Alfred Hitchcock One thing that has always been feared in life is that he might be charged with an unwarranted crime. This concern is the core theme of many of his best films. This includes "The Train Freak". In this movie, a man's wife is strangled to death and he becomes the obvious suspect. The reason why he is suspicious is that the original plan made by the real murderer is extremely genius: two strangers will "exchange murder" and kill the person the other party wants to kill. They have an invulnerable alibi during the crime, and there is no possible connection between the murderer and the victim.
This is a unique and moral-free plot, adapted from the first novel by Patricia Highsmith (1921—1995). In her Ripley series of novels and other novels, she is fascinated by high-IQ criminals who act not out of passion, but based on precise calculations, and they can usually escape sanctions. Impunity. This kind of "crossover" crime in "The Train Strangers" should in fact be executed perfectly-but only a stranger agreed to do so.
Farley Granger and Robert Walker
The famous tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger [Farley Granger]) was on a train by Bruno Anthony (Bruno Anthony, Robert Walker [Robert Walker]) recognizes, from the conversation, we can see that the latter knows his private life well. In order to marry Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the daughter of a US senator, Guy wants to be with his wife Miriam (Kathy). · Rogers [Kasey Rogers] divorced. At lunch, Bruno revealed in his private sleeping car compartment that he wanted to kill his father.He suggested committing a "perfect crime"-he would murder Guy's wife, and Guy would murder Bruno's father, so that neither of them would be suspected.
From the perspective of the way he lives in the world, Bruno is very pushy, willing to go his own way, and tends to be homosexual. Gay was offended by his mention of his private life, but inexplicably, he was unwilling to interrupt the conversation-the conversation finally ended in a vague atmosphere: Bruno tried to get Gay Agreeing to this plan, Guy tried to encourage him to act as soon as possible and get rid of him. Bruno did murder Guy's wife, and then asked Guy to complete the remaining half of the transaction between the two. As far as the plot is concerned, there is a kind of neatness that Hitchcock has noticed that he cannot resist—especially when Guy has the motive to murder his wife: he was with her the day before his death. There was a big quarrel in public, and he even told his fiancee that he was going to "strangle" Miriam.
Farley Granger and Robert Walker
Hitchcock said that choosing the right actor can save him time for storytelling on a film, because the audience will feel the characteristics of the actors. , Without taking the time to elaborate. So Granger who plays Guy and Walker who plays Bruno are of course extremely important. It is said that Hitchcock wanted William Holden to play the role of Guy ("He is stronger." He told Francois Truffaut), but if it was really played by Hotden Too bad-he is too strong and too easy to get rid of Bruno (although Hotden was manipulated by an old and frail actress in "Sunset Boulevard"). Granger is softer and more elusive, so when he tries to escape from Bruno's web of dialogue instead of rejecting him bluntly, he appears more persuasive. Bruno, played by Walker, is more frivolous and provocative. He sat very close to each other when they met for the first time, and then lay flat across from Guy in the private compartment. The meeting on the train may have been designed by Bruno. It was more like a hunt than an encounter.
is in the sense of two flawed characters—one evil, one weak, and with an unexplained sexual tension.It makes this movie have a kind of plausible charm, and helps us understand why Bruno was able to almost successfully implement his plan. Highsmith is a lesbian, and her novels have incredible psychological depth. Andrew Wilson said in her 2003 autobiography that she often fell in love with her straight daughter, and that her story often used an unexplained subtext to imply mutual attraction between same-sex—as in 1999. Like the filming of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), the personality and lifestyle of her criminal protagonist Tom Ripley and his prey, Dickie Greenleaf (Dickie Greenleaf) Created a good impression. Although homosexuality still did not dare to justify himself in 1951, Hitchcock was clearly aware of Bruno’s sexual orientation and did distinguish between the American and British versions of the film—he cut out the American version. The tension of "temptation". It's worth noting that Hitchcock is also in " " adapted from the Leopold-Loeb case, giving Gran an outstanding role in the play. That is another story about a murderer with a potential homosexuality.
Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker
Nevertheless, "The Train Strangers" is not a case of psychology, but a piece with a bit of strangeness from time to time A fantastic first-rate thriller. Like Hitchcock movies often do, this movie always makes people feel that certain things have been sneaked out of our sight during the course of the story. His love for unjust, false and wrong cases is undoubtedly related to a traumatic experience he suffered in childhood: his father sent the naughty little Hitchcock to the police station and left a note for the police department captain. , It says, lock him up before coming over to pick him up. Interestingly, in the context of this movie, it was Hitchcock who asked his daughter Patricia Hitchcock to play the outspoken young sister of Guy’s fiancee Anne, Barbara Morton ( Barbara Morton) this role.Patricia Hitchcock looks a bit like Cathy Rogers and wears very similar glasses. Bruno joked and demonstrated the killing technique at a party, and then saw Barbara, the movie screen flashed back to the murder scene, and then he was completely out of control. The little sister said the most creepy lines in "The Train Strangers", especially in the scene where Guy meets with the whole family in the hospital at the beginning of the movie. She kept blurting out what others were afraid to say.
Alfred Hitchcock and Farley Granger are behind the scenes of "Train Monsters". 1951
Hitchcock was first a master of visual art, and there are many famous sections in "The Train Strangers". One of the most well-known is that Guy looked at the audience during a tennis match. He found that the audience's heads were turning left and right with the rhythm of the athlete's hitting the ball-except for Bruno's head. He looked straight at Guy. (The same technique was also used by Hitchcock in "Foreign Correspondent" [Foreign Correspondent, 1940], in which all the windmills rotate in the same direction-except for one). Another impressive scene is the night of Carnival, Bruno’s boat floats on a tunnel for lovers. Miriam and two boyfriends were at the front of the ship, and the shadows on the wall clearly showed that Bruno had caught up with them. There is also a scene in which Guy is walking up the stairs of Bruno's house in the dark. Hitchcock told Truffau that he suddenly thought of an idea, which is to use giant dogs to divert the audience's attention from what they might have found upstairs. There is also a very famous passage, shooting a carousel that is out of control. Guy and Bruno are fighting on it. Workers crawling under the carousel's chassis, trying to turn off the switch. (This shot is notoriously water-free, and the stuntman is likely to die. Hitchcock later said that he would never take this risk again.) Another great shot was Bruno's. Only the white-eyed face appeared at the brim of his hat.
Hitchcock is a classic craftsman who can manipulate images with ease. He uses the screen space in a way that audiences are not always aware of, thereby enhancing the tension of the scene.His compositional habits are: the left side of the screen is the bad guys and/or the weak, and the right side of the screen is either the good people or the temporarily dominant people. Think of the scene where Guy enters his Georgetown home, when Bruno is whistling to summon him at the other end of the street. Bruno stood behind an iron gate, the shadow of the metal fence cast on his face, and Guy stood on his right, outside the gate. Then a police car stopped in front of Guy's house. He quickly moved behind the door and stood with Bruno. They are all standing behind the fence now, and he said: "You make me feel like a criminal."
Farley Granger and Robert Walker
Robert Walker's performance benefited from Bruno. This is a subtle emergency, which may also reflect events in his private life. After the film was completed, he had a mental breakdown in a short period of time, was sent to the hospital for systemic treatment, and finally died in an accident of over-taking tranquilizers. (The unused close-up shots in this film were used to complete his final film "My Son John" [My Son John, 1952]). Although Hitchcock said in François Truffaut’s entire book interview that he didn’t like both actors very much, Bruno, played by Walker, is known as one of the best villains in Hitchcock movies. one. And Hitchcock also agrees with Truffaut's statement that the audience sympathizes with him more than Granger's role as a dude.
This movie is usually listed as Hitchcock’s best film choice (I only rank it in "Victorious", "Beauty" [Notorious, 1946], "Cry of Souls" ", and possibly "Shadow of a Doubt" [Shadow of a Doubt, 1943] later). Its appeal may lie in linking the plot of genius with creepy hints. This combination first came from Highsmith, her novels were unjustly shelved in crime fiction, even though she actually wrote mainstream novels about crime. A user on the Internet Movie Database claimed that he found Highsmith as a guest actor in the movie.In the record store scene at the beginning of the film, she stood behind Miriam, recording something in a notebook. There is no mention of Highsmith’s cameo in all the information in this movie (everyone’s attention goes to Hitchcock’s iconic cameo), but you can find it yourself, in this movie The sixth part of the DVD starts from the twelfth minute and sixteenth minute of the film length. Imagine that she might have been in that place all these years.
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