STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Let's swap murders -- "Your wife, my father" -- the rich and eccentric Bruno Antony proposes to tennis athlete Guy Haines, a stranger he just met on a train in Hitchcock's 1951 taut thriller, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. Who could catch us reasons Bruno since neither of us would be suspected, and we'd get rid of the people who are bothering us.
Bruno, played wickedly by Robert Walker, is a diabolical type who loves his mother, loathes his father, and once threatened to blow up the White House -- just joking, of course. He's also developed a way "to smell a flower on the planet Mars." Watch how menacing Robert Walker can make Bruno with nothing more that a devious smile and a box of popcorn he munches nonchalantly.
Guy (Farley Granger), in contrast, is a rock solid citizen who wants to marry a senator's daughter, Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), just as soon as he gets rid of his entanglements with his current wife, Miriam, a notorious flirt.
Miriam, played like a oversexed schoolgirl by Laura Elliot, is pregnant but probably not with Guy's baby. We see her with two young bucks in tow as she takes them both into the infamous Tunnel of Love at the local carny.
Hitchcock is a master at setting up scenes for maximum effect. When Miriam, her two boyfriends and Bruno are shown inside the tunnel, we see only their moving shadows. And when the camera moves to outside its entrance, we hear a scream from inside, which turns out to be nothing more than Miriam yelling at one of her boyfriends with an "oh, stop that," meaning don't do anything of the kind. In another beautifully composed sequence Miriam's glasses fall off when Bruno begins to strangle her. The rest of the murder is then filmed through the reflection in her glasses lying in the grass.
(So when does Hitchcock appear? Ten minutes into the film. Just as in THE PARADINE CASE, it's at a train station, where he's carrying a musical instrument case, but this time it's a bigger one, a bass.)
As expected, Guy is aghast when Bruno actually commits his end of the dastardly deeds they discussed; Guy wasn't serious. But not to worry, Guy has a rock solid alibi. However, the alibi crumbles through an unlucky break, and the story goes through a series of twists as Bruno keeps bugging him to follow through on their deal, which Guy never agreed to in the first place.
Babs, played by Hitchcock's daughter Patricia, who looks strangely like a younger Miriam, is great as Anne's precocious younger sister who specializes in speaking the unspeakable. She keeps pointing out how and why her future brother-in-law is a prime suspect in his wife's murder.
Hitchcock's characters, as usual, feature an everyman, Guy in this movie, wrapped up in a web he has trouble breaking. Hitchcock has a deft touch with his actors producing characters in predicaments that are easy to empathize with.
As Guy gets swept up in the story's whirlpool, Hitchcock uses some classic and always effective thriller backdrops such an amusement park. More imaginative is setting up a tennis match that doesn't look like it will end soon enough as a way to ratchet up the tension. And, finally, a run-away merry-go-round provides the film's piece de resistance vehicle for terror.
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN runs 1:40. It is rated PG for violence and tension and would be fine for kids around nine and up.
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