Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train (BD) [Blu-ray]

Alfred Hitchcock loved trains. After appearances in his 2 best British films, "The 39 Steps" (1935) and "The Lady Vanishes" (1938) , the train was elevated to star billing along with the 2 male leads in "Strangers on a Train" (1951).Not only does the train move its passengers around, it is the location where one's diabolical "you do my murder, I"ll do yours" plot is hatched and used to seduce the other.Farley Granger had previously starred in Hitchcock's claustrophobic and homoerotic play adaptation "Rope" (!948}.Here he plays a celebrity tennis player trapped in an unhappy marriage and Robert Walker is a "mamma's boy" acting upon his desire to destroy his disapproving father.In addition to its overall brilliance, the film's cinematography is rendered in a crisp and clean manner particularly impressive for source material that is over 60 years old. The editing itself is a joy to behold, especially the Walker character obsessively watching the Granger character playing a crucial tennis match. All the other onlookers' heads move back and forth as the tennis ball does. The Walker character's gaze never divorces itself from the subject of his fixation,The entire film is encapsulated in this sequence in a manner that the audience, while absorbing the film's plot, themes and characterizations, also has a good laugh.The other stunningly edited sequence takes place at the amusement park where the promised murder had occurred. A cigarette lighter and an out of control carousel play leading roles in the film's highly memorable denouement.Farley Granger has another visual counterpart in Ruth Roman, his fiancee in the film. Both Granger and Roman are striking brunettes, a kind of his and her beauties juxtaposed against the equally dark haired and stylishly dressed Robert Walker, who is the unmoored only child of a dithering mother (the perfectly cast Marion Lorne) and a very wealthy and harsh father who would have him committed. (No argument there but then we'd have no film.)The other father in the film has 2 daughters, the older one hoping to be married to the tennis player and the other a brainy and caustically humourous girl whose major purpose in the film is to serve drinks and make shrewd observations.She is the bespectacled counterpart to Bruno's unfaithful wife and is played by Hitchcock's only child, Patricia.She is priceless here, as she will be in his masterwork "Psycho" (1960) where she plays Janet Leigh's loquacious and clueless real estate office mate. Patricia Hitchcock plays a much more active and important character here.The father of the 2 sisters is a United States senator no less, and is played by Leo G. Carroll, a very proper Briton who was the title character's doctor in Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940), and would give his final Hitchcockian performance as the head of a federal spy agency in "North by Northwest" (1959).Carroll's presence in "N by NW" helps to close out Hitchcock's extremely successful decade which began with "Strangers" and embraced the other masterpieces "Rear Window" {1954) and "Vertigo" (1958). Most other directors would be happy to have produced one master work in a career. Hitchcock produced four in a decade.His fantastic fifties begins with "Strangers"' which bears repeated viewings.

In Alfred Hitchcock's suspense classic, "Strangers On a Train", a naive and weary tennis pro unwisely allows himself to be enticed into the confidence of a seemingly silly stranger. Aboard a train bound for New York, Guy, the tennis pro, is shocked to discover how much information the wealthy stranger, Bruno, knows about him. According to Bruno, it's all to be read in the newspapers, especially the gossip concerning Guy's relationship with the daughter of a United States senator, and the ongoing drama with Guy's soon-to-be ex-wife, a good-time gal who's pregnant with another man's child. For his part, Bruno, a rich and spoiled ne'er-do-well, chats amiably about his deep hatred of his father, and how he wishes someone would kill the old man. Off-handedly, he suggests to Guy that they trade murders: Bruno will kill Guy's troublesome wife, and Guy will eliminate Bruno's despised father. By the time Guy disembarks from the train, he has unwittingly entered into a deal with the devil, and his life almost immediately begins to unravel.Released in 1951, "Strangers On a Train" was based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith (who also authored "The Talented Mr. Ripley"). Though the book allegedly describes an affair between the two protagonists--I don't know because I haven't read it--the film somewhat subtley suggests the unrequited yearning of Bruno for Guy. What is certain is that Guy, well-intentioned though he may be, is no match for Bruno's manipulative wiles.The fifties was a decade in which Hitchcock, in my opinion, really flourished. At least it seems that he had a solid string of classics, beginning with "Strangers On a Train" and lasting through "Psycho". It's hard for me to think of more than three Hitchcock films that I dislike, and even harder for me to pick five which I would say were better than all the others. However, if pushed, I'd rank "Strangers" in the top five. It's suspenseful, cleverly written, and wonderfully photographed. Robert Walker easily steals the show as the sly and charming psychopath, Bruno. He's animated, funny, and almost likable when he's not strangling someone, or plotting their demise. As Guy, Farley Granger is stuck in the unenviable shadow of Walker: Guy is a well-intentioned, good-looking shlub, boring and (generally) predictable. We root for Guy only because, for all his dullness and general uptightness, he is still more easy for us to identify with than the murderous (but infinitely more interesting) Bruno. As Guy's girlfriend, Ruth Roman is glamorous and has a low, smoky voice that belies the generally wooden quality of her performance. She's a steadfast companion for Granger's Guy, and they somehow seem to belong together. Although it would be remiss of me not to mention the sheer atrociousness of Roman's hairdo in this film. And with not much better hair, but a lot more flair and a screen personality to match, Patricia Hitchcock is breezy and fun as Roman's younger sister. She gives a delightful and natural performance as a young woman whose mild flirtation with Bruno encites him to attempt murder. It's too bad that she didn't appear in more films because she seems like a vibrant comedienne, adding a note of lightness to otherwise dark films ("Psycho" is the only other film that I can think of that the director's daughter appeared in). Leo G. Carroll, as the senator, is fine, and it's interesting to note that Marion Lorne (as Bruno's mother) and Laura Elliott (as Guy's ill-fated wife) would both appear years later in the TV series, "Bewitched", although Elliott would, by then, be known as Casey Rogers.Less picturesque than many Hitchcock outings--there are no exotic locales such as the French Riviera, Rio de Janeiro, Mt. Rushmore, or a Greenwich Village courtyard, for that matter--"Strangers On a Train", as a film, shares more common ground with the earlier "Shadow of a Doubt". Ostensibly set mostly in Washington D.C. and New York, "Strangers" never feels cosmopolitan; perhaps due to all the familial interactions, it seems more commonplace and "small-town" to me.For anyone interested in suspense films in general, and Hitchcock, in particular, I highly recommend this film.

One of my favorite Hitchcock movies! Great plot and very suspensful......

Fun to watch

Enjoyed movie

Excellent Movie!!!

Great movie. Makes one wonder how often this might happen in real life and it goes undected?