STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) **1/2 Vintage Hitchcock template, but without the surprise ending. Lots of great Hitchcockisms, arriving at regular intervals and beyond what any imitator could come up with-the opening shoes, strangers' faces aghast at the train station for reasons that are never entirely clear, slanted houses, oddly misdrunken professors expounding on what now seems like nonsense even to them, ESPN should shoot tennis this way, and Scooby-Doo just wishes it could shoot an amusement park so ominous. But you could argue that it's all understated flash without attention to any detail beyond those of one of cinema's all-time greatest and most imaginitive technitions. The tennis, for example, in some ways manages to evoke the Roman Coliseum. Unfortunately no one told the lead actors that it might be beneficial to turn their bodies in preparation for strokes, and Farley Granger's opponent keeps hitting flat backspin backhands two inches off the ground that we're supposed to believe somehow make it to the other side of the net. Might be a good movie in that. On the other hand, Forest Hills is shot majestically in that upper crust manner, more than enough to make you rue the day that they moved the U.S. Open to Flushing Meadows. All of the good thoughts went into a fine imprint of the Hitchcock style, which is sadly undermined by acting that is merely below average until it falls apart down the stretch (Leo G. Carroll is the exception as a senator who exemplifies that extraordinarily developed sense of right and wrong that allows him to do unethical things, calmly, for the right cause), and a bad plot based on one or two good ideas. Hitchcock knew the plot needed something, so he brought in Raymond Chandler. Unfortunately he then sat at Chandler's side throughout the writing, bugging him while he drinking and trying to think. The result comes in spurts, none of which demonstrate the unbridled and seamless pathology one might hope for from Chandler relentlessly chasing a bourbon ghost.
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