Rating: 
Summary: "...I said I could STRANGLE her!"
Review: Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a tense, upright tennis champion who is taking the train to meet his wife. On the train he meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker), an eccentric fellow who 'admires people who do things'.While engaged in conversation, Guy reveals that he hates his father who has been pestering him to get a job (can you imagine that?!) Bruno knows that Guy hates his adulterous wife whom he wants to divorce. Bruno proposes that they exchange murders. Bruno will murder Guy's wife, and Guy will murder Bruno's father, "criss-cross" as Bruno says. Since Bruno and Guy don't know each other, they would have no motive for killing the other person's wife and father. Guy laughs at Bruno's absurd scheme and walks away without taking Bruno seriously. But Bruno misunderstands. Soon Guy's wife is found strangled. And Bruno wants Guy to carry out his side of the bargain.... This terrific suspense film is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most entertaining films. It manages to keep you on the edge of your seat, while at the same time incorporating a lot of humor. Bruno Antony is one of Hitchcock's most interesting villains. A spoiled son of an over indulgent mother and a millionaire businessman father, Bruno at first seems harmless enough. He is a bum who doesn't work but lives life to the fullest, ingratiating himself on everybody. In one of the film's most amusing scenes, he invites himself to a cocktail party and tells his half-baked ideas to the pampered women. But there is something sinister about him that we are quick to pick up on. When Bruno finds Guy unwilling to go through with his plan, he begins stalking Guy and coming out into the open. I especially liked the film's final twenty minutes. Hitchcock builds suspense masterfully as he cross-cuts showing Guy desperately trying to complete a tennis game so he can get to the amusement park before Bruno can plant Guy's lighter at the scene of the crime. The showdown with Guy and Bruno struggling on the merry-go-round, is one of the most brilliantly choreographed scenes ever in a Hitchcock film. The whole fairground, once happily oblivious to the world's problems, seems to come crashing down on Guy and Bruno's heads. This film is worth comparing to another, later Hitchcock film, "Frenzy". Both films deal with two people, one of whom is a murderer, the other who is suspected of being a murderer. While in both films the prime suspect is innocent of the actual crime, he is not innocent of the desire. There's even a scene where the killer must retrive an incriminating piece of evidence, that brings to mind a similar sequence in "Strangers". Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: spellbinding Hitchcock
Review: "Strangers on a Train" is one of my favorite Hitchcock films, for its trademark spellbinding suspense, whimsical touches, and unpredictability. The director's daughter Patricia has a featured role in the film, and he makes one of his silent cameo appearances early on. See if you can spot him!
Ruth Roman gives us a sterling performance as the love interest, a smart, attractive senator's daughter who quickly sees to the heart of the matter. Farley Granger is in top form and seethes with malice. The superb supporting cast is flawless.
At the conclusion of the film, the merry-go-round scene will affect you at the level of a nightmare. "Strangers on a Train" is Hitchcock at his best. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A forgotten Hitchcock classic...
Review: Because it does not features any big name stars like Cary Grant or James Stewart, Strangers on a Train does not have the same popularity as some other classic Hitchcock films, such as North by Northwest or Rear Window. This is too bad - Strangers on a Train is just as good, even if it does have lesser known stars. Strangers on a Train is very entertaining - it is suspenseful, clever, even humorous (at times), and has some truly memorable sequences. Basically Strangers on a Train is about a tennis star (Farley Granger) who meets a strange man on a train (Robert Walker). The two speak about murder, and Walker's character proposes that they... Granger laughs, but he soon realizes that Walker wasn't kidding... Anyhow, this movie is very cleverly made and very exciting. Even though it is not as well known as North by Northwest, it should be - see it soon and enjoy. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Great suspense thriller with comedic overtones
Review: There's very little to add to all that's been written about Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" since its release half a century ago. It is from his most fertile and successful decade, which saw the likes of "Rear Window", "Vertigo", "North by Northwest" and "Psycho". This was also the period in which he began hosting the TV series which made him so familiar to millions of people. Hitch takes his favorite main character - an ordinary man inadvertently trapped in a web of danger and deceit - and puts him through the wringer. This time the man is Guy Haines [Farley Granger], a tennis star. He's a nice guy whose only real problem at the beginning seems to be that he wants to divorce his wife and marry another woman. One day he meets an eccentric fan named Bruno Antony [Robert Walker] on a train. Bruno strikes up a bantering, banal conversation which suddenly takes a dark turn. He has a plan to commit the perfect murder. He reasons that if two strangers committed each other's murder, neither would be caught because neither would have a motive. Perhaps, for example, Bruno could get rid of Guy's wife in exchange for Guy's dispatching Bruno's rich father. Our man dismisses all this as the ravings of a mad man, but just after he has a terrible fight with his wife, we see Bruno stalking her. Guy doesn't know the meaning of the word trouble. As his living nightmare gets scarier and scarier, things literally spin out of control, culminating in one of the most famous [and harrowing] climaxes in movie history. "Strangers on a Train", I think, most closely resembles "Rear Window" [made three years later] because the relentless suspense and the truly diabolical nature of the story is tempered with a great deal of humor, as if to remind the audience not to take it all too seriously. [In 1955 Hitch experimented with murder as all out farce in "The Trouble With Harry". The results were mixed.] The musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin is one of his best. The cinematographer, Robert Burks, was nominated for an Oscar. The great mystery writer Raymond Chandler wrote much of the screenplay, which was also worked on by an uncredited Ben Hecht, who often did this for Hitch and others. The movie is based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit slow and upsetting
Review: So this was Hitchcock's favorite movie that he ever made? I don't agree. I would gladly have chosen Rear Window or North By Northwest first. I understand his reasoning for this being his favorite movie but it would never hold up in my opininon of being one of his all time best. The movie just moves a bit too slow and is just upsetting as far as the ending goes. I have not had the desire to watch this one again. On the other hand Rear Window and North By Northwest receive regular rotation in my DVD player. Buy Rear Window or North By Northwest instead of this first.
Rating:
Summary: Um...not really.
Review: ..."Strangers on a Train" does not have the thrill or suspense of either of those two, which I enjoyed far more. It is not even on par with "Psycho" or "The Birds," and I didn't enjoy "Rear Window" much but I enjoyed it more than "Strangers on a Train."...I give it three stars because I'm a tennis NUT. This movie has some tennis court scenes. Wimbledon it ain't, but then again, one of Hitchcock's best it ain't, either...
Rating:
Summary: Hitchock does it again
Review: This is one my favorite Hitchock movies because it is trully exciting. The level of suspense is amazing. You'd figure with the advanecement of movie techonology Hollywood would be able to create an unequally great suspense movie, but stranger on a train really shows that Hitchock was able to create suspense the best.
Rating: 
Summary: 2 versions for price of one
Review: You get two versions on this movie on one DVD. The more commonly viewed American release as well as a slightly longer British version. The print is decent on both, and the movie plot is a classic. A good buy for the price, and a valuable addition to your DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: Tricks of a Master
Review: "Strangers on a Train" shows master Alfred Hitchcock at his most delightfully deceptive, keeping audiences on the edges of their seats as he toys with our emotions and keeps us in perpetual suspense down to the final scene in his adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel. The film begins with a highly inventive scene with no dialogue which shows us so much about the two principal players in the drama. We see the feet of Robert Walker and Farley Granger as they walk toward the same train. Walker's is a devil-may-care gait and he wears flashy shoes, while Granger's is more purposefully conservative with footwear to match. We soon find that the personalities match the initially created profiles. Granger is a prominent tennis player who hopes to climb the social ladder, dating the beautiful daughter of a prominent U.S. Senator, with Ruth Roman and Leo G. Carroll playing the aforementioned roles. He would really like to be left alone, but kindly consents to converse with the boldly intrusive Walker, who finally persuades him to be his guest for lunch. At lunch Granger learns how disturbed Walker is when he proposes a murder exchange, with him killing Granger's wife, who is making it difficult for him to obtain a divorce, in exchange for the tennis player killing Walker's wealthy father, whom Walker finds autocratic and detests. Granger assumes Walker is nothing more than a crank, leaving him gladly when his train stop arrives. When Walker follows through and calls Granger, telling him it is his turn to produce, the tennis player feels ultimately trapped, suffocated by a psycho who hates his father and is doted upon by his neurotic mother. Walker's presence is revealed in the shadowy confines of evening outside the senator's house when Granger is there to see Ruth Roman, a great camera shot which reveals a brooding perpetual presence of Walker observing nearby without one word needing to be spoken by Walker. Hitchcock toys with his audience perpetually. At one point Granger intends to talk to Walker's father about his troubled son, who seeks to blackmail the tennis star into committing a murder, threatening to expose him for the earlier killing Walker perpetrated against Granger's promiscuous wife. Granger walks up the stairs to the second floor of the mansion very slowly. Standing outside the bedroom where Granger presumes he will find Walker's father is a large dog. After the slow, tension-building walk Granger paces tentatively toward the dog, who turns out to be friendly. After Granger steps inside the room he finds Walker in place of his father. Walker came into possession of Granger's cigarette lighter by accident during their meeting on the train. He intends to plant it at the amusement park where he had killed Granger's wife to implicate Granger. The tennis star, whose playing style matches his personality, slow and methodical, plays a relentless, attacking game which has tennis fans confounded, hoping to end the match quickly and beat Walker to the amusement park. Walker at one point drops the cigarette lighter, which falls into a manhole. It is finally fished out. Once again Hitchcock is tantalyzing his audience by tempting it to root for the villain. The film reaches a crashing finale when Walker and Granger battle on the merry-go-round at the amusement park. A worker seeks to shut down the ride, but a fuse blows and panic results with the merry-go-round moving at a runaway pace. It was one of the most ingenious scenes Hitchcock ever filmed. The screenplay credit went to Raymond Chandler, the last film credit of the great mystery writer's career. He and Hitchcock reached a parting of the ways early in the project and Chandler's screenplay was rewritten, but his name is the one that survives on the screen. Alfred Hitchcock's daughter Patricia tried out for the part of Ruth Roman's younger sister and was cast by her father, doing a convincing job.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Entertaining, Although Sometimes Ridiculous
Review: Some of Hitch's films are a bit of a chore to sit through. They can be draggy and slow-paced compared to today's thrillers. This one is highly entertaining though, and has some great performances, especially Robert Walker and Patricia Hitchcock. The concept is good and the settings well-selected. The oft-mentioned carousel scene is just plain ridiculous though. The dvd is worth renting for the British version. It also has a better picture than the US side.
| 
