ONCE YOU KISS A STRANGER
US, 1969, 106 minutes, Colour.
Paul Burke, Carol Lynley, Martha Hyer, Peter Lind Hayes, Philip Carey, Stephen Mc Nally, Whit Bissell.
Directed by Robert Sparr.
Once You Kill a Stranger is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Strangers on a Train, from a novel by Patricia Highsmith.
The story is updated to the glossy 1960s, given a golf setting rather than a tennis setting as in the original. The other change is that the sinister character has been transferred from a man to a woman. In the original, Robert Walker did a bargain to mutual murder with Farley Granger. Here it is Carol Lynley and Paul Burke. Carol Lynley makes a bargain that Burke will actually kill her psychiatrist.
The film is more straightforward in tone than Hitchcock’s original, a glossy psychological thriller.
The film was directed by Robert Sparr, who made a number of television films and series during the 1950s and was killed in a plane crash soon after the completion of this film.
1. Was this a good thriller? What techniques did it rely on? How well? The atmosphere of suspense?
2. Comment on the glossy and lavish presentation of the thriller. Was the presentation appropriate, colour, songs, the rich American world, the golf background, psychology, broken marriages?
3. Comment on the interest value of the plot. How plausible was it?
4. The focus of the film on Diana? The initial impressions, her visit to the psychologist, her relationship to her family? Her watching Jerry on television at golf? The devious nature of the plot? The nature of her seduction. the violence of the murder?
5. Her reactions after the murder? Why had she done it? Her threats, blackmail, manipulation of Jerry, tantalising his wife, her chasing the wife to kill her, the pathos of the arrest? Was there a good understanding of the way her mind and character worked?
6. Jerry as the ordinary American? His behaviour an a person,, his professional golf ability, the break with his wife, his losing tendencies? The encounter and fascination with Diana? His allowing himself to be seduced? Not taking her murder threats seriously? His reaction to the murder, to the file, to the blackmail of his wife? Did he do the sensible thing at the end?
7. The importance of the emphasis on golf? Audience interest in this. the attention to detail, the competition amongst the finalists?
8. The background of the golfing fraternity in California? The types who played? Their relationships?
9. The importance of Jerry's wife in the film? Especially after the murder and Diana’s threats?
10. How satisfactory the climax? The pursuit of the wife by Diana. Especially on the shore and the rocks, the visit to the psychologist? How satisfying a thriller?
