Synopsis
It starts with a shriek of a train whistle...and ends with shrieking excitement.
A psychotic socialite confronts a pro tennis star with a theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder—a theory that he plans to implement.
1951 Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
A psychotic socialite confronts a pro tennis star with a theory on how two complete strangers can get away with murder—a theory that he plans to implement.
Delitto per delitto (L'altro uomo), Delitto per delitto - L'altro uomo, мЕГМЮЙНЛЖШ Б ОНЕГДЕ, 追魂记, Verschwörung im Nordexpress, De Maniak, Nepažistamieji traukinyje, Stranci u vozu, Mishiranu jôkyaku, Farlig reisefølge, O agnostos tou express, 見知らぬ乗客, Trendeki Yabancı
i think the worst part of getting murdered in the 1950s is that your killer would most certainly be some whiteman in a fedora
Guy is a hotshot tennis player who is married but in love with another woman. Bruno is a charming chap who loves his mom but also happens to be a sociopathic homicidal maniac. They meet as strangers on a train but after the ride ends it's only the beginning of this wild ride from the suspense master Alfred Hitchcock. How many of you have your name on your tie? The obvious sexual tension between Guy and Bruno. Gigantic bucket list. Murder swap? All aboard the train Mr. Hitchcock. Complex baby mama drama. Dirty sneaky Mrs. Haines. Payphone death threat. Real motherfuckers get manicures from their mothers. Words can't describe how gangsta Bruno looks in his Liberace-esque robe. Carnies. You can…
We've always been on the outside, pushed there, shoved out, damned for who we are. It's easy to remember the blacklisted communists, but they came after the queers, too. Even before the Code, even before the blacklist, we always had to hide it, to make it subtle, to hint at it without saying it. We became pretty good at it, and if you knew what you were looking for, you could find it. Men had wives and women had husbands, but the right tension here, the right gesture there, and the symbol of queerness was on the screen for us to relate to. We've always been on the edges, telling our stories without telling our stories; that's why the conventional…
me: hi how are y—
any hitchcock character: let me tell you how i would plan the perfect MURDER. i love murder, i'm so random :)
3.1/5
The closest thing Hitchcock has done to a Noir, Strangers on a Train is one of his most underrated. Right at the beginning of his best decade, it kicks off one of the best runs any director has had. I think one of the reasons it’s a les discussed Hitchcock is because it doesn’t have any big name stars, though the acting does not suffer because of it.
I am so impressed by the screenplay here, the tension is just perfectly constructed. It has all of Hitchcock’s favorite things, from trains to being wrongly accused.
I always appreciate Farley Granger more whenever I see him. I think in the 70s he would have been more of a star when the…
A thrilling ride of relentless suspense from beginning to end, Strangers on a Train continues Alfred Hitchcock's unprecedented run of quality thrillers and is one of the most memorable films of his remarkable film career. An aesthetic work of filmmaking, it remains one of the greatest examples of its genre & is also immortal for its contribution to cinema as a whole.
Based on the novel of the same name, Strangers on a Train concerns two strangers, a tennis player & a charming psychopath, who meet up on a train where the latter tells the former his theory of a 'perfect murder'. Things are however set in motion when the psychopath eventually goes on to implement his ideas for real.
The direction…
Suspense is a weird thing and Mr. Hitchcock seems to be able to find it with the greatest of ease.
Aided by a superb script, Hitchcock takes the fantastic premise to another level by instilling it with his unique style and amazing use of angles and perspective. It is ridiculous how far ahead of his time he was with this film in just about all aspects of filmmaking. He could turn something as simple as, oh let's say, a tennis match into edge of your seat stuff. Not to mention the merry-go-round ride at the end, which is a thing of beauty.
Hitchcock's films have given us some very memorable villains, but somehow Robert Walker's Bruno gets overlooked. He's more…
Noir-November Challenge! Movie #23
The premise was intriguing and when the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock is at the helm there are no concerns as to whether or not he can pull it off! You betcha by golly wow did he ever!
The ingenious use of reflection gave us an eerie and bone chilling look at cold blooded murder from a unique perspective!
Kudos Mr. Hitchcock for once again turning an innocent activity into something so frightening we can never look at it again muchless think about it without visualizing horrific images of death and destruction! The scene I'm referring to was so gloriously devious and demented I went absolutely apeshit in the comfort of my easychair! I literally had to restrain myself to avoid waking my neighbors whom were still deep in slumber!
Crime | Drama | Thriller
Bruno Anthony: Everyone has somebody that they want to put out of the way. Oh now surely, Madam, you're not going to tell me that there hasn't been a time that you didn't want to dispose of someone. Your husband, for instance?
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, [in my opinion] is one of the best Hitchcock films. The storyline is great, and interesting. The characters are all very well developed, the performances are all great, but I think it's Robert Walker's performance as Bruno Antony that really steals the show, he is one of the most coolest and disturbing villains of the noir film in the cinematic history. One the reason that Strangers on a Train…
It's hard to go back to some of these classic Hitchcocks, many of which I haven't seen since college but which I obsessively watched and read about back then. I could regurgitate whatever nonsense I've retained from that period of my life, but I think what's more important is that even with my intense oversaturation in Hitchcock trivia I still find them an immense pleasure to watch.
One thing that I noticed this time through that I never really put together before is the way the first scene in the film is constructed. Before Bruno and Guy meet on the eponymous train, all we see of each of them is their shoes. We can tell that we're looking at two…
77/100
If the universe is truly infinite, somewhere out there is a near-duplicate of Earth where people idly wonder how much better Casablanca might have been with someone other than Ronald Reagan as Rick, but would be horrified at the very idea of Strangers on a Train with Farley Fucking Granger in the Montgomery Clift role. (Or pick whoever you think fits.) I've seen half-hearted defenses of Granger's performance, arguing that Guy needs to be more weak-willed than most stars of the era could manage, but weak-willed doesn't have to mean wooden. He's a total drag, and it's a testament to Hitchcock's genius (and to Highsmith's brilliant idea) that the movie approaches greatness even saddled with such a huge liability.…
The nighttime scene at the county fair in this movie has got to be the greatest Hitchcock set piece of all time. In it, Robert Walker's Bruno becomes a boatman on the river Styx, ferrying his victim away from the lurid, temporal pleasures of the carnival and towards the quiet darkness waiting for her on the other side. It climaxes with that iconic moment where a pair of glasses bears witness to the final moments of its owner. Amazing stuff.
The rest of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is similarly fantastic. In its pitch black humor and its pointed skewering of upper class social manners, one can hear echoes of great Ealing Studios dark comedies like KING HEARTS AND CORONETS.
A minor masterpiece.
Took a while to watch this one because of the train content: thankfully it was a measured, perhaps even negative, depiction of trains.
I thought it was going to be the story of two "evil" dudes alla Rope, but it was more the story of one nice dude and one evil dude. The gay undertones were very easy to pick up on and the two performances (one innocent and one deranged) complimented each other very nicely.
I have to say that this film has one of the silliest Hitchcockian suspense sequences that answers the age old question: what is faster? A man playing tennis or a man trying to get a lighter out of the drain? The film became much…
"When an alibi is full of bourbon, sir, it can't stand up."
I was honestly not expecting to rank this as highly among Hitchcock films as I am. It oozes noir aesthetics and I just love that. The whole predatory stalking through the carnival sequence feels like it could have been done by Orson Welles. It's not a long one, but it makes every suspenseful second count.
rating: 4.0 / 4.0
www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-strangers-on-a-train-1951
Disclaimer: I do not claim to have ownership over or to have written the following review. This review was written by Roger Ebert, where the official online posting of which is linked above
The abiding terror in Alfred Hitchcock's life was that he would be accused of a crime he did not commit. This fear is at the heart of many of his best films, including "Strangers on a Train" (1951), in which a man becomes the obvious suspect in the strangulation of his wife. He makes an excellent suspect because of the genius of the actual killer's original plan: Two strangers will "exchange murders," each killing the person the other wants dead. They would…
Na ja, einer von Hitchcocks groessten Klassikern, da duerfte in den Rezensionen hier so ziemlich alles gesagt worden sein. Hab ihn gestern geguckt, und es war etwas besonderes - war es doch der einzige Hitchcock Film bis in die fruehen 60er hinein, den ich mir noch nie wirklich aufmerksam angeguckt hatte. Frueher ab und an so nebenbei im Fernsehen, aber warum auch immer, voll bewusst hatte ich ihn noch nie gesehen.
War natuerlich keine Ueberraschung, das der Film sehr gut ist. Erstmal gefaellt es mir, wie Hitchcock es schafft, die Story aus der Romanvorlage von Highsmith abzuaendern und dabei etwas eigenstaendiges, gleichwertig gutes fabriziert. Buch und Film sind gleichwertig, find ich. Wurde ja auch sehr lange am Drehbuch gefeilt. Keine…
Damn you Hitchcock for getting me on the edge of my seat for a game of tennis.
“My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer.” ~ Bruno Anthony
I have no true words on this? Like. Super good and interesting movie I will say. Clever and very well written and unique are some words I could say I suppose. The writing is, well it’s Alfred Hitchcock haha! Great as usual to be honest.
I recommend it for those that enjoy a cheap thrill. It’s easy to spook. I was honestly on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next cause so much was being thrown around.
Also rip the random guy that crawled under the train.
Actually higher on my list of Hitchcock than I was expecting.
The tension, the drama, the queerness.
I think it's interesting that Hitchcock put this out just after Rope, wildly agreed to be one of his most upfront gay movies.
The queer-coded villain is nothing new in the 1950s, but all of Hitchcock's gay-coded-villains being obsessed with murder for murder's sake, let alone the consistency with strangulation by hand or rope is interesting and there is probably something there to analyze.
While yes, there is still a lot of Hitchcock's work I haven't seen yet [at least as an adult], I feel confident enough in coming to that conclusion.
You will just meet the wrong person during your train journey. Luckily never happened to me. Dealing with a psychopath would have been an even better title for this story. Wonderfully uncomfortable at times. The whole spectacle surrounding the murders is very well thought out. Those are also the moments when it really grabs you by the throat. Unfortunately, you will not be strangled all the time, but a breather will help.
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