Hitchcock's Greatest Film Ever

Farley Granger plays a tennis star who picks the wrong person to sit next to on a train. Enter definitive screen nutcase Bruno Antony (a wonderfully seductive Robert Walker) who seems to like Granger just a tad too much, and comes up with a nutty you-kill-mine, i'll-kill-yours scenario that Granger initially brushes off. But Bruno was serious. Dead serious. But when Granger's nagging ex is murdered, the finger points straight to Granger. And because he flat out refuses to return the 'favour' done to him by Antony, his life is made a living hell. Look out for Patricia Hitchcock as one of Granger's relatives, she's a hoot.

Walker's complex villain is even superior to Norman Bates in my opinion (Bruno, unlike Norman has a loving mother but a cold father), and the underappreciated, ill-fated Walker (who insinuates so much in his eyes!) is aided by Hitchcock and cinematographer Robert Burks who was Oscar-nominated here. Particularly effective are shots of a towering, sinister Walker (especially his reflection in a pair of lost glasses), and a great bit of suspense at a tennis match; Granger furiously powering his way through the match so that he can rush off to clear his name, whilst we see a shot of spectators moving their heads from side to side following the action. Except one. Walker, looking dead at Granger, unblinkingly. Also excellent is a nervy scene where we follow Walker's attempts to reclaim a lost cigarette lighter he BADLY needs. Here Hitchcock has us almost rooting for the bad guy, wonderful stuff.

Granger isn't a great leading man, a little passive, but given his supposed real-life sexual preferences and the homosexual subtext in the brilliant dialogue, I guess it was perfect casting.