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.