...his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand.
3 Comments
01/01/00
Strangers on a Train (1951)
97
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:39
Fresh:38
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, quickly became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful thrillers and remains one of his most popular films. En route from Washington,... [More]
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
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Reviews for Strangers on a Train
Gripping all the way, this is a Hitchcock thriller in which, through happenstance, two men, completely different, are drawn inexorably together and toward an uncommon goal--murder.
01/01/00
Given a good basis for a thriller in the Patricia Highsmith novel and a first-rate script, Hitchcock embroiders the plot into a gripping, palm-sweating piece of suspense.
02/13/01
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.
02/09/06
Hitchcock's handling of the suspense is deadly effective and a quality cast breathe life into some delicious dialogue.
02/04/08
Winds up with a scene in which a merry-go-round goes wild, spins like a pin wheel, and crashes in a gaudy blaze of explosions that no earthly carrousel could touch off. The movie itself is the same way: implausible but intriguing and great fun to ride.
08/30/09
Hitchcock's favourite device of an ordinary man caught in an ever-tightening web of fear plunges Guy into one of the director's most fiendishly effective movies.
06/27/01
Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" is about weakness crisscrossing with evil, with evil pushing hard for the upper hand. Nobody comes away unscathed.
11/16/04
No review available.
10/07/05
Perhaps Strangers on a Train still hasn't yielded all its secrets.
02/04/08
Top Critic...one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behavior is the driving force behind the true macabre.
06/23/02
This is a Hitchcock top-of-the-line work rolling on all cylinders.
06/21/02
No review available.
08/12/05
The power of the story - adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith - lies in its simplicity, and Hitchcock’s piles on the sinister layers as only he can.
01/01/00
To ignore the subtext during the runaway carousel climax is to be absolutely blind.
09/06/04
No review available.
06/22/04
Even more marvelous after a second viewing
02/17/08
Quintessential Hitchcock.
09/02/02
Farley Granger became the best-known actor out of the film, but it’s the tour-de-force performance of Robert Walker as Bruno that’s amazing.
06/06/02
Patricia Highsmith's malicious writing seems perfectly suited to Alfred Hitchcock.
09/20/04
Latest News for Strangers on a Train
June 21, 2007:
Frank Miller and Clive Owen to Do Some Old-School Film Noir
Now here's a project that sounds pretty damn cool: Frank Miller directing Clive Owen in an adaptation of a Raymond Chandler story -- and it'll probably be the first in a series! More...
April 12, 2005:
Two New "Strangers" to Meet On DreamWorks' "Train"
Variety lets us know that DreamWorks is currently mounting a new interpretation of Patricia Highsmith's novel "Strangers on a Train." Originally turned into a classic... More...
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