Hitchcock was so good at taking a decent story and elevating it to a piece of cinematic genius.
Amateur tennis-player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) wants to divorce his promiscuous wife in order to marry the daughter of a senator. On a train he meets Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) who recognises him and proposes a scheme for a murder- as unconnected strangers they swap murders meaning they can't be traced back to their murder victim. Guy shrugs off the idea but Bruno goes ahead with it and kills Guy's wife and then wants him to return the favour...
There is so much interesting character stuff here. Guy and Bruno in many ways are presented as opposites to each, the good guy and the psychopath. They dress differently, they act differently and share very little in common. Both though display personality traits more in common with the other person and are not quite as black and white as they first appear.
Bruno is an utter psychopath and is almost childlike in many aspects. He always claims to be downtrodden by his father and wants him killed but we never actually see any evidence of his father doing anything untoward. Is Bruno the way he is because he has spent a lifetime being bullied and belittled or is he just a psychopath who is using his father as an excuse to live out his fantasies? I am leaning more to the latter.
The film is directed really effectively with lots of great imagery showing the pair as reflections of each other. There's a tennis match which Guy needs to finish quickly to get to Bruno which is full of tension and then a superb set piece aboard an out-of-control fairground carousel at the climax. This set-piece is achieved with model work and great camera work and still looks convincing to this day. The most memorable moment though is Bruno's murder of Guy's wife, seen distorted through the lens of her glasses that have been knocked to the floor. It's so cold-blooded and feels unsettling now but for an audience in 1951 it must have been truly shocking.
Hitchcock changed aspects of Patricia Highsmith's novel and utterly hated the script written by Raymond Chandler (neither Hitchcock nor Chandler wanted the writer to be credited seeing as though nothing of his was used but the studio insisted upon it). To ignore the thoughts of two hugely talented writers would seem foolhardy but when you look at the changes he made it's clear Hitchcock has a clear vision and happily saw that vision through even if others weren't so keen.
A truly great thriller which is tense, never quite does what you expect it to and has some of the best set pieces of the decade.
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