What better way of spending a Thursday morning than sitting in the art deco splendour of Finchley’s Phoenix cinema watching an old Hitchcock classic?
About twenty cinephiles gathered here today for the 10.30 showing of the 1951 thriller Strangers On A Train.
The film didn’t start until a few minutes later than scheduled, but that’s fine in this cinema as it gives you a chance to take in the auditorium’s superb décor.
‘Strangers On A Train’ is captivating from first minute to last.
The opening encounter on the train between professional tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) and the suave, creepy stranger Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) immediately establishes a menacing air of entrapment.
Robert Walker steals the show in this film, exuding psychopathic charm and manipulating all those who have the misfortune to come into contact with him.
As I was watching this film I was wondering why I hadn’t seen Walker in other films, as he certainly radiates star quality.
I then found out that he died at the early age of 32 in 1951, the same year that Strangers On A Train was released, thus cutting short what may have gone on to be a glittering career.
Alfred Hitchcock himself makes a cameo appearance in one scene early on in the film, heaving a double bass onto a train at Metcalf station.
All the elements of ‘Strangers On A Train’ combine to make this a highly polished and entertaining film.
There is great original music by Dimitri Tiomkin, a sharp and pithy script based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, and some subtle cinematography, as in the tilted angle showing Guy approaching the house of Bruno’s father, the off-kilter angle indicating morality becoming unhinged.
When ‘Strangers On A Train’ ended I left the cinema and headed home, catching the Northern Line train from East Finchley station.
Back home I found out the sad news that Guy Clark, the great singer, songwriter and musician, died last month. There’s no finer songwriter anywhere.
I saw him give a solo performance in a church hall off Dalry Road in Edinburgh several years ago.
It was a thrill to see such a legendary figure playing live in a small, intimate venue. As Robert K. Oermann wrote in the 1995 liner notes to Clark’s ‘Craftsman’ collection, “The patron saint of an entire generation of bohemian pickers, Guy Clark has become an emblem of artistic integrity, quiet dignity and simple truth.”
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