Strangers on a Train, 1951

Director: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Patricia Hitchcock

Tennis star Guy (Granger) meets Bruno (Walker) on a train while travelling to see his wife, who has smeared his good name all over the papers with her behavior- though she won't give him a divorce. As it's all common knowledge, Bruno knows it too, and begins a disturbing conversation with Guy, offering to kill his wife if Guy will kill Bruno's father. Guy shakes it off, and wonders what is wrong with this crazy man. He thinks nothing of it until his wife ends up dead. And because Guy is in love with another woman (Ruth Roman), suspicion will naturally fall his way.

One of my favorites! Crazy suspense, and Bruno is so creepy!

I love it.

CAMEO: Hitch appears early on, carrying a double bass onto the train, as Guy leaves.

Rope, 1948

Director: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Stars: James Stewart, Farley Granger, John Dall

I find this one to be chilling. Absolutely chilling!!

It's not scary, though, just crazy with suspense. In the first minute of the film, a man is murdered by Brandon (Dall) and Phillip (Granger), and then the two young men throw a small dinner party- right there in their apartment, in the very room where the murder took place. They invite their old teacher Rupert Cadell (Stewart) as well as the victim's parents and fiancee, and as everyone is chatting, the body is just sitting in a large chest, the top of which is used as a place for the refreshments.

The whole time, you are just dying of suspense, wondering if Cadell will catch on to their hints, and connect the dots, and figure out what his former students have done.

Amazing and awful at the same time. Really.