Strangers on a Train

Starring: Farley Granger, Ruth Romab, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Kasey Rogers, Marion Lorne
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Approved
Genre: Film Noir, Thriller
1951

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A tennis star (Farley Granger) meets a socialite (Robert Walker) on a train, who suggests they swap murders.

Review:

Tim: Strangers on a Train routinely makes the lists as one of the greatest movies of all time. I found it to be an exceptionally crafted thriller, an intense, memorable film, but perhaps not quite as amazing as I expected. I'd consider this a very, very good movie, but I think it belongs a level down from Alfred Hitchcock's best films.

Now, there are certainly several iconic moments throughout the film. Of course, the whole idea of strangers meeting on a train and one of them suggesting they each murder someone in the other's life to avoid any motive is a wonderfully chilling premise. This alone has influenced a number of other films. I liked this aspect of the movie- the idea that a chance encounter could spin your life horribly out of control. The film is at its best when it explores the chilling relationship between Guy and Bruno. It is legitimately nerve-wracking to consider what you would do in this situation- a guy has murdered your estranged wife (whose death benefits you greatly) and is now blackmailing you to kill his father, or he'll confess to the police. That aspect of the film was wonderful.

I thought the characters were good, but a better caliber of actors would have improved the film immensely. Farley Granger was fine. He has a few strong moments, but there wasn't anything especially compelling about his performance. He works in the role, but the movie would have benefited from a better actor in the lead role. Robert Walker was sufficiently creepy as the psychotic Bruno Antony. It's a bit of a bizarre role, but Walker brings the eccentricity to it. I don't know if I would call Walker a great actor, but he's clearly unhinged in this role and it was very fun to watch. The rest of the cast was fine, but no real standouts. If you're looking for reasons why this movie might not quite be as great as it could have been, I think you'd have to highlight the cast as being slightly underwhelming. This is a contributing factor to another complaint I had- I never really cared about any of the characters. I felt somewhat bad for Guy and his family, but I never had a compelling reason to get invested in their story. Perhaps with better actors, I may have felt a deeper connection to them.

Hitchcock does direct some truly memorable sequences. The tennis match has to be one of the most intense, thrilling tennis matches ever filmed. Those scenes were spliced with a seemingly innocuous scene about Bruno dropping his lighter into a sewer drain. Before watching this film, if you told me that a scene about a guy trying to retrieve a lighter dropped into a sewer drain would be one of the most intense, thrilling scenes of a film, I'd have laughed. Somehow, with the context, the importance of the lighter, and the brilliant direction of Hitchcock, this becomes a suspenseful boiling point. It's truly remarkable to watch. I also absolutely loved the scene where Bruno Antony is stalking Guy's estranged wife. That scene was so creepy, so vivid, so hard to shake from your mind.

I do also have to comment on the climactic finish. I take nothing away from Hitchcock's directorial abilities- he creates a thrilling finish on the carousel. Again, I wouldn't have expected the climax of a thriller to take place on a carousel, but it does, and Hitchcock makes it work. So, I give him great credit for that. Now, besides the achievement, I still found it fairly silly that the climax of this movie takes place on a carousel filled with people. It just felt forced and unrealistic. Not that I know a lot about carousels, but why would one have a setting that causes it to spin dangerously fast? That felt so odd to me that it blunted the impact of this scenes. Maybe I'm totally wrong and this is realistic, but it just felt so beyond the realm of the realistic that it detracted from the ending.

So, while Strangers on a Train does have some of the most thrilling individual scenes I've ever watched, as a whole, it felt very, very good, but never quite great. It did receive one Academy Award nomination- Best Cinematography, Black and White. By all accounts, it's a classic film and one that is required viewing. I'd never fault anyone for loving this film, but I couldn't quite get fully on board.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window