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Bookmark this pageStrangers on a Train (1951)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel, Strangers on a Train takes as its central proposition the meeting and ensuing guilty association of two complete strangers, Granger and Walker. Walker buttonholes Granger, a star tennis player anxious to remarry but with a clinging wife, and initiates a hypnotic discussion of exchange murders. Walker then does 'his' murder (the wife), and threatens to incriminate Granger if he doesn't fulfil his half of the 'bargain' (Walker's father). Significantly, Hitchcock didn't use much of Raymond Chandler's original script, because Chandler was too concerned with the characters' motivation. In place of that, Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces, ending with a paroxysm of violence on a circus carousel, when the circle Granger is trapped within is literally blown to pieces, leaving Walker dead beneath it and Granger a free man again.Author: PH
User reviews of this film
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- E A Dobson said...
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Posted on Nov 25 2009 11:15
But is it any good? This is an example of a poor film review,it doesn`t even hint at what PH actually thinks of the overall result and even gives away the ending.I only hope it is re-released(as is fairly common with Hitchcock) and re-evaluated,preferably by another Time Out author.
P.S. The one star is for the review only. - Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Producer: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliott, Marion Lorne, Howard St John full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 101 mins
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