bedevilled by an unfaithful wife who won't divorce him and allow him to marry the woman he loves. Why don't they each commit the other's murder? Without any connection between them and no motive, the police will never suspect.
Hitchcock steadily rachets up the tension, aided by a brilliant performance by Robert Walker as Bruno, the creepy psychopath at the heart of the movie. He is all oily affability (played with just a touch of effeminacy) until the madness starts to take over.
The photography is stunning -- and witty. One scene at a tennis match shows the heads of everyone in the crowd following the ball back and forth -- all except Bruno who stares fixedly ahead.
And the movie ends with a jaw-dropping scene of cinema virtuosity on a carousel that has to be seen to be believed. It's one of the great scenes in the history of cinema.
One small cavil: I found Dmitri Tiomken's overwrought music distracting at times. But this is a minor criticism. Anyone who loves movies must see this.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go For A Merry-Go-Round Ride...
Added 5/24/2009
We've all heard about how many viewers of PSYCHO developed a fear of taking a shower after taking in that film, well, what about the Merry-Go-Round phobia that STRANGERS ON A TRAIN must have induced nation-wide?? To say nothing of the Tunnel of Love. I'd be interested in finding out if amusement parks throughout the country experienced a significant falling off in the early 1950s. Of course, if they all started flocking to the theaters, that'd hardly be a bad thing for Alfred Hitchcock.
Suspending one's disbelief is something of a must to fully enjoy many--if not most--of the Master's films. A writer of no less stature than Raymond Chandler reportedly quit his post as scriptwriter for this project, saying that the plot was just too implausible. But in point of fact, the internal logic of the film is quite tight. No, "criss-cross" murder plots don't occur every day, let alone ones that exist primarily in the mind of a single, individual. And that's just it (mild SPOILER ALERT for first time viewers--not that it's a real surprise), the movie is really about one man's utterly delusional state of mind.
That man, one Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) seems at first blush to be nothing more than a fairly typical ne'er-do-well son of a wealthy father. Like the stranger Bruno meets on the train--tennis pro and aspiring politician, Guy Haines--the viewer may at first find Bruno a tad seductive (the homoerotic tension between the two men has often been commented upon) and perhaps a bit dangerous, but while his murderous bent is clear (and suggestive of what's to come), the full extent of his insanity is only hinted at here. A darkly comic scene between the diabolical son and his dotty, doting mother (the delightfully daffy Marion Lorne)offers clear evidence that his problems go way beyond youthful excess and alcohol abuse. Even after his murderous tendencies are realized, we are surprised by the extent of his madness. The fantasies of "tapping of the life force" and "flowers on Mars," revealed only later, provide us with definitive proof, if we needed it, that the man is beyond good and evil: he is completely and utterly insane.
Being caught up in another person's madness is a terrifying notion. Hitchcock's oeuvre consists, to a great extent, of innocent individuals caught up in the mysterious machinations of dark, outside forces (NORTH BY NORTHWEST, being but one example). It's a tough call to say which is worse, being caught up in a web spun by diabolical political forces or to be ensnared in one spun by the sick logic of a truly insane plotter. On the face of it, I'd have to say the latter. Real life, "everyday" people DO sometimes cross paths with sociopaths. Less likely is the prospect of becoming entangled with foreign agents. (Although I guess some current "terrorist scenarios" would have elements of both.)
Casting Farley Granger as the innocent man caught up in this madman's plot was a pretty clever stroke of intertextual genius on Hitchcock's part. Having previously cast Granger as the more delicate and guilt-ridden of the two "joy-murderers" in his 1948 ROPE, Hitchcock now has his young protagonist dismissing the proposed "criss-cross" murder plot out of hand. "It's illegal!" he utters--as though that would mean anything to Walker's character, and indeed it does not as Bruno interprets Guy's polite banter upon their parting as implicit consent to his scheme.
One could write a dissertation on all of Hitchcock's clever touches. His wit and visual style make for many an enjoyable moment. But all that would count for naught if he did not have a compelling story to tell. He certainly has that in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
"A slow moving train ride". 1951 Hitchcock film on DVD.
Added 11/17/2009
It's not a bad film for Hitchcock, it contains many themes, that the filmmaker is most notable for, like: murder, suspense, and drama.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Added 8/10/2009
This is another great Hitchcock film that will leave you breathless the last 10 minutes or so. There is a build up of tension as the drama unfolds. Guy Haines is really captivating and full of reason and logic that is "right on." Bruno, on the other hand, is psychotic, manipulative, and paranoid. The fact that these two men didn't know each other prior to their meeting on a train is amazing. How fast they uncover motives and moves. Some people think this film is better than "Psycho," but I'll let you decide for yourself.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Strangers... On A Train!
Added 7/18/2009
Gotta be one of my top Hitchcock films... it's just so good. Check it out!
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
