Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers’ a rich film

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STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde, 101 minutes, no rating. Tonight only, free, Pickering Square, Bangor. Lawn chairs advised.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” is about weakness crisscrossing with evil, with evil pushing hard for the upper hand. Nobody comes away unscathed.

As written by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, the film is a high point in the River City Cinema Society’s Noir Beneath the Stars series, which has been drawing hundreds of people each week to Pickering Square. If you’ve yet to attend the free event, tonight is the night to do so. The film is smashing.

It’s another way to look at noir, as conceived by a master of the medium, with a thrilling climax that mines all of Hitchcock’s perverse humor and sense of the absurd. It’s dark and it’s funny, awful and spot on. No blockbuster this summer matches the whirling audacity Hitchcock unleashes at the end of this movie – and he wasn’t working with a fraction of their budgets.

What he had was something deeper than their pockets – the theme he carried through most of his movies. As Hitchcock saw it, in every man is evil. Touch the right button, rub one the wrong way, and watch evil bloom.

The movie tells the story of the fey Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) and the good-looking tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) – strangers who meet on a train.

The flirty, well-informed Bruno takes an immediate shine to Guy, eventually proposing how tidy it would be if they swapped murders, thus assuming Guy wants someone dead. For instance, Bruno says, he’d be happy to strangle the last breath out of Guy’s cheating wife, Miriam (Laura Eliot), if Guy would be willing to shoot Bruno’s wicked, wealthy father (Jonathan Hale) in the head.

“Crisscross,” Bruno says lightly. “You’ll do my murder, and I’ll do your murder.”

The idea is that since neither knows his victim, neither will be a suspect in the murders.

More be-mused than appalled, Guy leaves the train, only soon to be shocked when Miriam is found strangled to death after carousing with two men at a local amusement park. Now the psychotic Bruno wants to collect the debt he feels he’s owed. He wants his daddy dead. If Guy doesn’t do the job, the persistent Bruno makes it clear that he will cause his share of problems for Guy, who is now the chief suspect in his wife’s death.

Released in 1951, “Strangers on a Train” is rich and complex, human and dark. As Hitchcock himself described it, “it has a fascinating design.” The film hit theaters with two versions – the British cut, which heightens the homoerotic interplay between Bruno and Guy, and the American version, which safely downplays it. The American version shows tonight.

Throughout the movie, the suspense is taut, the performances lean and convincing. Ruth Roman is nicely cast as Anne Morton, Guy’s wealthy love interest; and Hitchcock’s own daughter, Patricia Hitchcock, nearly steals the show as Anne’s pushy, pluckish sister, Barbara.

There’s something about her performance that recalls Marilyn Monroe’s turn in “All About Eve,” which opened a year earlier in 1950. Though they look nothing alike, close your eyes when Barbara speaks and you’ll hear her uncanny impersonation of Monroe. It’s so exact, it’s kind of creepy and unsettling. Like the movie.

Grade: A+

On video and DVD

13 GOING ON 30, directed by Gary Winick, written by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa, 97 minutes, rated PG-13.

Gary Winick’s “13 Going on 30” begins in 1987 with poor Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) trying to find herself amid the onslaught of hormones and budding changes taking place in her body.

No easy task, for sure, and Jenna thinks she’s losing the battle, which isn’t far from the mark. She has a true friend in unpopular, chunky Matt (Sean Marquette), who is as much a social outcast as she is. But Jenna ultimately sells him out.

She wants to become the seventh member of the Six Chicks, a cruel, bitchy bunch of Heathers who believe they have the world by the pompoms. When they wrong Jenna in a double cross, she inadvertently finds herself transformed into a successful 30-year-old woman (Jennifer Garner) who has it all, but at what cost? For starters, she has lost the last 17 years of her life, which Jenna, now a teen caught in an adult’s body, must scramble to piece together.

The idea behind “13 Going on 30” is hardly new, as fans of “Big,” “Freaky Friday” and “Vice Versa” can attest. Still, what’s interesting about the movie is that its story mostly works in spite of its recycled formula.

Garner is a big reason for its success – she’s likable and pretty, her dorky charm just unthreatening enough to win over the film’s core audience, which is key. Also strong is Mark Ruffalo as the adult version of Matt, who is on the verge of getting married when this unbridled first love of his gallops back into his life. The film has nothing on last year’s “Thirteen” when it comes to exposing the real perils of peer pressure among teen girls. Still, beneath the fluff, there’s a measure of insight here – and a few laughs.

Grade: B

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 Bangor and WCSH 6 Portland, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Against the Ropes ? D

Agent Cody Banks 2 ? D

Along Came Polly ? D

Bad Santa ? B+

Barbershop 2: Back in Business ? B+

The Big Sleep (1944) ? A

The Butterfly Effect ? F

Calendar Girls ? B+

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights ? D

50 First Dates ? C+

Fog of War ? A

Hellboy ? B

Hidalgo ? C

House of Sand and Fog ? B+

The Human Stain ? D

In America ? A-

The Last Samurai ? C

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ? A-

Lost in Translation ? A

The Magdalene Sisters ? A-

Mildred Pierce ? A

Miracle ? B+

Monsieur Ibrahim ? B+

Monster -? A

Osama ? A-

Peter Pan ? B+

Secret Window ? C

Something’s Gotta Give ? A-

Starsky & Hutch ? D

The Station Agent ? B+

Swimming Pool ? B+

Sylvia ? B-

The Thin Man ? A

The Third Man ? A

13 Going on 30 ? B

The Triplets of Belleville ? A

Torque ? D

21 Grams-A

The Whole 10 Yards ? F