Strangers on a Train (1951)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
A charming psychopath tries to coerce a tennis star into his theory that two strangers can commit the perfect crime by exchanging murders—each killing the other’s most-hated person.
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What critics compared Strangers on a Train to
His idea: To avoid establishing any motives, the boys should kill one another’s bosses, a plan that evokes references to (and jokes about) Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
The movie rightly makes a nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and even Throw Mama From a Train .
Heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” and Danny DeVito’s “Throw Mama from the Train,” “Horrible Bosses” is silly, absurd and overly moronic, but that’s what makes it so appealing and fun.
With blunt references to Strangers on a Train, they decide to criss-cross murder the bosses, with help from Jamie Foxx as an ex-con who turns down the job as hitman but says, “I’m going to be your murder consultant.”
Now those of you who are big film fans will probably recognize that bit about having them kill each others’ bosses as a direct reference to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train .
Those of you who are big film fans will probably recognize the bit about having the main characters kill each others’ bosses as a direct reference to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
Rare positives include art direction, production design and costumes that are seamless in their period flavor, and a handful of arty shots (one, taking place in a movie theater, is a wily reference to the famous moment in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" set at a tennis match).
There's a shot in a movie theater that reminds us of the tennis match in Strangers on a Train (1951).
Otherwise, were the audience in Manns marvelous little homage to the Strangers on a Train tennis match, looking left and right and up and down in a theater and still missing everything.
Mann’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” — a bit in a movie theater where we notice Dillinger because he’s the only person whose head is not moving back and forth — is clever.
Owen, whose interpretation of Strangers on a Train leads him to believe that Larry would like him to kill his wife in return for the prof's disposal of Owen's obscenely senile, tyrannical mother, turns Larry's life (already a mess: ever since his wife stole his first novel, he's suffered from writer's block) into an absolute nightmare.
He not only borrows the plot device from Alfred Hitchcock's " Strangers on a Train " for his new comedy, "Throw Momma from the Train," but he even has one of his characters actually go to the movies to study the relevant scene from Hitchcock's 1951 classic.
Danny DeVito, the Rumpelstiltskin of American comedy, takes a tumble in his directorial debut with an embarrassing remake of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train."
As written by Stu Silver (and directed by DeVito), "Momma" is a goofy tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 "Strangers on a Train" -- the classic in which Robert Walker involves Farley Granger in a "criss-cross" murder.
Loosely inspired by Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, Throw Momma From The Train follows Billy Crystal's Larry, a struggling writer/English teacher, as he's embroiled in a scheme to knock off the abusive mother (Anne Ramsey) of one of his students (Danny DeVito's Owen).
The story is certainly a classic one (even serving as the premise for Danny DeVito’s Throw Momma from the Train (1987)).
Cue a series of discussions about existential ethics that might seem familiar if you've seen "Match Point," "Crimes and Misdemeanors," Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" or the inside of a liberal arts college dorm room after 11 on a Friday night.
Trying for another Match Point (2005), writer-director Woody Allen grabs a handful of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and a handful of Crime and Punishment and tosses them into a campus setting, which emboldens him to verbalize his stale philosophical concerns even more baldly than usual.
A riff on Strangers on a Train and Dostoyevsky with some upside.
And he also gives a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train.”
He plans the perfect murder of the judge, for which he could never be suspected as he would have absolutely no motive (shades of “Strangers on a Train,” though without the quid-pro-quo).
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The director adapted the script from the 1955 novel by Patricia Highsmith -- whose "Strangers On a Train" became one of Hitchcock's most disquieting classics.
I saw The Talented Mr. Ripley with a friend who had read the book (by Patricia Highsmith, who also wrote Strangers on a Train).
Ripley and his chilling adventures are the subject of five novels by the late Patricia High-smith, whose first book, "Strangers on a Train," was turned into the memorable Alfred Hitchcock film.
Alfred Hitchcock made "Strangers on a Train" (1951), based on one of her books.
And in a performance that should put him solidly in the running for this year's Best Actor Oscar, he not only penetrates to the core of Highsmith's vision (also seen in other excellent films such as Strangers on a Train and Wim Wenders' The American Friend) but adds inspired new strokes to her monstrously beguiling creation.
This time in a grander and more elaborate version, as Tom Ripley (Damon) is made into a closet homosexual and someone capable of killing anyone who interferes with his plans to assume someone else's identity -- which makes the crime thriller take on a slightly different meaning from the way Highsmith intended it (she also wrote the novel for the great Hitchcock film, "Strangers on a Train").
Though it’s in the same genre as Heavenly Creatures or Poison Ivy, the film this reminded me of most was Strangers on a Train.
Thoroughbreds’s best trick is to convince us, through the aching stillness of its stars’ eyes, that it might not actually be a twisty, twisted thriller inspired by the likes of Strangers on a Train.
Like a lot of movies by first-time directors, “Thoroughbreds” wears its influences on its sleeve: a little “Heavenly Creatures,” some “Strangers On A Train,” a bit of “Foxcatcher,” a pinch of “Gossip Girl,” an echo of Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth” in the witty writing.
It’s an unconscionable and completely inappropriate suggestion — the kind that only someone with Amanda’s blunt, cold-bloodedly pragmatic attitude could make, although it’s just the sort of hypothetical that attracts us to the works of “Strangers on a Train” novelist Patricia Highsmith, or more outrageously, films like “Jawbreaker” and “Heathers,” whose influence can also be found lurking beneath this movie’s elegant surface.
That idea of plotting a homicide – vibing nicely on Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, not to mention Heathers and Heavenly Creatures – rouses the usually indifferent Amanda.
It plays at times like a new take on Strangers on a Train in which both parties commit to unspeakable acts without any reservations.
The plot will likely remind you somewhat of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) but with a modern spin.
As noted in the plot synopsis for the film, Do Revenge is a glossy teenage update on Hitchcock’s “ Strangers On A Train ” while being inspired by the twisted high school tales of Hollywood past.
Do Revenge is an enjoyable new take on the premise from Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train .
As a moderately amusing twist on “Strangers on a Train” (the characters somewhat misjudgingly reference “Cruel Intentions,” though it does have a seduction angle), Emma and Peter plot to ingratiate themselves into the lives of each other’s exes, and then seduce them, aiming to coax them back into their old relationships.
And at some point during their dinners, nights at the movies and such, a “Strangers on a Train” plot is hatched.
Think "Strangers on a Train" with marriage instead of murder as the objective.
A kind of romantic take on the classic Strangers On A Train premise, I Want You Back is written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, and it begins finding Emma (Jenny Slate) and Peter (Charlie Day) on some of the worst days of their respective lives.
It all feels like a silly riff on the likes of Strangers on a Train (1951) and Cruel Intentions (1999) — the latter of which the characters themselves mention — but the feel of I Want You Back rings closer to 2010’s severely under-appreciated Going the Distance .
The plot has hints of "Cruel Intentions" and "Strangers on a Train."
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But, borrowing an idea from the great 1951 film Strangers on a Train, Rathbone trades crimes with Wu Yip (Donnie Yen, from Iron Monkey), who will perform the nine murders in exchange for the seal.
He agreed to swap slayings (a la Hitchcock's "Strangers On a Train") with an ambitiously evil Chinese nobleman ("Iron Monkey's" terrific, deadpan scowling Donnie Yen) who is now obligated to help him become king by killing everyone in line for the throne before him.
Though “Horrible Bosses” offered an inspired concept (in turn inspired by “Strangers on a Train,” which it acknowledged in character dialogue), its individual scenes lasted too long, with hit-and-miss jokes.
Just as there was a nod to “Strangers on a Train” and its murder-swap plot last time, there’s a shout-out to “9 to 5” here — less of a stretch, as far as creative sophistication goes.
Following the misadventures of Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), and Dale (Charlie Day) in the misanthropic Horrible Bosses—a film in which, Strangers on a Train-style, the protagonists decide to kill each other’s employers—Nick, Kurt, and Dale are now the bosses.
In the first film, Nick, Dale and Kurt (Sudeikis) teamed up to murder one another's abusive supervisors, Strangers on a Train-style.