Great Performance

Cinema Criticism Writing

Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train

Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) is a somewhat neglected masterpiece. True, it did serve as the basis for the Billy Crystal-Danny DeVito Throw Momma From the Train (1987), but it tends to get short shrift compared to Hitchcock's Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds and especially Psycho. Watching Strangers on a Train again in class this week, I was struck by Robert Walker's charming and extremely disturbing performance as the psychopathic killer Bruno Anthony. I would say it's every bit as good (if not nearly as famous) as Anthony Perkins' performance as Norman Bates in Psycho.  

Poster Placement

Adaptation
Just saw The Amazing Spider-Man and I was struck by the prominent poster of Hitchcock's Rear Window in Peter Parker's bedroom. I don't see much of a connection between the two films, except that Peter is a photographer and so is the hero (played by James Stewart) of Rear Window. There's no comparison in quality, BTW. The Amazing Spider-Man is OK but hardly, well, amazing, while Hitchcock's film, of course, is great.

One Glitch

Adaptation
The first class of the summer went really well. We all introduced ourselves and this seems like a group of very interesting, very smart people. I did make one mistake, though. We watched Rear Window and I told them I would announce when Alfred Hitchcock made his usual cameo appearance in the movie, and then I forgot to do it! (See photo.) I'll have to show them that scene again next week.

Behind Bars

Writing About the Movies
I tried to explain how Alfred Hitchcock uses visuals to state his themes in Strangers on a Train, but I'm happy to report that the students were often ahead of me. There is, for example, the evening scene in which the two main characters discuss a murder. In each shot, at least one of the men is shown with the bars of a gate in front of him, or at least the shadow of those bars. The point is that the threat of prison hangs over the men, the murder and the entire conversation. The minute I started showing that scene in class, at least some of the students seemed to know what was going. What can I say? Very cool!

Scary Scene

Writing About the Movies

It was Fox Day at Rollins, which means that my class was unexpectedly cut short by a half hour. There wasn't time to do much more than show Strangers on a Train, one of my favorite Hitchcock films. It's also a good one to show students because Hitchcock's use of visuals to state his themes is so clear. Also, there's an exciting merry-go-round scene at the end that was, of course, filmed without today's CGI camera tricks. After filming it, Hitchcock is said to have vowed that he'd never do anything so dangerous again.