Strangers on a Train

The upshot is a perfect Alfred Hitchcock thriller...with a ingenious plot taken from a Patricia Highsmith novel and a memorably seductive villain.

Strangers on a Train is an admirable demonstration of Alfred Hitchcock's virtuosity in the area of suspense dramas.

Winds up with a scene in which a merry-go-round goes wild, spins like a pin wheel, and crashes in a gaudy blaze of explosions that no earthly carrousel could touch off. The movie itself is the same way: implausible but intriguing and great fun to ride.

Perhaps Strangers on a Train still hasn't yielded all its secrets.

Hitchcock erects a web of guilt around Granger, who 'agreed' to his wife's murder, a murder that suits him very well, and structures his film around a series of set pieces, ending with a paroxysm of violence on a circus carousel.

To ignore the subtext during the runaway carousel climax is to be absolutely blind.

... one of Alfred Hitchcock’s undisputed masterpieces, a thriller of demented wish fulfillment turned into a waking nightmare that turns on a chance meeting.

The punch-line Hitchcock serves is clear: don’t talk to strangers.

Despite some questionable changes from Patricia Highsmith's source material, Strangers on a Train showcases Hitchcock at his most gleeful, emphatically building suspense before an explosive climax.

Hitchcock frequently subverts expectations, particularly in how he involves secondary characters. The obvious queerness of one (if not both) leads is undeniable and the film boasts two iconic set pieces: Miriam's murder and the carousal climax.