Strangers on a Train (1951)

"...a carnival of action, tension, and murder.  Doug Pratt's Laserdisc Review
"The movie is usually ranked among Hitchcock's best...  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Editor's Note STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, quickly became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful thrillers and remains one of his most popular films. En route from Washington, D.C., champion tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets pushy playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). What begins as a chance encounter turns into a series of morbid confrontations, as Bruno manipulates his way into Guy's life. Bruno is eager to kill his father and knows Guy wants to marry a senator's daughter (Ruth Roman) but cannot get a divorce from his wife, Miriam (Laura Elliot). So Bruno suggests the men swap murders, which would leave no traceable clues or possible motives. Though Guy refuses, it will not be so easy to rid himself of the psychopathic Bruno. The film is tightly paced and disturbing from beginning to end, an effect heightened by Hitchcock's inventive camera work, including a terrifying sequence shot through a pair of eyeglasses that have been knocked to the ground.

	Farley Granger
	Leo G. Carroll
	Patricia Hitchcock
	Robert Walker
	Ruth Roman
	Alfred Hitchcock - Director
	Alfred Hitchcock - Producer
	Dimitri Tiomkin - Musical Score
	Patricia Highsmith - Based On Novel By
	Raymond Chandler - Writer
	Robert Burks - Cinematographer
	William Ziegler - Editor

This picture quickly became one of Alfred Hitchcock's most successful thrillers and remains one of his most popular films. Undoubtedly one of his finest films, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN transforms a highly improbable situation into a series of logical events that inexorably lead to murder. A psychopathic man plans what he thinks is an "exchange murder" with a stranger he meets on a train. Los Angeles Times
"...STRANGERS ON A TRAIN remains a timeless treat, a marvelous display of Hitchcock's absolute mastery of his medium and a deliciously dark comedy as well..." 11/18/1996 p.F5

Total Film
"...Walker is spine-chilling....With intense attention to detail and award-winning photography, this is Hitchcock at his best..." 10/01/2000 p.114

Chicago Sun-Times
"[A] first-rate thriller with odd little kinks now and then. It proceeds, as Hitchcock's films so often do, with a sense of private scores being settled just out of sight." 12/21/2003 p.3

Premiere
"STRANGERS is one of Hitch's best." 07/01/2004 p.116

USA Today
"Alfred Hitchcock launched his richest period with this rousing adaptation..." 09/10/2004 p.6D