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2 items from 2012

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My favourite Hitchcock: Strangers on a Train

3 August 2012 2:17 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Hitchcock's study of the guilt that taints the human condition is just one cinematic masterstroke after another

The master of suspense did not care whodunnit. For Hitch, the question was all but academic: to be alive is to stained. Culpability comes with conception.

It's hard to think of any adult in his films – the great ones, anyway – whose copybook has not a smudge, whose odd blots don't mushroom and bleed, soak their coats and cloud their judgement. And, for me, his primary preoccupation was never more brilliantly realised than in Strangers on a Train, the murder-swap thriller from 1951.

To refresh: straight-batting, social-climbing tennis star Guy (Farley Granger) has a chance encounter on a train with sardonic playboy Bruno (Robert Walker). Bruno knows Guy is romancing a senator's daughter (played by Ruth Roman) – and indeed is eager to move into politics – but can't get a divorce from his unfaithful wife, Miriam. »

- Catherine Shoard

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Raymond Chandler Despised Alfred Hitchcock

10 January 2012 6:24 PM, PST | Huffington Post | See recent Huffington Post news »

The always-fascinating blog Letters of Note has another gem up today -- a letter that deepens the battle of wits between two old greats, Raymond Chandler And Alfred Hitchcock.

"The Big Sleep" author and film noir influencer was hired to work on the screenplay for Hitchcock's 1951 thriller, "Strangers on a Train," a favorite here at HuffPost Culture. The story goes that Chandler had no patience for the script conferences ("god-awful jabber sessions," according to Chandler) Hitchcock called for, which cramped his style. Chandler didn't agree with the director's approach, which he claimed prioritized aesthetic appeal over character development -- Hitchcock envisioned a fantasy narrative, and Chandler demanded narrative logic. Relations continued to deteriorate between the two, and matters weren't helped when Chandler called Hitchcock a "fat bastard." Eventually, Hitchcock dismissed Chandler from the project, and while he's still credited, the script was largely re-written by Czenzi Ormonde.

All this is just backstory, »

- Gazelle Emami

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2 items from 2012

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