Rent Strangers on a Train (1951)

Terrific and slightly creepy thriller - Strangers on a Train review by CP Customer

This is a terrific and slightly creepy thriller with many of the usual Hitchcock themes. The photography is beautiful and makes the most of the black and white film with many striking images which burn onto the retina and make this film very much one that can be seen repeatedly. One thing hasn't stood the test of time: the quasi-Freudian and to my mind bogus psychology which seems to hover in the background over so many of his films. Nevertheless a very enjoyable 97 minutes.

Creepy but outdated - Strangers on a Train review by GC

Enjoyed it but found it a bit outdated by today's standards, not one of Hitchcock,s best but interesting. with some clever photography.

Style over content. - Strangers on a Train review by Steve

After four straight box office flops Hitch was back in the money with this popular adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's debut novel. Two men meet by accident and discuss exchanging murders thereby obscuring the motive.

One slight frustration I have with Strangers on a Train is that Hitch had one of the great crime writer of the century to collaborate with on this in Raymond Chandler, and yet he sacked him rather than work through the anguish like Billy Wilder did on Double Indemnity. What might have been.

It has a great noir look, and many memorable and superbly crafted set pieces, such as the shot of a distant Robert Walker seen isolated against the Jefferson Monument, or the concluding chase scene on a carousel. The murder of Farley Granger's wife in the reflection of her spectacles is unforgettable.

 And yet it doesn't quite succeed. Many thrillers skate round the idea that the innocent victim would be far better off just going to tell the police everything he knows. But in Strangers on a Train, it feels especially confounding. The premise is just too crazy to support the film. So it's a case of style over content. But there are other incidental pleasure like Marion Lorne who plays Walker's mother, one of Hitchcock's most wonderfully eccentric mother figures.