Strangers on a Train (1951)
Grade: 97
"Strangers on a Train" is an outstanding crime drama, and is perhaps Alfred Hitchcock's best film. The story's focus is on creating and extending dramatic tension, and Hitchcock succeeds in this completely.
Farley Granger is a top tennis player, unsuccessfully seeking to divorce promiscuous wife Laura Elliot to marry Ruth Roman, who is the daughter of U.S. Senator Leo G. Carroll. Granger accidentally meets Robert Walker on a train. Walker is a charming but no-account son of a demanding wealthy businessman. Walker has the idea that they exchange murders: Walker kills Elliot, while Granger kills the businessman.
Granger laughs off Walker as an eccentric, but soon Walker kills Elliot, then demands that Granger kill his father, or else. Meanwhile, Granger is the prime suspect for the murder.
Hitchcock does all that he can to create suspense. Many scenes, such as Elliot screaming in the tunnel of love, Walker straining to retrieve a dropped cigarette lighter, or the famous scene of an elderly man crawling under a wildly spinning merry-go-round to shut it down, are used to promote the tension. A lengthy sequence has Granger having to rush through a tennis match and escape police to confront Walker. Granger and fiancee Roman have many shots during these scenes with anxious looks on their faces: the tension that they are feeling is translated to the audience. There is also the open question of whether Granger will try to kill Walker's father.
There are two characters in this film that I really liked. Walker is a terrific villain: crazy but wily, unpredictable, and he always has a clever line. Walker did not live long to enjoy his success: he died while the film was still playing in theaters. I also liked the Senator's youngest daughter (played by Patricia Hitchcock), whose brash personality and similar appearance to Elliot are cleverly used in the plot.
But even with a nearly perfect film a few flaws can be found. Three separate characters, matronly ladies about sixty years old, are given similar eccentric and excitable characters (Walker's mother, Walker's demonstration victim at the party, and the woman whose car is seized by policemen). Also, in the great merry-go-round climax, a policeman fires recklessly into a crowd of people. Give that man a desk job!
kollers@shell.mpsi.net http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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