Strangers on a Train (1951)

In this article, we will be looking at 2019’s book “1001 Movies to See Before You Die” and going through each film in a random order that I have chosen. We will be looking at what constitutes this film to be on the list and whether I think this film deserves to be here at all. I want to make perfectly clear that I won’t be revealing details from this book such as analyses by film reporters who have written about the film in question, so if you want the book itself you’ll have to buy it. But I will be covering the book’s suggestions on which films should be your top priority. I wouldn’t doubt for a second that everyone reading this article has probably watched many of these movies anyway. But we are just here to have a bit of fun. We’re going to not just look at whether it should be on this list but we’re also going to look at why the film has such a legacy at all. Remember, this is the 2019 version of the book and so, films like “Joker” will not be featured in this book and any film that came out in 2020 (and if we get there, in 2021). So strap in and if you have your own suggestions then don’t hesitate to email me using the address in my bio. Let’s get on with it then.

Strangers on a Train (1951) dir. by Sir Alfred Hitchcock

As one of my personal favourite Hitchcock films ever and one of my favourite films of the fifties, I am so glad to be talking about the critical responses that this film has received over the years. My personal favourite scenes include: the tennis court, the carousel and obviously, the one where they meet on the train and make this ‘pact’ - which actually one of the characters seems pretty forced in to but oh well. It is a brilliantly filmed movie with concentrations on suspense and the climactic scenes of the film. Sir Alfred Hitchcock really outdid himself with this one, and he will do it again seven years’ later when he makes his next identity crisis suspense film “Vertigo”. I do not have anything against the ones in between, they just don’t concentrate on identity like “Strangers on a Train” and “Vertigo” do.

Bosley Crowther does not share my sentiments towards the film though, check out what he said in the New York Times:

"Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it will stand up without support. ... Perhaps there will be those in the audience who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by Mr. Hitchcock's sleekly melodramatic tricks. ... But, for all that, his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand.”

This is even though Roger Ebert called “Strangers on a Train” one of Hitchcock’s best films. The website ‘Cinemaphile’ were equally proud of the praise this film had achieved and notes that it is a ‘crowd-pleaser’ but it is also rather intense and powerful:

"Aside from its very evident approach as a crowd-pleasing popcorn flick, the movie is one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behaviour is the driving force behind the true macabre rather than supernatural elements. Even classic endeavours like Fargo and A Simple Plan seem directly fuelled by this concept…"

The BBC website reviewed the film fifty years after its release and stated the following about its legacy as a thriller and a suspense film:

"Hitchcock's favourite device of an ordinary man caught in an ever-tightening web of fear plunges Guy into one of the director's most fiendishly effective movies. Ordinary Washington locations become sinister hunting grounds that mirror perfectly the creeping terror that slowly consumes Guy, as the lethally smooth Bruno relentlessly pursues him to a frenzied climax. Fast, exciting, and woven with wicked style, this is one of Hitchcock's most efficient and ruthlessly delicious thrillers.”

And even Patricia Highsmith, the author of the book it was adapted from initially praised the film for being brilliantly written and notes how Bruno held the movie together as he did in the book. So if the author loved it, then why shouldn't we?