JA from MNPP here, with a bit of useless knowledge straight from the dregs of IMDb to entertain your computer-less friends with. This is specifically in reference to Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 classic Strangers on a Train, which I gave the murdering-once-over back home at my blog yesterday.Did You Know! That when our villain Bruno Anthony, so memorably played by Robert Walker (just eight months before his death from an allergic reaction to the sedative sodium amytal), reaches into the street-drain to try and grab the lighter he's dropped which will prove his guilt, Hitch personally selected all the detritus littering said drain?
Can't you just picture the P.A., lining up the hunks of filth in ascending order of ickiness, Hitch strolling alongside them, hankie over his smirking-thru-his-distaste grin? And the resulting inevitable double entendre about what a dirty boy or girl they were then mumbled devilishly? Heavens to Tippi I can see the whole scene in my mind's eye so clearly.
Speaking of our villain Bruno Anthony here though has got me thinking - I think Bruno's possibly my favorite Hitchcock villain. He's just... so pathetic. Lounging around his big house in his silk robe whining to his mother... falling for the dreamboat tennis star and proving his love with a deranged scheme... he's delightful.
It's quite the rogue's gallery Hitch assembled, so on another day (another second) I might choose someone else as Hitch's Greatest Villain (Lars Thorwald cuts a creepy shape to be sure, and then there's that confused boy named Norman...), but today... today is Bruno Anthony Day! Give him some love, y'all!
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3 comments:
i give him some love but from a distance since I don't want any trouble coming my way ;)
it seems strange to complain of a Hitchcock movie being underdiscussed -- especially a famous one -- but i think this one is.
Yeah, I'd have to second that. Plus, Hitchcock's reputation as a perfectionist is almost unparalleled. I wonder if he spent more time with the minor details than Kubrick... Your opinion?
I personally need to spend more time with Kubrick. There's a lot I haven't seen but I am as of yet fairly cool on his filmography (at least in comparison to other movie buffs)
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