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Amazon.co.uk Review
From its cleverly choreographed opening sequence to its heart-stopping climax on a rampant carousel, this 1951 Hitchcock classic readily earns its reputation as one of the director's finest examples of timeless cinematic suspense. It's not just a ripping-good thriller but a film student's delight and a perversely enjoyable battle of wits between tennis pro Guy (Farley Granger) and his mysterious, sycophantic admirer, Bruno (Robert Walker), who proposes a "criss-cross" scheme of traded murders. Bruno agrees to kill Guy's unfaithful wife, in return for which Guy will (or so it seems) kill Bruno's spiteful father. With an emphasis on narrative and visual strategy, Hitchcock controls the escalating tension with a master's flair for cinematic design, and the plot (coscripted by Raymond Chandler) is so tightly constructed that you'll be white-knuckled even after multiple viewings. Strangers on a Train remains one of Hitchcock's crowning achievements and a suspenseful classic that never loses its capacity to thrill and delight. --Jeff Shannon
Video Description
DVD Special Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Trailer
Hitchcock Newsreel footage
Language is Mono: Side A - English, French, Italian. Side B - English
Subtitles: English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Bulgarian, English for the hearing impaired, Italian for the hearing impaired.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
A chance meeting in a train carriage brings Robert Walker's deceptively amiable Bruno into conversation with smart society tennis player (Farley Granger). Both men hypothesise on the nature of killing, and Bruno suggests that they exchange a verbal contract of murder, Granger's wife for Walker's father, much to the sportsman's amusement. But when his wife turns up strangled days later and a brief phone call reminds Granger of his obligation he understands, with chilling realisation, the contract was all too real. The premise of the film fits neatly as a parable of a pact with the devil. Walker is a psychopath with his eye on family money, his father the sole remaining obstacle to his inheritance, whilst Granger is in a stale marriage with his eye on another woman. Murder would suit both very well, but conscience pulls Granger back from the brink, his mind unable to cope with the enormity of murder. He is, however, in a battle of wits with a man in every sense his intellectual equal and unrestrained by the need to play to rules. Hitchcock's playground: the human conscience and the merry dance it can lead us, is given good airing here as the metaphorical noose slips tighter around Granger's neck. Both men give good value in their respective roles but you sense that it is Walker, with beguiling charm and understated menace, who is close in spirit to his psychotic character than Granger is to his perplexed nemisis.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) on a train and Bruno has the idea for a perfect murder. If two people, who ostensibly have never met, swap murders there will be no apparent motive and nothing to link each to the other's crime. Guy humours Bruno, largely to get rid of him, but Bruno actually carries out the murder of his wife, and then expects him to return the favour. This is the basis of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train.
Packed with great set-pieces (the tennis match, the climactic carousel ride), stunning technical shots (we see Miriam Haines' murder through her own glasses) and a superb villain in the form of Robert Walker's Bruno Antony, Strangers On A Train was a return to form for Hitch after three relatively disappointing films both in terms of critical and commercial reaction (Rope, Under Capricorn & Stage Fright).
Hitchcock expertly toys with the audience's emotions throughout the film. Although Bruno is a murderer, we feel more sympathetic to him that we do to Guy at times. After all, Guy would like to have done it himself and shows little emotion at his wife's death. A great moment comes when Bruno decides to blackmail Guy; having kept Guy's lighter he intends to place it at the scene of the murder and whilst we, as viewers, desperately want Guy to finish his tennis match in time (and escape the attentions of the police) in order to give chase to Bruno, we also hope that Bruno, who drops the lighter down a drain on his way to the scene, manages to grab the lighter and continue on his journey. It's also true in general terms that Hitchcock's camera seems to prefer the charismatic and flamboyant Bruno to the more stoic and, well, dull Guy.
As ever with Hitchcock, the film was very different from the Patricia Highsmith novel upon which it was based; in the book Guy actually kills Bruno's father and Bruno's main motivation is not the death of his father but his hope of an amorous relationship with Guy, a strand of the story firmly pushed to the background in the movie, although there are intriguing nuances that hint at it.
A great initial idea, a tight script, a superb villain, some cracking set-pieces and the suspense and tension cranked up to the maximum. Whatever way you look at it, Strangers On A Train is a great slice of Hitchcock action.
Packed with great set-pieces (the tennis match, the climactic carousel ride), stunning technical shots (we see Miriam Haines' murder through her own glasses) and a superb villain in the form of Robert Walker's Bruno Antony, Strangers On A Train was a return to form for Hitch after three relatively disappointing films both in terms of critical and commercial reaction (Rope, Under Capricorn & Stage Fright).
Hitchcock expertly toys with the audience's emotions throughout the film. Although Bruno is a murderer, we feel more sympathetic to him that we do to Guy at times. After all, Guy would like to have done it himself and shows little emotion at his wife's death. A great moment comes when Bruno decides to blackmail Guy; having kept Guy's lighter he intends to place it at the scene of the murder and whilst we, as viewers, desperately want Guy to finish his tennis match in time (and escape the attentions of the police) in order to give chase to Bruno, we also hope that Bruno, who drops the lighter down a drain on his way to the scene, manages to grab the lighter and continue on his journey. It's also true in general terms that Hitchcock's camera seems to prefer the charismatic and flamboyant Bruno to the more stoic and, well, dull Guy.
As ever with Hitchcock, the film was very different from the Patricia Highsmith novel upon which it was based; in the book Guy actually kills Bruno's father and Bruno's main motivation is not the death of his father but his hope of an amorous relationship with Guy, a strand of the story firmly pushed to the background in the movie, although there are intriguing nuances that hint at it.
A great initial idea, a tight script, a superb villain, some cracking set-pieces and the suspense and tension cranked up to the maximum. Whatever way you look at it, Strangers On A Train is a great slice of Hitchcock action.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This film is absolute Hitchcock. The suspense, the tension, the whole atmosphere is mouth watering. The dialogue is utterly stunning and the cinematography is quite brilliant. I am running out of superlatives to describe this film but one more superb aspect must be mentioned; the performance by Robert Walker. As the slightly deranged, yet extremely intelligent, young man Walker is absolutely spectacular. His mannerism is so incredibly convincing it is shocking and without him my rating of this film would be completely different.
The essential plot behind the film is that of two strangers meeting on a train (one being the slightly insane Walker) with one of the two unwittingly landing himself in a difficult situation, where he finds he is an accessory to murder with nowhere to hide. As with all Hitchcock films it is the suspense that makes the film an absolute masterpiece of cinema. However, with this film many other elements (mainly Walker) push the bar even higher giving an indescribably good product.
The only minor let down in this film was Farley Granger's part which I found to be lacking slightly. This, however, cannot detract from its 5 star rating and this is still a must buy film, especially if you are a fan of the classics.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Master At Work
Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 film Strangers On A Train is perhaps one of his lesser known works, but, for me, it is right up there with the very best films Hitch made such as Vertigo,... Read more
Published 24 days ago by Keith M
Puppet theatre
This film could have been shot without a word of dialogue - it may have been better had it been. What's good about the film? Read more
Published 3 months ago by W. Hamilton
great movie
Great actors, atmosphere and plot. One of those movies that you give your teenager children to watch so that they can learn what a good movie is. Great for a rainy night. Read more
Published 8 months ago by anna
Strangers on a train
Though not as good as 'North by Northwest', 'Vertigo' or 'Rear Window', but this psychological thriller still delivers. It's gripping and keeps you in suspense.
Published 9 months ago by Miss B
Dateless Classic
If anyone wants to find out where most of movie-makers of the last few decades got their ideas from for intrigue, suspense, audacious shock - look no further than this masterpiece. Read more
Published 14 months ago by A. M. Bretherton
A great film and a superb subtext
It is best to think of this film as the second in an two-part series of Hitchcock films in which he explores homosexuality, through a film based on the subject of the perfect... Read more
Published 15 months ago by S. Meadows
Hitchcock delivers stunning thriller
Tennis player Guy Haines (Granger) gets caught in the wrong place when
he meets Bruno Anthony (Walker) on a train who tells him about a double
cross murder idea and how... Read more
he meets Bruno Anthony (Walker) on a train who tells him about a double
cross murder idea and how... Read more
Published on 6 Dec 2009 by Stampy
2 DISC EDITION.
The 2 disc edition,as shown in the graphics,has two versions of the movie ,a pre-release version(which is two mins longer)and the final release version(which has a commentary by... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2009 by ciaran moore
Less of a who dun it it more will he do it?
I try and watch any film that has been either from a story by Raymond chandler or Chandler helped write the screen play. This is one of them. Read more
Published on 24 May 2009 by Peter Wade
Strangers on a train DVD
This is, in the words of a friend, who I lent it to, then had to buy her a copy, a cracking film! I would agree wholeheartedly with this and watch it regularly. Read more
Published on 18 May 2009 by Williamina M. Gardiner
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