Today’s quick review: Strangers on a Train. When Guy Haines (Farley Granger), a famous tennis player, meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) on a train, the peculiar stranger makes him an offer: Bruno will kill Guy’s troublesome wife if Guy kills Bruno’s father in return. Guy thinks the matter a hypothetical until Bruno carries out his end of the bargain, casting suspicion on Guy for a crime he didn’t commit.
Strangers on a Train is a suspense thriller from director Alfred Hitchcock. Working with mundane yet chilling plot components, Strangers on a Train traps Guy Haines in a nearly inescapable web of suspicion and guilt. The film features Hitchcock’s powerful sense of tension, a fascinating villain in Bruno, and a pair of plausible, imperfect heroes in Guy and his lover Anne (Ruth Roman).
Strangers on a Train is a mystery in reverse. The crime is known in advance, but the details of how it plays out and the events that follow it prove to be very important. Even simple moments in the movie are significant, and the audience is drawn into a guessing game of which clues will prove Guy’s innocence and which ones will entangle him more deeply in the crime.
Like other Hitchcock films, Strangers on a Train does an excellent job of eliciting discomfort in the viewer. Bruno Antony seems harmless at first, a talkative man prone to strange ideas. But as his conversations go on, they reveal a deranged yet highly rational mind, one more than capable of killing to maintain his skewed view of the world. The danger is subtle and indirect, lurking in a disturbingly plausible social blind spot.
Fans of Alfred Hitchcock will recognize Strangers on a Train as another classic. The bleak outlook of Guy’s circumstances makes the film a heavy one, so those hoping for a more active thriller should look elsewhere. But those who relish suspense, paranoia, and the menace of evil hiding in plain sight will find Strangers on a Train to be a rewarding watch. Skip it if you prefer outright horror rather than suspense.
8.0 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 7.5 for solid execution of an unsettling premise.