As sleek, taut and breezy an entertainment as Hitchcock ever made, and a nice hinge moment, almost exactly in the middle of the black-and-white and color phases of his American career.
Strangers on a Train (1951)
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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,... 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, D.C., champion tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets pushy playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). What begins as a chance encounter turns into a series of morbid confrontations, as Bruno manipulates his way into Guy's life. Bruno is eager to kill his father and knows Guy wants to marry a senator's daughter (Ruth Roman) but cannot get a divorce from his wife, Miriam (Laura Elliot). So Bruno suggests the men swap murders, which would leave no traceable clues or possible motives. Though Guy refuses, it will not be so easy to rid himself of the psychopathic Bruno. The film is tightly paced and disturbing from beginning to end, an effect heightened by Hitchcock's inventive camera work, including a terrifying sequence shot through a pair of eyeglasses that have been knocked to the ground. [More]
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliot, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Producer: Alfred Hitchcock
Composer: Dimitri Tiomkin
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Reviews for Strangers on a Train
Perhaps none of Alfred Hitchcock's 1950s films is quite as intense as Strangers on a Train.
...one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behavior is the driving force behind the true macabre.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand.
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.
Hitchcock has a deft touch with his actors producing characters in predicaments that are easy to empathize with.
Of all the films Hithcock made, this is one of his absolute masterpieces.
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...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 49% 49% | Taking Woodstock |
| 26% 26% | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard |
| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
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