Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious Impla
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny South End on Sea. As always,
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jamie Evans, joined by Rory Jocelyn.
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and making a welcome return to the show
Speaker 1: for the first time since his appearance in season one.
Speaker 1: It's mister Dave Gardner. Hello, Welcome back to the show. Dave.
Speaker 2: Good to be back. Thank you for having me. Guys.
Speaker 1: Today, we're turning back time quite a distance. This is
Speaker 1: like what now, like seventy years ago, nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yees, seventy three, seventy three.
Speaker 1: Years Christ to the Endless March of Time. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: We're going back to nineteen fifty one for our first
Speaker 1: time reviewing an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Can't believe we've waited
Speaker 1: this long to do it because I love Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's time for a second take for Strangers
Speaker 1: on a Train. So Strangers on a Train, as I said,
Speaker 1: it was a nineteen fifty one movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Speaker 1: It stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman and Robert Walker and
Speaker 1: was made for a budget of one point six million
Speaker 1: dollars and earned seven million dollars at the box office.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, the film was selected for preservation
Speaker 1: in the United States National Film Registry by the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress as being culturally, historically, or esthetically significant. Upon release,
Speaker 1: Strangers on a Train received mixed reviews, with Variety praising it,
Speaker 1: saying performance wise, the cast comes through strongly. Granger is
Speaker 1: excellent as the harassed young man innocently involved in murder.
Speaker 1: Roman's role as a nice, understanding girl is a switch
Speaker 1: for her, and she makes it warmly effective. Walker's role
Speaker 1: has extreme colour, and he projects it deftly. Conversely, Bosley
Speaker 1: Crowther of The New York Times criticized the film, saying,
Speaker 1: mister Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in
Speaker 1: the air and trying to con us into thinking that
Speaker 1: it will stand up without support. Perhaps it will be
Speaker 1: those in the audience who will likewise be terrified by
Speaker 1: the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by mister Hitchcock's sleekly
Speaker 1: melodramatic trick. But for all of that, his basic premise
Speaker 1: of fear fired by menace is so thin and so
Speaker 1: utterly and convincing that the story just does not stand
Speaker 1: in contrast. However, modern reviewers are overwhelmingly positive on Rotten
Speaker 1: Tomatrow's The film has an approval rating of ninety eight percent,
Speaker 1: with the consensus stating a provocative premise and inventive set
Speaker 1: design lights the way for Hitchcock's diabolically and entertaining masterpiece.
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert called Strangers on a Train a first rate thriller,
Speaker 1: and he considers it one of Hitchcock's top five movies.
Speaker 1: He added the film to his Great Movies list, and
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, The Guardian praised the film's writing. Hitchcock's
Speaker 1: study of the guilt that tanks the human condition is
Speaker 1: just one cinematic master stroke after another. I believe, certainly
Speaker 1: when I did film studies, this is one of the
Speaker 1: films that was like on the curriculum. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it still is well.
Speaker 2: I suppose it depends what curriculum you're studying. This one
Speaker 2: isn't on the one that I teach, but Vertigo is
Speaker 2: via Avid Hitchcock, and as part of that then we
Speaker 2: would always say, watch lots of other Hitchcock films and
Speaker 2: this would definitely be one that I would push to
Speaker 2: my students and be like, watch this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so Strangers on a Train. Strangers on a Train,
Speaker 1: fucking great film. I first saw.
Speaker 3: This, no opinion on it.
Speaker 1: I first saw this at UNI, you know, in a
Speaker 1: literally like my first week at UNI. They showed this
Speaker 1: in the lecture theater. I'd never seen it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to expect going into it. Absolutely loved it.
Speaker 1: I was very impressed. Do you remember the first time
Speaker 1: you saw Strangers on a Train, Dave?
Speaker 2: I think I probably saw it at home on a DVD,
Speaker 2: because I do. I do have it on DVD somewhere,
Speaker 2: and I think it was probably whilst I was like
Speaker 2: discovering Hitchcock, so probably watched Rear Window, Psycho and Vertigo,
Speaker 2: and then I was like, I think Strange on a
Speaker 2: Train is one of his most well liked films. But
Speaker 2: it's not like the top top top tier.
Speaker 1: Cparently not considered to be like other than Ebert apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read it's not usually considered to be like top ten,
Speaker 1: but it's very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's one of his best though. I
Speaker 2: really love Strangers on the Train as well, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I think when you think of the classic ones, it
Speaker 2: would be Psychoveria, Window, north By Northwest, when Vertigo, then
Speaker 2: maybe the Birds. It might be like the top five
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. But yeah, I put this
Speaker 2: in my top five. Pow or the first Hitchcock film
Speaker 2: you saw it was probably yeah, yeah, I reckon it
Speaker 2: would have been yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rory. I think this is a first for you,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'll be honest, like, for some reason, I've just
Speaker 3: never watched much Hitchcock. And it's not out of choice.
Speaker 3: It's not because I'm trying to avoid it, just by
Speaker 3: a weird happenstance. Of all the black and white shit
Speaker 3: I've been watching, Hitchcock just hasn't come up, which is unusual,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I maybe it's just me, but because I
Speaker 1: really like Hitchcock, but I think black and white directors,
Speaker 1: and I jumped straight to Hitchcock every time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny one because I can't imagine most
Speaker 2: of his films are black and white, and if you
Speaker 2: if you add them all up, but he does obviously
Speaker 2: have quite a lot of color ones and stuff that
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Psycho is a bit of a
Speaker 2: weird one because he'd been making color films for ages
Speaker 2: and then decided to go black and white for that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was clearly a directorial choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think a budget choice was a budget choice,
Speaker 2: to be honest. Yeah, which is weird. Yeah, that bla
Speaker 2: black and whe would have been considerable.
Speaker 1: That was I don't know if you know, Sorry, but
Speaker 1: spoiler for an episode we've already done. We did Roman
Speaker 1: Holiday recent Oh okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason Roman Holiday is black and white was they
Speaker 1: basically said to the director, you can either shoot it
Speaker 1: on location in Italy, yeah, and it's got to be
Speaker 1: black and white, right, or you can shoot it in
Speaker 1: the studio and it can be color. And he thought
Speaker 1: it was more important to shoot on location than to
Speaker 1: shoot in color.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that was the right choice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really liked Roman Holiday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great film, A bit different to this, Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was surprised watching it again, had no
Speaker 3: expectations going in. Didn't I really know much about the genre.
Speaker 3: You told me it was a thriller. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: there's a couple of elements that I think could have
Speaker 3: been done a little bit better. But other than that, overall,
Speaker 3: it's a very good film. Certainly kept me gripped to
Speaker 3: the end. We've seen this sort of film before and since,
Speaker 3: mostly not not before this point, but this sort of
Speaker 3: story has been retold several times, not not just in
Speaker 3: terms of its own remakes, but people doing a similar idea.
Speaker 3: But this one tells it very in a particularly well
Speaker 3: built way. It structures it very well, I think. So
Speaker 3: I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 1: We all liked it so, just as just to basically
Speaker 1: some of the plot for anyone who doesn't realize, this
Speaker 1: is about two men. Guy who is a tennis player
Speaker 1: who is stuck in a marriage that he's hoping to
Speaker 1: extricate himself from so he can get with his new squeeze, Anna,
Speaker 1: and she's a senator's daughter because once his tennis career
Speaker 1: has done, he wants to move into politics.
Speaker 2: But they saying sorry just to interrupt, but like there's
Speaker 2: one of the detectives says to him, oh, do you
Speaker 2: never want to turn pro as a tennis player? So
Speaker 2: I'm like, so what is this where like people go
Speaker 2: and watch amateur tennis players and like get he gets
Speaker 2: written about in the newspaper. I'm like a tennis player.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that, but then I remembered that in America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're right in Britain, that would never happen, Like
Speaker 1: unless you're fucking playing, you're getting the news America college.
Speaker 4: Sports, yeah, yes, college football is actually basket. I wonder
Speaker 4: you'd never go and watch a university or college.
Speaker 2: I did wonder if as well. This was like sort
Speaker 2: of pre the age of people having TVs in the home,
Speaker 2: so there was just like nothing to do. So she
Speaker 2: was like, well, we might as well go watch like
Speaker 2: a good local tennis player. I think America helps as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They we have local newspapers in the UK, like the
Speaker 3: South End Deco. Yeah, it's not the same like when
Speaker 3: they have local news, and America local news is the
Speaker 3: state news. Yeah, so you end up with a.
Speaker 2: Lot which is that bigger than of the UK's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there will be like the big paper of
Speaker 3: I don't know, Illinois, m M. But it's only in Illinois. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's still the big paper because it's not to
Speaker 3: a town, it's it's to a whole state, Whereas in
Speaker 3: the UK you either get tiny little rag from local
Speaker 3: town like yeah the Sun all the times, or something
Speaker 3: like that, which is nationwide anyway.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Right, So guy gets on a training and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about pacing later, but this film gets straight into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he gets on a train and accidentally pure circumstantial bumps
Speaker 1: feet with a guy named Bruno Anthony played by Robert Walker.
Speaker 1: Quick thing. I didn't know this. You know, Robert Walker
Speaker 1: died the same year this came out. No, killed himself.
Speaker 1: I think it's really Yeah, suffered terribly with depression and
Speaker 1: took an overdose. Yeah, apparently was divorced twice by the
Speaker 1: age of thirty. Oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, he's great in this. I think he's like, by
Speaker 2: far and away, the best thing in this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Died in nineteen fifty one adverse reaction to prescription drugs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is his second to last film, right, his actual
Speaker 1: last film. He died halfway through filming and they had
Speaker 1: to use some footage from this film, oh, to finish it.
Speaker 1: I was, I was because I watched it, and I
Speaker 1: was I was, like, this guy must have had a
Speaker 1: big career, because he's really good.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised. I didn't know that. I must have read
Speaker 2: that before, and it's just completely left my mind because like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've seen this film a few times and definitely would
Speaker 2: have looked him up afterwards say, oh, okay, right.
Speaker 1: So he plays Bruno Anthony, and by a chance meeting,
Speaker 1: these two people meet and Bruno proposes to Guy the
Speaker 1: perfect murder, which is a frequently occurring Hitchcock trope, which
Speaker 1: is that he proposes that the key reason anyone gets
Speaker 1: caught in a murder is motive. So what if two
Speaker 1: complete strangers who by chance met on a train swap
Speaker 1: murders and proposes that he kills Guy's wife and Guy
Speaker 1: murders his father. I think because he wants to get
Speaker 1: his trust fund or something like that.
Speaker 2: Dad is really yeah, there's I think his dad wants
Speaker 2: him to get a job, doesn't he.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He mentions that is, you know, he wants me to
Speaker 3: go and work nine till five, work my way up
Speaker 3: in a company. Someone like me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, Because he goes, can you even imagine
Speaker 1: someone like that? Yeah, And the film sort of goes
Speaker 1: from there. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone
Speaker 1: who hasn't seen it. I know it's been out for
Speaker 1: seventy three years, but one of the things we hope
Speaker 1: to do on this show has encouraged people to watch
Speaker 1: older films. I mean, let's start with the performance. Is
Speaker 1: It's as good a place as any to start. Robert
Speaker 1: Walker is fantastic in this Yeah, he somehow manages to
Speaker 1: be do you know what? I thought he was almost
Speaker 1: a proto Norman Baits in the sense that he manages
Speaker 1: to be both. There's a feminine soft quality to him.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. Yeah. The way he likes was always
Speaker 2: checking his nails, isn't he and things? Yeah, I'd say
Speaker 2: it's more than slight. I think it is. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: is flaming, I think in this film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's very sinister still.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the bits I really like is when they're
Speaker 1: at the tennis match and all the crowd are going
Speaker 1: left right, left, right, and he's just staring.
Speaker 2: Yeah straight, and there's a great zoom in on him,
Speaker 2: isn't there. Yeah? Yeah, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: But I don't think there was really any bad performances
Speaker 1: in this guy Farley's Farley Granger is pretty good. I
Speaker 1: feel like the gay subtext goes both ways with the characters.
Speaker 1: Some people don't. Some people think it's just Bruno.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be honest, I didn't pick up on the
Speaker 3: stuff from guys, I'm intrigued to hear what you guys are.
Speaker 1: Well, you watch that first scene really closely. I've never
Speaker 1: looked at either of you guys the way he's looking
Speaker 1: at Bruno, but he's really studying his face and he
Speaker 1: loiking down at his lips thought while he's talking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I just figured that that was, like, who's
Speaker 3: this freak talking to me? He never actually tells him
Speaker 3: to piss off? So which at some point when certainly
Speaker 3: when he's like hey, it starts revealing that he knows
Speaker 3: about his private life, like just piss off. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: maybe there is that. Maybe the reason he didn't tell
Speaker 3: him to piss off was that he was kind of
Speaker 3: intrigued in a romantic sense or or an attraction sense.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 3: I didn't catch that when I watched it, but it
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense because that is one of the
Speaker 3: things that I didn't get in this film. So I
Speaker 3: was like, why isn't he just tending the funk off?
Speaker 3: Like and then he's just he's like, oh, let's go
Speaker 3: on a subway car and chat about your dad? Why?
Speaker 2: Who is Yeah? Bruno is very charming though, isn't he
Speaker 2: and like he he kind of he pushes it a
Speaker 2: bit too far, isn't he? And then he kind of
Speaker 2: acknowledges he goes me and my big mouth kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So he does he just sort of skirts a line.
Speaker 2: I think he's intriguing enough as a character. That guy
Speaker 2: is like, okay, go. I think what I would say
Speaker 2: is that that the Farti Granger character and and his
Speaker 2: love interest, those to me are the most like boring
Speaker 2: parts of this film.
Speaker 3: They don't get a lot to do.
Speaker 2: No, well, they you know, sort of Farley Granger sort
Speaker 2: of just simpers a bit, doesn't he and kind of
Speaker 2: you know, goes, oh, there's bad stuff's happening. Whereas like
Speaker 2: all of the queer characters or the sort of the
Speaker 2: murderous characters are the interesting ones like bruno AND's younger sister,
Speaker 2: who's played by Hitchcock's daughter. She's great, Like she's like
Speaker 2: relishing the murder aspect of it.
Speaker 3: Happens now, like people love those true murder podcasts and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. Yeah, it much comes across as like
Speaker 3: a proto type of that.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but I think like that's what's so great
Speaker 2: about this film is that everybody is interested in that stuff, and.
Speaker 1: Bruno says that to the two old women. Yes, everyone's
Speaker 1: interested in this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, everyone's potentially a murderer given the right circumstances.
Speaker 2: That's kind of you know, And there's there's a sort
Speaker 2: of slight, sort of fight club element to it. Isn't
Speaker 2: as well that like Bruno is kind of guy, a
Speaker 2: guy if he was let off the leash, like guy
Speaker 2: does what he says, he wants to ring his wife's neck.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I would say in terms of the script, most
Speaker 3: of the script is quite solid, certainly around the Bruno
Speaker 3: Anthony character, but the character of guys, certainly in the
Speaker 3: first half he gets a little bit better in the
Speaker 3: second half the script. For the script for Guy in
Speaker 3: the first half, he just basically goes into scenes and goes,
Speaker 3: what do you mean? What does that what? Yeah? And
Speaker 3: it's like, does this guy not have any sort of
Speaker 3: motivations or anything of himself?
Speaker 1: He's just furthering the other guy.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think if anything, if the script needed any tightening,
Speaker 3: that's where it needed tightening was giving the main character,
Speaker 3: at least in the initial phase, something more of a
Speaker 3: personality of their own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more of an edge. Yeah, I think, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think Hitchcock is way way more interested in the Bruno character.
Speaker 3: Yeah you can tell. Yeah, yeah, the way the way
Speaker 3: that Bruno is lit, the way that he's filmed, the
Speaker 3: way that he is performed, the way he is directed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the way he's written. Everything is really this film about Bruno. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's kind of watch weird. It's at one point I
Speaker 3: almost got a cable guy ish sort of vibe to
Speaker 3: the character, Like he's not as zany as Jim Carey's character,
Speaker 3: but when he's certainly when he's like waving his way
Speaker 3: into guy's life, meeting his family and all of the
Speaker 3: people that he knows, I was like, this is very
Speaker 3: like obviously cable Guy is very similar to this, because
Speaker 3: Cable Gay came like fifty years later, forty odd years later.
Speaker 3: But yeah, as I was watching, I was like, oh, intrigued,
Speaker 3: Like it's interesting to see where sort of the origins
Speaker 3: of some of these slightly more pop culture films where
Speaker 3: they come from in classic films. Yeah, because I'm fairly
Speaker 3: certain I don't know this as a fact, but I'm
Speaker 3: fairly certain the cable guy that idea that he insidiously
Speaker 3: weaves into the Family probably stems.
Speaker 2: From this, Yeah, possibly. I mean, it's a great setup,
Speaker 2: isn't it for a story?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think. But what I quite like about this is
Speaker 2: it it doesn't really feel like a classic film. It
Speaker 2: doesn't have any sort of pomposity or like respectaful respectableness
Speaker 2: about it. I quite like that this is It feels
Speaker 2: a bit sort of camp and trashy, and I like
Speaker 2: that about this film. It reminds me a little bit.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if it's just because of the
Speaker 2: fair ground element of it, but it reminds me a
Speaker 2: little bit of things like Final Destination and Scream in
Speaker 2: the way that you've got like the really good catty
Speaker 2: dialogue and people joking about murder and things like that,
Speaker 2: and I just think that's like so much fun. It's
Speaker 2: really really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of the dialogue for Bruno Anthony in particular,
Speaker 3: I noticed watching a few films from the same sort
Speaker 3: of era. I watched The Men, which was only a
Speaker 3: year before this, I think nineteen fifty, Marlon Brando's first
Speaker 3: feature film. A lot of the dialogue in that. Certainly
Speaker 3: the first half is incredibly witty, incredibly clever, and obviously
Speaker 3: things like twelve Angry Men. A lot of the interplay
Speaker 3: in the dialogue is again very witty, very clever. We
Speaker 3: don't get a lot of that nowadays in modern script writing,
Speaker 3: like they replace it more with sort of the Marvel
Speaker 3: style bathos humor because I suppose that's flavor of the month.
Speaker 3: But just having that interplay between people in the dialogue,
Speaker 3: I kind of missed that. Yeah, watching all these old
Speaker 3: films and going, man, I want some of this in
Speaker 3: my new film. It's like, where is this cool in
Speaker 3: a play going?
Speaker 1: Now? I think you have to go to the indie
Speaker 1: market to get that now. Yeah, I think you're not
Speaker 1: getting that from Hollywood at the moment.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Hollywood are interested in big bang boom explosions.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe I think it's it's like when you see a
Speaker 2: script that's written as well as this, it's just hard
Speaker 2: to do like these are. There's a reason why we're
Speaker 2: still talking about a film like this seventy three years
Speaker 2: after the fact, because it's really good.
Speaker 1: The Bruno Anthony character. The thing I hadn't remembered because
Speaker 1: it's been maybe ten years since I last saw this,
Speaker 1: So the thing that I hadn't remembered watching it back
Speaker 1: today is I didn't realize that there's not really anything.
Speaker 1: There's no sympathetic element to Bruno. Really, he's a spoilt,
Speaker 1: rich kid. His motives are entirely self self motivated. I
Speaker 1: hadn't remembered that. I thought my memory had been that
Speaker 1: his dad was more like actually abusive, and that's why
Speaker 1: he wanted his dad gone. So that was interesting to
Speaker 1: watch and be like, oh.
Speaker 2: Still likable though I think.
Speaker 3: Pure on charisma.
Speaker 1: Yes, likable in the way that villains are likable in
Speaker 1: the sense that they're not likable. They'd be a terrible
Speaker 1: person to know in real life, but they are thoroughly
Speaker 1: entertaining to watch. Likable in the way Anthony Hopkins is
Speaker 1: likable as Annibal Left. Ye. Yes, you want to watch
Speaker 1: him and you hope he stays on the screen or
Speaker 1: Heath led Her as the joker. You want him, but
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to know him in real life. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't actually sit on the C two C and meet
Speaker 1: this guy.
Speaker 2: I think you'd be could find at parties Bruno, Yeah,
Speaker 2: if he was in a room full of people.
Speaker 3: And then when you're not choking old women, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean you would be like can you
Speaker 2: believe that guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, choke that. So Bruno ends up going through with
Speaker 1: his murder and he kills Miriam, who is.
Speaker 2: She's also great as well. Sorry, that's the other one.
Speaker 2: There's sort of the catty camp character. She is like
Speaker 2: in a way. Obviously she has to die for the plot,
Speaker 2: but I miss her so so much.
Speaker 1: She's comically villain villain.
Speaker 2: It's like I've got another man's baby and the two guys,
Speaker 2: but she's still flirting with Bruno.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've decided not to divorce you now because the money,
Speaker 1: she goes, I need the money for the lawyer.
Speaker 3: He hands, He then hands the body goes, I'm not
Speaker 3: getting lawyer anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, glassy, Yeah, that's everything I like about as well,
Speaker 2: because obviously she's a promiscuous character. I mean we can
Speaker 2: get into like the whole aspect of does Hitchcock like
Speaker 2: hate women? Does he hate promiscuous women? Does he hate
Speaker 2: gay men? All of these kinds of things. But I
Speaker 2: like that they've kind of not cast. I don't know,
Speaker 2: like if you read that script, you'd be like, okay, right,
Speaker 2: So she's she's a tramp, as the sister calls it,
Speaker 2: and she goes he's had a tramp, so you'd expect
Speaker 2: her to be this kind of like ultra sort of
Speaker 2: sex bomb popping on the screen. And she looks like
Speaker 2: this sort of like librarian kind of type, isn't she.
Speaker 2: But she's just like the d obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And to be honest, she's offering it. The blokes
Speaker 3: are going yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so he was
Speaker 3: playing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he would get along really well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're the same type of villain as each other.
Speaker 3: If anything, he should have made the deal with her
Speaker 3: because she would have followed through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would have just said a great time.
Speaker 1: So he ends up stalking her into this carnival, doesn't he?
Speaker 1: In the film end up coming back to this carnival
Speaker 1: at the end.
Speaker 2: That's the final destination three of it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I might be reading too much into this,
Speaker 1: but I noticed that I've never noticed this before. So
Speaker 1: she gets on a boat with her two young lovers
Speaker 1: and goes off into a tunnel of love and he
Speaker 1: follows behind. I noticed that his boat is named Pluto.
Speaker 3: Yeah, doesn't have a name, nothing does.
Speaker 1: I just don't think the camera focuses on it.
Speaker 3: I don't think it did at least the one that
Speaker 3: definitely didn't have They might have had a name on
Speaker 3: the back of it. I don't remember, but he's had
Speaker 3: Pluto on the back. But then when they come out
Speaker 3: of the Tunnel of Love, he has a little flag
Speaker 3: that says Pluto on the front of his boat. They
Speaker 3: definitely didn't have a little flag with a name on
Speaker 3: the front of their boat.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just wondering if Pluto had been chosen
Speaker 1: deliberately because it's the Roman god of the underworld and
Speaker 1: the dead. Oh okay, and the fact that this literally
Speaker 1: immediately precedes her death and it's her killer that gets
Speaker 1: in the boat could be a coincidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is, though, because you told me
Speaker 3: that Hitchcock specifically picked what trash was in the in
Speaker 3: one of the gutters for one of the shots, and
Speaker 3: he was like, no, I want to personally pick every
Speaker 3: piece of trash that's in this gutter that doesn't sound
Speaker 3: like a man, and goes what's on the boat, gives
Speaker 3: a ship, just put it in the wall.
Speaker 2: It's a very functoriously relaxed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very fun quote from Hitchcock. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've ever seen it. I don't remember it
Speaker 1: word for word, but it's about how he One of
Speaker 1: his biggest problems with cinema at the time was he
Speaker 1: felt people didn't pay enough attention in scenes where characters eat,
Speaker 1: as in the directors didn't choose carefully what food the
Speaker 1: actors should have because he believed the food should represent
Speaker 1: the character. So like he's got a bit in one
Speaker 1: of his films. I thought it was this film, but
Speaker 1: I didn't remember seeing it, unless it's in the longer
Speaker 1: cut where they order food. Andrew now orders chocolate ice cream,
Speaker 1: a really fancy steak, and French fries because he's hedonistic.
Speaker 1: He only cares about himself, whereas Guy barely looks at
Speaker 1: the menu and just picks the first thing on the menu,
Speaker 1: which is a hamburger. And there's a whole quote from Hitchcock,
Speaker 1: which it's kind of funny given that Hitchcock himself famously
Speaker 1: very much like food, where he's talking about why he
Speaker 1: thinks it's so important and nothing takes him out of
Speaker 1: a film more while he's watching a film going that
Speaker 1: character wouldn't eat that, Yeah, yeah, that would be part
Speaker 1: of their diet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I just like that everything, and they're quite again,
Speaker 2: what I like about this film what I like about
Speaker 2: Hitchcock as well. He's not a subtle filmmaker, but all
Speaker 2: of the things that you see in his films kind
Speaker 2: of they'll repeat the same thing about that character. If
Speaker 2: that character is, like you say, hedonistic, then they'll always
Speaker 2: make sure that, Okay, well they're doing this thing, how
Speaker 2: can we get that character trait into that thing again?
Speaker 2: And he keeps doing it and doing it and doing it,
Speaker 2: and I yeah, I like it, but also it keeps
Speaker 2: up with that consistency with the character. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: Bruno doesn't really got on much of a journey, does
Speaker 2: he suppose? But then that's the villain, isn't it. Most films,
Speaker 2: they kind of tend to stay the same.
Speaker 1: He does the really classic thing as well, of he
Speaker 1: nearly always frames shots. Whenever he's got two or more
Speaker 1: actors in a shot, the villainous actors are nine times
Speaker 1: out of ten on the left of the frame right
Speaker 1: or when not that, when they're not, it's the character
Speaker 1: who is weakest in the scene is on the left.
Speaker 1: So the only time I can think of that Bruno
Speaker 1: is on the right is right at the beginning, when
Speaker 1: he first meets Farley Granger. And that's because, as you said,
Speaker 1: Rory guys on the back foot in that whole first bit, everything,
Speaker 1: every line of dialogue he's got is a question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Bruno is just spitting out knowledge, and it's all
Speaker 1: these boastful statements, isn't it. Like I've got lots of theories.
Speaker 1: I think we should do this, we should do that.
Speaker 1: Like you say, that's not subtle, that's filmmaking trope number three.
Speaker 1: But Hitchcock uses it so well that I think you
Speaker 1: subconsciously internalize it and it just adds to what you're building.
Speaker 2: And it's always fun. That's the other thing that I
Speaker 2: like about Hitchcock. And I think we were not on
Speaker 2: a podcast. We were just discussing this the other week.
Speaker 2: Like one of my issues with some of the the
Speaker 2: filmmakers of today that gets celebrated naming no names, where
Speaker 2: everyone's like, oh, you know, he's a genius. He's just
Speaker 2: like yeah, but there's no sense of humor to their work,
Speaker 2: whereas like I always feel like, even in Hitchcock's you
Speaker 2: know and just you recount recounting the plot a minute ago, Jamie,
Speaker 2: it just occurred to me that this is a film
Speaker 2: which features the murder of a pregnant woman. Like that
Speaker 2: is dark, isn't it you.
Speaker 3: Well, that's only if she's actually pregnant, because she's she's not. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying she's definitely not. She lies about everything, sure,
Speaker 3: So like the question is is, like it could be Yeah,
Speaker 3: as far as we're aware she's a pregnant woman, but
Speaker 3: she's checking two other guys. It's abandoned, seems to me.
Speaker 3: And she got the money off by saying I need
Speaker 3: a lawyer and then going haham not getting lawyers.
Speaker 2: Fuck you.
Speaker 1: So it's probably all bullshit.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, but they never sort of even put they
Speaker 2: don't really plant that seed of doubt conclusively. But anyway,
Speaker 2: the point is, you know, he has these films which
Speaker 2: have like very very dark subject matter in him, but
Speaker 2: they're still really really funny. Yeah, it's really good fun
Speaker 2: film for me. I love the fun and the trashiness
Speaker 2: of this film in a way. I like that it
Speaker 2: isn't a film. It doesn't take itself seriously. This film,
Speaker 2: I don't think, and it's all the more the better
Speaker 2: for it. I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, while I was doing research just to I
Speaker 1: think shine some light on Hitchcock as a director. While
Speaker 1: I was doing some research for this film, I came
Speaker 1: across a piece that Jimmy James Stewart had done because
Speaker 1: he collaborated with Hitchcock, I think four or five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was talking about rope and rope. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know, Rory. Rope's got this gimmick in it
Speaker 1: where it's designed to look as if it were shot
Speaker 1: in one on one on broken take. In reality, there
Speaker 1: were only ten minute takes because that was literally the
Speaker 1: well ten minutes was Birdman's digital but back then ten
Speaker 1: minutes was the maximum amount of film real you could
Speaker 1: run through the camera before it ran out.
Speaker 2: And then there's these weird bits where the camera just
Speaker 2: sort of decided after ten minutes to do a close
Speaker 2: up on somebody's back. They change the reil and then
Speaker 2: they will go with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there was a quote from Jimmy Stewart where
Speaker 1: he was saying that so he actually didn't think rope worked.
Speaker 1: He actually thought the gimmick didn't work in it. But
Speaker 1: he was saying, if there was any director in Hollywood
Speaker 1: who would try that just for the fun of it,
Speaker 1: because there was no need, There's no plot relevant reason
Speaker 1: that rope has to be shot that way. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be Hitchcock. He called him hitch Yes, I
Speaker 1: think they were real.
Speaker 3: Buddy.
Speaker 1: Buddy was like, yeah, if anyone's going to try it,
Speaker 1: it'd be hitch Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think so.
Speaker 2: I like, yeah, I mean you said the guy made
Speaker 2: like sixty films, so I think after a certain point,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, just to make things interesting for
Speaker 2: himself in to kind of be in that position where
Speaker 2: you're going to go, I don't know if this is
Speaker 2: going to work. I'm just going to give it a
Speaker 2: go and they go, Nope, that didn't work. Never mind anyway,
Speaker 2: on to the next one. But that is that kind
Speaker 2: of that that spirit and that joy of discovery as
Speaker 2: a filmmaker, which yeah, it just makes him way way more.
Speaker 3: That's actually interesting think. Sorry, I just want to say,
Speaker 3: like you mentioning, that is the spirit of discovery. But
Speaker 3: this was not a small budget production, and obviously it's
Speaker 3: not a small budget creator. It's Hitchcock. Yeah, and he
Speaker 3: was well within his prime during his point. Maybe that's
Speaker 3: something that is also very different between you know, Hitchcock
Speaker 3: specifically and sort of filmmakers of today. A lot of
Speaker 3: the big budget filmmakers often they follow a pattern movesly
Speaker 3: they're told they have to buy producers or by studios.
Speaker 3: As we've said multiple times, You've said it even today, Jamie.
Speaker 3: You know, in order to get a certain amount of
Speaker 3: types of script or certain types of experimentation, you have
Speaker 3: to go indie now because it just doesn't come out
Speaker 3: of big budget studios. It's kind of interesting that you can't.
Speaker 1: Take the risk.
Speaker 3: You know, if you spent half a billy but Hitchcock
Speaker 3: making Avengers. Well, so I suppose it wasn't making you
Speaker 3: didn't need a billion to make the film. But no,
Speaker 3: but he probably wouldn't when you were just for inflation,
Speaker 3: one point three million back then was.
Speaker 1: Probably a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean we could do
Speaker 2: the summers and find out. I don't think this would
Speaker 2: be like the biggest budget movie. It's not like Ben
Speaker 2: hur is it. But yeah, I mean these guys like
Speaker 2: Hitchcock and all these directors at this time are making
Speaker 2: at least one film a year, if not two, sometimes
Speaker 2: three or four films a year. So there is an
Speaker 2: element of like, fuck it, you know, let's just give
Speaker 2: this a go.
Speaker 1: So according to what I did in my read in
Speaker 1: my research, this film was a comeback of sorts for Hitchcock,
Speaker 1: not in the sense that he hadn't gone anywhere, because
Speaker 1: like you said, he'd basically been making at least one
Speaker 1: film a year for about twenty years at this point.
Speaker 1: But apparently his late forties output Hitchcock himself wasn't very
Speaker 1: interesting and was much more just like running a paint
Speaker 1: by numbers mode and was just sort of like costume
Speaker 1: people would bring him things and go this, He'd go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever sort of thing. And with this film, apparently he
Speaker 1: sort of got his second wind, I guess, and was
Speaker 1: much more like I said, apparently he actually made Bruno's
Speaker 1: tie himself, the lobster tie. Oh okay, he literally to
Speaker 1: the level of when when Bruno's reaching into the grate
Speaker 1: for the dropped lighter, yeah, Hitchcock insisted on picking the
Speaker 1: trash that would be in the grate.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think he did experiment in this, didn't he? He
Speaker 1: did the I want to talk about the great shot
Speaker 1: when Miriam actually gets killed and the whole murder is
Speaker 1: reflected in the eyeglasses, which is actually a double exposure, right,
Speaker 1: It's how they had to. I mean, nowadays you'd just
Speaker 1: green screen it, but they had to do it exposure.
Speaker 2: And also like how it kind of like warps and
Speaker 2: distorts as he reaches forward and stuff. That kind of
Speaker 2: that perspective of it is mindful. Have you got the budget?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, sorry no, Yeah, so you say it's one
Speaker 3: and a half one point three million.
Speaker 1: I think that's what I said at the start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so if it's one point three million in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty one, it'd be worth fifteen and a half million.
Speaker 2: Now, oh yeah, so that's a I mean, you don't
Speaker 2: get fifteen and a half million films, now.
Speaker 1: Do you?
Speaker 2: Not really neither one million or two hundred million.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but yeah, and obviously this also, if people
Speaker 1: don't mind me skipping to the end slightly, the very
Speaker 1: probably the most well known part of this film, the
Speaker 1: carousel sequence, which certainly feels I can't think because I've
Speaker 1: not seen every Hitchcock film. I haven't seen north By
Speaker 1: Northwest because I know that's got the very famous crop
Speaker 1: duster scene that's probably the most but this, for me
Speaker 1: is probably the most action pact I've seen Hitchcock. Do
Speaker 1: I mean this I'd forgotten how out of control it goes.
Speaker 3: Like it is.
Speaker 1: You have to suspend your disbelief a little bit, because
Speaker 1: why would they build it with the ability to go
Speaker 1: that fat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was the fifties. They just didn't give a shit,
Speaker 2: did they. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's someone, if it can spin it over
Speaker 3: a one million, we're not going to use it. It's
Speaker 3: fine over engineer that ship.
Speaker 1: The memory i'd got wrong, The memory I had got wrong.
Speaker 1: I could have if you'd have asked me before I
Speaker 1: rewatched this this morning, if you'd have said to me, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what's the ending of strangers on a train? And bet
Speaker 1: fifty quid on it? I would have swore down that
Speaker 1: it's Guy and Bruno end up under the carousel, right,
Speaker 1: not the random guy. In my head, it was Guy
Speaker 1: crawling to turn it off and Bruno's coming after him,
Speaker 1: sort of like the end of Terminator ending. Honestly though,
Speaker 1: in my mind that was the ending, And then I
Speaker 1: watched it and was like.
Speaker 3: Oh, maybe that's the two guy. Yeah, maybe it's the
Speaker 3: two minutes in the other version. No, it's I've remembered
Speaker 3: it wrong. But it looks great, doesn't it. It's even
Speaker 3: now I'm older, I can see the trick they've used
Speaker 3: where they deliberately under cranked the camera. When they play
Speaker 3: it at full speed, it looks faster.
Speaker 2: There's a great shot of the old guy, you got
Speaker 2: him underneath, and then you've got the wood spinning around,
Speaker 2: and then you can see the people in the background
Speaker 2: as well. It's kind of those three planes of whatever
Speaker 2: you record it, yeah, yeah, and draw you into it.
Speaker 3: But that was real, though, wasn't not?
Speaker 1: That was real? So Hitchcock has he came out and
Speaker 1: said that the ferris wheel wasn't going to the face wheel,
Speaker 1: the carousel wasn't going as fast as it looks. It
Speaker 1: was still going fast, and the guy still would have
Speaker 1: probably died if he just stuck his head up. But
Speaker 1: they under cranked the camera.
Speaker 2: And he wasn't famous, so it didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: Well, he was an actual carnival but he wasn't. He
Speaker 1: was an actual carnival worker who when they told the
Speaker 1: circus they were using what they wanted to do, he went, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do that, and Hitchcock was like, well, that saves
Speaker 1: us paying a stunt man.
Speaker 3: That's why they gave him the gravitas of when he
Speaker 3: first steps forward and he goes.
Speaker 1: I'll do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know what though, that guy's the fucking hero of
Speaker 3: the film. Yeah yeah, because if he didn't stop the carousel,
Speaker 3: all the kids that have died when it all broke apart.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, so you know what that guy say.
Speaker 3: They want not a single fanfare for him. But after
Speaker 3: he's done it, though, they're just like, hey, well done
Speaker 3: for the.
Speaker 1: Punching the guy who's now dying in the caves where
Speaker 1: Bruno just throws that kid as well, that's insane.
Speaker 2: You don't love that character?
Speaker 1: Well, I do often fantasize about just throwing kids onto a.
Speaker 3: Just a little prat.
Speaker 1: Gone from me?
Speaker 3: Is that why you're on a list?
Speaker 1: But yeah, I really enjoyed this film. I Hitchcock's a
Speaker 1: director who I've constantly been meaning to see more of
Speaker 1: his output. I've probably seen. I bet you I've only
Speaker 1: seen four Hitchcock films.
Speaker 2: Have you seen Real Window?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: So that I think is the one, and I think
Speaker 2: I was listening to an interview with Bill Hayder the
Speaker 2: other day and he was talking about how he'd recently
Speaker 2: watched Rear Window with his kids, and he talks about
Speaker 2: a part in it which is like my favorite part
Speaker 2: of it and I won't realin but it still just
Speaker 2: works so well. I think this, I think Strange on
Speaker 2: the Train works. I think you can show this to
Speaker 2: a younger audience and they'll be like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is a really squaring or anything entertainment value. It doesn't
Speaker 2: doesn't drag, No, I don't think and rear window is
Speaker 2: just as as tight. Well, it's a great Have.
Speaker 1: You seen Rebecca?
Speaker 2: I have seen Rebecca.
Speaker 1: I really like Rebeccah.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I got shown that by one of my lecturers, not
Speaker 1: as part of a UNI thing, as part of I
Speaker 1: was making my final year film and he said, and
Speaker 1: we were trying to do something where we wanted this
Speaker 1: character to be really feared, but they're actually not on
Speaker 1: screen much. And the lecturer, a guy named Ronnie, great guy,
Speaker 1: just turned around and he was like, have you ever
Speaker 1: seen Rebecca? And I said no, And he bought his
Speaker 1: own personal DVD copy of Rebecca and gave it to
Speaker 1: me and he was like, watch this. He went, The
Speaker 1: character Rebecca is not in the film.
Speaker 2: The first Missus de Winter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's not in the film, but she overhangs every
Speaker 1: single second of the film. Yeah, it's great. I love
Speaker 1: We're going to do Rebeccah at some point because it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: delightfully gothic.
Speaker 3: Hey, he did the original Mister and Missus Smith.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it's the same thing, is it.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've never seen it, but yeah.
Speaker 3: It says remade as Missus Smith. I think it is,
Speaker 3: so Yeah, let me just double check the story on that.
Speaker 3: A couple who have been married for three years are
Speaker 3: shot to learn that their marriage is not legally valid.
Speaker 3: I was quite different. Then they just take the neighbor,
Speaker 3: but actually they've got to kill each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, what did you think seeing this for
Speaker 1: a second for another time? Dave any changing opinion? Still
Speaker 1: love it the same you always have?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I think it kind of went up in
Speaker 2: my estimation and for me, yeah, like I've probably said,
Speaker 2: that's already. It is easily one of my top Hitchcock films,
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, watching it and and my my only
Speaker 2: sort of issue with it. I think it would be
Speaker 2: that Farley Granger guy and AND's character are a bit
Speaker 2: damp and not as interesting. But then that's fine because
Speaker 2: there's the other characters in it are so brilliant that
Speaker 2: it just carries it along. Yeah. I just think it's
Speaker 2: a great film, a great script, fantastic performances. I love
Speaker 2: that the sort of the heavy handedness of it. Like
Speaker 2: I said, he's not a subtle filmmaker. Like that opening
Speaker 2: scene where you see guy getting out of his like
Speaker 2: limo whatever the hell it is, and his shoes and
Speaker 2: he's got the guy carrying his luggage. But then you
Speaker 2: see guy coming out of like the sort of the
Speaker 2: you know, the old taxi cab and he's you know,
Speaker 2: got somebody's still carrying his luggage, but you know he's
Speaker 2: got his shoes aren't as nice. But yet that storytelling
Speaker 2: is just all happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, visual storytelling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you didn't even speak about the recurring doubles theme throughout.
Speaker 2: This yeah oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you said, the opening with the two shoes, right
Speaker 1: down to like Hitchcock's carry in his cameo.
Speaker 2: Is getting a double bass. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Like it's like you said, he's not subtle, Like he
Speaker 1: picks a theme and he hammers it.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but everything kind of grows from that. I
Speaker 2: think that's really really nice and it kind of makes
Speaker 2: you as a like filmmaker. I know you guys will
Speaker 2: write scripts and direct and stuff as well. It just
Speaker 2: makes you kind of feel like, yeah, you can just
Speaker 2: be on the nose with it, like don't try and
Speaker 2: be clever, and you kind of go, well, this wouldn't
Speaker 2: happen in real life. He's just like you know, if you.
Speaker 3: Try and make it too subtle, sometimes either muddy's it
Speaker 3: or people just miss it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go there, go what was that about? Whereas
Speaker 2: you watch Strange in the train, there's.
Speaker 3: No you're not gonna sit there and go what was
Speaker 3: that all about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely clear what it is. I think
Speaker 2: even you know, you don't have to be like a
Speaker 2: film academic to kind of get that whole thing of that,
Speaker 2: that Bruno is maybe a part of Guy in some
Speaker 2: ways and stuff like that. So yeah, it's great film.
Speaker 3: I haven't really got anything much more to add that
Speaker 3: you guys haven't. I thought it was a fantastic film. Again,
Speaker 3: hadn't seen it before.
Speaker 1: This is your first Hitchcock.
Speaker 3: No second, I've seen The Birds Pride. Oh no third,
Speaker 3: I've seen Psycho as well. But yeah, I am surprised
Speaker 3: at how little Hitchcock I've ended up sitting so far.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, this is a very good one to
Speaker 3: go for. Yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it. The character of Bruno
Speaker 3: was fantastic. It's the let's be honest, he's the lynchpin
Speaker 3: of this film. He's also big shout out to Bruno's mum,
Speaker 3: who's brilliant.
Speaker 2: And that bit, that bit where where she does that
Speaker 2: painting and he laughs at it, and then at first
Speaker 2: she kind of acts a little bit, doesn't she, and
Speaker 2: then she kind of joins it. She's really really good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I really like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: Actually, and those those scenes that like are some of
Speaker 2: my favorite in the whole.
Speaker 3: Because he laughs at he goes, oh, it's father.
Speaker 1: She supposed to be saint something.
Speaker 3: But it's clear like a weird maducery. Yeah, she's totally
Speaker 3: dement she's nutty as well. That's that she's absolutely not
Speaker 3: on planet Earth either. Yeah, no, wonder her son is mental.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean one thing we haven't sort of discussed.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you want to discussed this or not,
Speaker 2: but like, do we feel that Hitchcock thinks that all
Speaker 2: gay men are psychopathic murderers?
Speaker 1: Because here we didn't we didn't discuss that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean because obviously in Rope there's again you know,
Speaker 2: it's never really explicit, is it. But basically, whenever there's
Speaker 2: a gay character in Hitchcock film, there'll be the ones
Speaker 2: doing the murdering.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, At a certain point the pattern becomes
Speaker 1: too difficult to ignore. Yeah, because like, like you say,
Speaker 1: Psycho as well, Like it's a deliberate choice to make
Speaker 1: Anthony Perkins this feminized yeah, which didn't work when they
Speaker 1: remade it. That's that's like the main thing that makes
Speaker 1: the remake of Psychoe not work.
Speaker 2: I'm not seen it actually shot for shot one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it's shot for shites, the same script, yeah,
Speaker 1: every but instead of boy next Door Anthony Perkins, you've
Speaker 1: got grizzled like beard, unshaven playing Anthony playing normal baits
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't work.
Speaker 3: There's something about I mean again, haven't seen a lot
Speaker 3: of Hitchcock work, so can't be too certain on this,
Speaker 3: but you guys will obviously be able to support this
Speaker 3: or not. Maybe it's not necessarily to do with homosexuality. Again,
Speaker 3: I've not seen enough of his works to know if
Speaker 3: that is the theme. Maybe it's just he had a
Speaker 3: very negative view on effeminate men, which it could be
Speaker 3: construed the same as being the same thing, but isn't
Speaker 3: always necessarily you get very butch gay men, you know, etc.
Speaker 3: And very effeminate straight men. But it seemed to me
Speaker 3: that whenever he was trying to convey sort of the
Speaker 3: darker elements of Anthony, it was you know, oh, look
Speaker 3: how effeminate he is with this. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: mean he is gay. It could just be that Hitchcock,
Speaker 3: being a man of his era, probably had a very
Speaker 3: negative view on effeminate men and thought that they were
Speaker 3: all a bit suspect.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing, isn't that You do wonder how
Speaker 1: much of it is Hitchcock personally being biggoted versus unfortunately
Speaker 1: the general times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm quite biggot it. I think at the time,
Speaker 2: homosexuality is seen as being deviant or aberrant, right, so
Speaker 2: that kind of thing gets lumped in with other deviants
Speaker 2: and other aberan behavior like murder. I think that the
Speaker 2: sort of the redeeming feature in all of this is
Speaker 2: that Hitchcock, obviously I think anyway, from watching this film
Speaker 2: and loves those people. He's interested or fascinated by people
Speaker 2: who engaged in taboo behavior, be it homosexuality at the time,
Speaker 2: or murder, or like incest as well. I mean there's
Speaker 2: an incestuous element between Bruno and his mother I think
Speaker 2: as well, like the fact that and wants to offer
Speaker 2: his dad. I always sort of saying he's sort of
Speaker 2: coded his queer, but does he want to off his
Speaker 2: dad to kind of be with his mum, like you've
Speaker 2: got that? Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. And Hitchcock's obviously really
Speaker 2: into sort of psychoanalysis, so I think he does. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: any kind of deviant behavior gets punished in a Hitchcock movie,
Speaker 2: but that's always the most fascinating and interesting part of it.
Speaker 2: And the characters that are the best characters in the films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, Yeah, he doesn't. Just he doesn't lionize
Speaker 3: them in so much as you know, these sort of
Speaker 3: effeminate guys are just like, oh look at this stupid
Speaker 3: asshole over here. They are the central focus of the films.
Speaker 3: They're you know, they're they're the bits you remember. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it's not dismissive, which usually a hatred would be
Speaker 3: quite dismissive. Yeah, he spends a lot of time if
Speaker 3: he does hate them he spends a surprising amount of
Speaker 3: time on Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I think he was fascinated by it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it's that sort of anything that was repressed
Speaker 2: or or taboo in society at the time. Those are
Speaker 2: the things that seemed to be his the juiciest part
Speaker 2: of his films.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He just likes pushing boundaries, doesn't he.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, I mean, you know, I wonder I
Speaker 2: wonder if if he'd been making films now, if Yeah,
Speaker 2: he'd do away with the Farley Granger character and just
Speaker 2: make it all about Bruno. Yeah. I just I wonder
Speaker 2: if the guy character would be himself equally kind of
Speaker 2: have you know, he wouldn't be as squeaky clean. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I know like that he says at the start,
Speaker 2: I'd like to wring her neck or whatever he says.
Speaker 2: But other than that, he is just like complete vanilla
Speaker 2: beige boy, isn't he. Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was. There was one thing that I thought would
Speaker 3: happen in the film didn't happen when the when guy's
Speaker 3: wife goes to visit Bruno in Bruno's.
Speaker 2: House, right, and when she goes plead with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when she goes to plead with him obviously, he
Speaker 3: basically says like he's in his web of deceit on her,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't quite work, but he's trying to. Like
Speaker 3: she she walks away and still thinks he's the nut job.
Speaker 3: But you know he's sitting there going, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to protect him, blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: I did kind of get the impression that towards the
Speaker 3: end is that I don't like being betrayed or whatever.
Speaker 3: He might have actually tried to pull her in on
Speaker 3: it and go, look, I don't really care who kills
Speaker 3: my dad, so if you do it, it's clean slate. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think if this had been like a nineties
Speaker 2: movie onwards as well, like he definitely would have fucked her.
Speaker 2: I think that would have happened. I Also, I think
Speaker 2: one of the the mystricks in this film is that
Speaker 2: she never doubts Guy's story.
Speaker 3: She gets one bit where she's like, oh, for just
Speaker 3: a moment, he is like, that's why I didn't tell you, yeah,
Speaker 3: and then that's it. It kind of moves on from
Speaker 3: it and.
Speaker 2: Her dad, who's a senator and I would assume be
Speaker 2: very wary of any public scandal whatsoever. And he's like,
Speaker 2: come in, guy, well, don't worry about it. You didn't
Speaker 2: do it, did you. No, I didn't do it. You
Speaker 2: would think you'd be like, look, kid, I don't think
Speaker 2: you did it, but it might be best if you
Speaker 2: just stay away from the house.
Speaker 3: It's like you watch over, ignore the police officer outside
Speaker 3: my home. That moment caused so I did like the
Speaker 3: line from the daughter where she's like, oh no, daddy
Speaker 3: doesn't buy the schedule. He's a senator.
Speaker 2: She yeah, I say she's brilliant. She's just the best.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I think that's probably it. Four strangers on
Speaker 1: the train ready to close the book on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to say, well done to all of
Speaker 2: us for not making the snakes on a plane pun
Speaker 2: during Yeah, showing real growth.
Speaker 1: That's not a good move, to be fair.
Speaker 3: You know, it's worse than snakes on a plane.
Speaker 1: Snakes on a train, which does exist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does. I've watched it.
Speaker 1: It's awful. Of course, it's awful.
Speaker 2: Two snakes like bump their tails together and they go, yes,
Speaker 2: maybe I.
Speaker 1: Can't remember if I buy you buy that, guy, Okay.
Speaker 3: I'll be honest. I thought snakes on a plane was terrible.
Speaker 1: It's not good.
Speaker 3: It's a terrible.
Speaker 1: It's most remembered for the famous.
Speaker 2: Be get these strangers off this motherfucking train.
Speaker 1: Okay, then, well, thank you everyone for tuning in, thank
Speaker 1: you Dave for coming and joining.
Speaker 2: Us, thanks for having me, and you.
Speaker 1: Can also check out other show VGMP, the Video Game
Speaker 1: Movie Podcast, where we review video game based movies. Of
Speaker 1: them are terrible, but they're as artistically creative as hitchcom.
Speaker 1: Of them are garbage, but occasionally, once in a blue moon,
Speaker 1: we come across a hidden gem. And that's that's why
Speaker 1: we do the show, folks. That's what I'm saying. That's
Speaker 1: the occasionally. Black Heaven was brilliant. I'd recommend that to
Speaker 1: even my non video game fans.
Speaker 2: Check it out.
Speaker 1: And having said that, it's time to wrap things up
Speaker 1: here and we will see you next time on Second
Speaker 1: Take Cinema