Friday Matinee: Strangers on a Train (1951)

Alfred Hitchcock directed this classic suspense tale--widely considered one of the master's best works--tapping into the evil that lies hidden just beneath the surface of each of us. When two strangers--tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger), whose wife will not grant him a divorce, and wealthy but deranged young Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who wants to be rid of his father--happen to meet on a train from Washington to New York, the conversation casually turns to a possibly perfect crime: what if each committed a murder for the other? There is nothing to connect the two men. No apparent motive for either killing. When the trip ends, Guy believes the conversation was hypothetical, and that he will never see Bruno again. Then his wife is murdered . . . and Bruno returns for payback. Hard-boiled crime novelist Raymond Chandler co-wrote the screenplay of this film adaptation of the novel by Patricia Highsmith. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Rated PG, 101 minutes.