Focus: A Film Review (1950-1951)

255 STRANGERS ON A TRAIN Starring: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, with Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Laura Elliott and Robert Gist. Producer: Jack L. Warner. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Certificate: A. Category: A. Running time : 105 minutes. One can always rely on Alfred Hitchcock for an unusual story with a universal appeal. The story of the film starts with a proposed exchange of murders, suggested by Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) to Guy Haines (Farley Granger), a well-known tennis player, in a chance conversation aboard a Washington train. The film falls naturally into three parts, each with its climax and anti-climax. Each time, Hitchcock makes dramatic use of pronounced backgrounds to use the camera to build up the suspense. The murder of Miriam, Guy’s wife, takes place in an amusement-park, the trailing of the girl by Bruno through the park being a perfectly balanced sequence of long and close-up shots, themselves balanced by the near and distant voices of the victim and her companions. The next climax and heightening of tension is when Guy, anxious to keep an appointment with the murderer at the park, is delayed in a long and bitter tennis match, while Bruno, in matching shots, is just as anxiously trying to reach down a drain into which the precious piece of evidence has fallen. The last climax is the fight between the two on the madly whirling merry-go-round. The title of the film may suggest something similar to The Lady Vanishes. Apart from the story, there are many similarities, especially Hitchcock’s skill in introducing humorous relief to offset the growing suspense. In the fight on the roundabout, with the police holding back the demented mother, the only one enjoying the experience is the young boy astride the bobbing-horse. Again, the murderer’s presence at Forest Hills is recognised as the only head not moving sideways from left to right as the spectators follow the passage of the ball. Hitchcock has a good story to tell and he tells it well, but he knows the cinema public and is content to give everyone something for their money. The cast is uniformly good and acts throughout as a team. Robert Walker gives an outstanding performance as the maniac murderer, Farley Granger gives a satisfactory account of himself as the half-guilty accessory, anxious not to involve the Morton family, whose daughter Anne he is now free to marry. Anne Morton (Ruth Roman) is a pleasing personality, while among the supporting players Patricia Hitchcock, as Anne’s sister, in an excellent performance, prevents the anti-climaxes of the film from becoming boring. The moral, I suppose, is that one’s own matrimonial troubles are one’s own affairs and there is no short-cut out of them, but as far as Alfred Hitchcock is concerned, the storv is the thing. O. DEAR BRAT Starring: Mona Freeman, Billy De Wolfe, Edward Arnold, Lyle Bettger. Producer: Mel Epstein. Director: William A. Seiter. Certificate ; U. Running time : 82 minutes. For some time now Hollywood has been tumbling to the possibilities of exploiting the suburban homes of the upper middle classes. One fears that there may be hidden depths of criminal and psychological misery as yet unrevealed, but in the meantime it is all very good fun. The dear brat in this case is the daughter of Senator Wilkins, who feels called to the rescue of anti-social types who have paid their debt to society but still must set about what is called for short rehabilitation, re-integration or readjustment. Just to make things complicated the dear brat invites a man of desperate record, who was sentenced by her own father, into the home in the capacity of gardener. From then on things move rapidly from crisis to crisis, reaching in the end, we are glad to say, a temporary solution. The senator is far too progressive a man to resort to old-fashioned spanking methods, but he and others like him would put themselves in the clear socially and politically much quicker if they would. Almost everybody will enjoy this. J. C.