Strangers on a Train (1951 Alfred Hitchcock)

Is Patricia Highsmith's gay sub-text in evidence here? Robert Walker could easily be read to be gay. In real life he suffered from his parents' divorce, then Jennifer Jones leaving him for Selznick; he died from an adverse reaction to drugs his psychiatrist gave him when pissed.

Hitch read Patricia Highsmith's debut novel on a train - appropriately enough - and he, Alma and Whitfield Cook quickly made it their own, making significant changes, one being to convert Bruno's repugnant alcoholic into a charming and covert gay. Raymond Chandler was brought in but tried to make every action explainable, drank too much and attempted to steer the script back to Highsmith's book. It ended unhappily and his script was ignored. Then a former Ben Hecht associate Czenzi Ormonde was brought in and she wrote the scenes that were played by Marion Lorne - dotty and yet almost as mad as her son. She and Barbara Keon finished the script.

If North by Northwest is a bad dream, this one's a nightmare. Are all Hitch's films dreams?

Absolutely wonderfully written and directed film features powerful performance by Robert Walker. I could happily watch it over and over again, for the way the camera is positioned alone.

Good cast also includes Farley Granger, Leo G Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Ruth Roman, Kasey Rogers (Granger's wife), Howard St John (detective) and Norma Varden (strangulee at dinner party).

Also notable for Robert Burks' incredible depth of focus photography - in the (brilliant) tennis match it feels like those balls are coming right at you. His cinematography was the only Oscar nomination - it was their first collaboration. It's also a film in which you need to pay attention to the background - loved this scene in the record store because the kid in the booth behind them keeps watching the couple argue:

And in the one above, Walker's trying to plan his murder while his father is threatening to have him committed in the background.

Amongst the many lauded sequences, the one where he stalks the girl at the fairground is in the 'pure cinema' silent movie mode; also a murder filmed as a seduction scene. Also loved the frank character played by Patricia Hitchcock and her relationship with Farley Granger.

Here black / white contrasts characters - pillar is naturally separating them:

And the jump cut straight from Granger descending the fire escape to him being in Bruno's parents's grounds is years ahead of Godard. And the merry-go-round scene, more 'pure cinema' - and the little boy who joins in the punch-up!

Q in lighter / drain scene: "Do it yourself, you over-privileged psychopath!"

A Warner Brothers production.

Here's a fascinating aside from 'Hitchock et L'Art; Coincidences Fatales' from the Pompidou 2001 exhibition: