STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, who also wrote THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY. Mel Brooks' film HIGH ANXIETY parodied Hitchcock's films. REBECCA was the only one of Hitchcock's films to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, although four other films were also nominated. Although he never won an Oscar in competition, in 1967 Hitchcock was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement.

In this Alfred Hitchcock classic, champion tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger) meets pushy playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) on a train. Their chance encounter turns sinister as Bruno manipulates his way into Guy’s life. Bruno, eager to kill his father, learns that Guy wants to marry a senator’s daughter (Ruth Roman) but cannot get a divorce from his wife, Miriam (Laura Elliot). So Bruno suggests the men swap murders, which would leave no traceable clues or possible motives. Although Guy refuses, it will not be so easy to rid himself of the psychopathic Bruno.

Following a very substantial career in his native Britain in both silent films and talkies, Alfred Hitchcock moved to Hollywood and became an American citizen with dual nationality in 1956, thus he also remained a British subject. Hitchcock was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1980. He died just four months later, on April 29, before he received the opportunity to be formally invested by the Queen.