Czenzi Ormonde Movies
- 1996
Filmed for television, Once You Meet a Stranger is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, using the same Patricia Highsmith novel as its source but transforming the protagonists into females. A chance meeting brings together former child star Sheila Gaines (Jacqueline Bisset) and the deceptively charming social butterfly Margo Anthony (Theresa Russell). As the ladies converse, two major facts come to light: Sheila is saddled with an ex-husband who refuses to give him a divorce, while Margo despises her wealthy mother and wishes her dead. In what seems to be a playful hypothesis, Margo suggests that she and Sheila "trade murders"; she will kill Sheila's former husband, Sheila will do in Margo's mom, and the authorities won't be any the wiser. Figuring that Margo is a harmless eccentric at best and a nutcase at worse, Sheila laughs off the notion of such an "arrangement"--but she isn't laughing when her troublesome ex-hubby turns up dead! If you've seen Strangers on a Train, you know how this one turns out, so best to find another way to spend 95 minutes. Once You Meet a Stranger originally aired September 25, 1996 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
1001 Arabian Nights was the first animated feature film produced by the "progressive" UPA cartoon firm. The studio had originally planned to feature its star attraction, the nearsighted Mr. Magoo, in an adaptation of Don Quixote scripted by no less than Aldous Huxley. But Columbia, UPA's distributor, didn't think that a Quixote film would sell to the kiddie trade, so the studio settled on the oft-used "Aladdin's Lamp" story. It might have worked better had Magoo portrayed a bumbling genie; instead, the Myopic One is cast as Aladdin's uncle, a wholly extraneous character who has no bearing on the plot or its outcome. Beyond its script shortcomings, 1001 Arabian Nights boasts an attractive production design and color scheme, as well as some pleasant voicework by Dwayne Hickman, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Hans Conried and Herschel Bernardi. Many of the character designs seen in Arabian Nights were reused on UPA's weekly 1964 TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Backus, Kathryn Grant, (more)
- 1958
Though the fact was played down by the Universal-International publicity department, Step Down to Terror (aka The Silent Stranger) is a remake of the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Shadow of a Doubt. Charles Drake plays Johnny Williams, a psychotic serial killer who returns to his hometown to visit his mother (Josephine Hutchinson) and widowed sister-in-law Helen (Colleen Miller), both of whom are ignorant of his criminal past. Johnny hopes to settle down and start life anew, but Helen, her suspicions aroused by visiting detective Mike Randall (Rod Taylor), discovers the truth about her beloved brother-in-law. Failing to talk Helen out of turning him in, Johnny methodically plots her murder. Will Randall show up in the proverbial nick of time? Shadow of a Doubt was remade again, under its original title, as a 1991 TV movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Colleen Miller, Charles Drake, (more)
In one of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense classics, tennis pro Guy Haines (Farley Granger) chances to meet wealthy wastrel Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) on a train. Having read all about Guy, Bruno is aware that the tennis player is trapped in an unhappy marriage to to wife Miriam (Laura Elliott) and has been seen in the company of senator's daughter Ann Morton (Ruth Roman). Baiting Guy, Bruno reveals that he feels trapped by his hated father (Jonathan Hale). As Guy listens with detached amusement, Bruno discusses the theory of "exchange murders." Suppose that Bruno were to murder Guy's wife, and Guy in exchange were to kill Bruno's father? With no known link between the two men, the police would be none the wiser, would they? When he reaches his destination, Guy bids goodbye to Bruno, thinking nothing more of the affable but rather curious young man's homicidal theories. And then, Guy's wife turns up strangled to death. Co-adapted by Raymond Chandler from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train perfectly exemplifies Hitchcock's favorite theme of the evil that lurks just below the surface of everyday life and ordinary men. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Farley Granger, Robert Walker, (more)
