Collected Data
Watch: "DARTH BY DARTHWEST”
"This is simply perfect artistry. With Dimitri Tiomkin’s symbolic score, perpetuating the omnipresent theme of duality, and William H. Ziegler’s masterful editing, Strangers on a Train is easily one of the top exhibits in the genre’s history."
Cinephilia and Beyond;
Even though a lot of film scholars over the years considered the movie at least to a degree inferior to Hitchcock’s landmark films such as Vertigo or Rear Window, this captivating story of two people meeting on a train and conversing about the execution of a perfect murder has forever remained a much desired topic of analysis and debate among film enthusiasts all over the world. What distinguishes Strangers on a Train from similar films, even within Hitchcock’s own canon, is the fascinating idea at the center of it–the motif of doubles, the inner battle of good and evil in all human beings–as well as impressive technical virtuosity we grew accustomed to when talking about the works of the British highly commercial artist. The suspense is so powerful it can be felt though the screen, the acting is great, mostly thanks to Hitchcock’s old friend from Rope Farley Granger and his antagonistic counterpart Robert Walker, the script… oh, the script. If acquiring the rights to Highsmith’s novel was a walk in the park—by purposely leaving out his name from the negotiation process, Hitchcock managed to get the rights for a meagre 7,500 dollars–the process of finding the right screenwriter and producing a satisfactory script was nothing less than a hike over the Himalayas.
'STRANGERS ON A TRAIN': A TECHNICALLY PERFECT PSYCHOLOGICAL CAROUSEL AS ONE OF HITCHCOCK'S BEST
“Now, as you know, you could not take the camera and just show a nude woman being stabbed to death. It had to be done impressionistically."
Read: 1939 Hitchcock Lecture
There has been a tendency, I feel, in the past, in this development of character, to rely upon the dialogue, only, to do it. We have lost what has been -- to me, at least -- the biggest enjoyment in motion pictures, and that is action and movement. What I am trying to aim for is a combination of these two elements, character and action.
1939 Alfred Hitchcock Lecture
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