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…

Hitchcock's films are fascinating to say the least. Whether you see the medium purely for entertainment purposes or have a genuine interest in the artistic side of it he is the go-to man. I have never met a single person who doesn't love his incredible output lasting from the 40's all the way into the 60's and even after all these decades do they remain impactful and rewarding. Strangers on a Train is unsurprisingly no exception and proves to be another addition to the steadily growing list of classics I should've seen much earlier, almost single-handedly putting the idea that I'm some sort of film buff to shame. The greatest thing about Hitchcock is that his style is so instantly…

Part of the Alfred Hitchcock Sound Era Films In Chronological Order project.

For most, Strangers On A Train was where Hitchcock was to start on a run of films unmatched by almost every director in history. It's hard to argue with that (although I haven't seen I Confess yet and therefore cannot agree just yet) but should Strangers On A Train be remembered as one of his definitive masterpieces?

There were times in the first hour of the film, which I had seen before but a long time ago now, where I wasn't sure I was buying this plot. For all of Robert Walker's suggestions to Farley Granger that his "criss-cross" plot would involve the perfect murders, I very quickly…

Alfred Hitchcock Revisited (#3)

"It's so simple, too. A couple of fellows meet accidentally, like you and me. No connection between them at all. Never saw each other before. Each of them has somebody he'd like to get rid of, but he can't murder the person he wants to get rid of. He'll get caught. So they swap murders."

I'm going to try my hardest to make this shorter and less in-depth than my previous Hitchcock reviews because I feel that with a film like Strangers on a Train, the less said the better. It's the kind of film to walk in knowing only the pretext and just sit back and watch it unfold.

Scratch that. I'm going all the…

Criss-cross.
-Bruno Anthony

There's nothing like watching a film by Alfred Hitchcock to remind you just how lazy a lot of today's directors are. Most of them can't manage to set tone and suspense with a $200 million budget, while Hitchcock could do it with nothing more then a camera and a couple of actors.

While the general plot is straight forward while being ingenious, there's still an incredible amount of subtext all over this film. The first conversation between Guy (Farley Granger) and Bruno (Robert Walker) for example almost resembles a sexual predator seducing a naive victim. While the subject matter of their conversation has nothing to do with sex or sexual orientation, it's still played out in this…

Whilst Hitchcock's 50s work is widely praised (and in many ways rightly so), a majority of his 50s classics don't grab me on an emotional level.

While this film was entertaining, I found the plot and premise a tad underwhelming. I actually went into this film assuming it was going to be entirely set on a train. That said, the cast is good. Farley Granger is like an early Montgomery prototype, the attractive tall dark stranger who isn't terribly smart. I assumed Robert Walker was Robert Mitchum, it's a good villain role (especially since we see it from his point of view at times). Also, while the 3rd act was over reliant on tension, it did include some great set-pieces.…

Classic Hitchcock that contains everything we've come to expect from him - masterfully done suspense and tension, great characters, an interesting story and beautiful visuals.

The story follows tennis player Guy Haines and the stranger, Bruno Anthony. They meet by chance on a train and strike up a conversation, both revealing frustrations caused by people in their personal lives. Unfortunately for Guy, Bruno is a rather eccentric individual and he misunderstands Guy's casual following along of his cross-murder plans as acceptance of going through with the act. A simple setup but it leads to a fascinating clash of personalities.

Robert Walker overpowers everyone else here in the role of the sociopathic Bruno Anthony. He isn't your typical antagonist, the danger…

Whilst Hitchcock's 50s work is widely praised (and in many ways rightly so), a majority of his 50s classics don't grab me on an emotional level.

While this film was entertaining, I found the plot and premise a tad underwhelming. I actually went into this film assuming it was going to be entirely set on a train. That said, the cast is good. Farley Granger is like an early Montgomery prototype, the attractive tall dark stranger who isn't terribly smart. I assumed Robert Walker was Robert Mitchum, it's a good villain role (especially since we see it from his point of view at times). Also, while the 3rd act was over reliant on tension, it did include some great set-pieces.…