Strangers on a Train

When British director Alfred Hitchcock’s success in movies finally led him to Hollywood, he enjoyed a string of hits in the late 1930s and early-to-mid-1940s. After the romantic masterpiece Notorious, the director’s career hit a slump that lasted years, finally ending with the critical and public triumph of Strangers on a Train. The film is one of Hitchcock’s finest works…it encompasses everything a thriller should plus all of the usual “Hitchcockian” elements that make an ordinary thriller extraordinary. The title says it all…two men meet randomly on a train. One is a well-bred spoiled drifter (Robert Walker) and the other an estranged husband (Farley Granger) who desperately wants to leave his philandering wife behind and start his life over with a new love. Hitchcock’s use of camera and light are top-notch here. Scenes where Granger catches Walker spying on him are magnificent, with Walker increasingly portrayed as a psychopathic just by the camera techniques Hitchcock uses. There is a reason this film put Hitchcock back on the map as one of the best directors in the world…rent this one and see for yourself!