The upshot is a perfect Alfred Hitchcock thriller...with a ingenious plot taken from a Patricia Highsmith novel and a memorably seductive villain.

Strangers on a Train is an admirable demonstration of Alfred Hitchcock's virtuosity in the area of suspense dramas.

Winds up with a scene in which a merry-go-round goes wild, spins like a pin wheel, and crashes in a gaudy blaze of explosions that no earthly carrousel could touch off. The movie itself is the same way: implausible but intriguing and great fun to ride.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most remembered thrillers, it boasts a killer premise about two men "crisscrossing" murders but devolves into standard MacGuffin-chasing and gay panic.