Hitchcock’s bizarre, malicious comedy, in which the late Robert Walker brought sportive originality to the role of the chilling wit, dear degenerate Bruno; it’s intensely enjoyable—in some ways the best of Hitchcock’s American films. The murder plot is so universally practical that any man may adapt it to his needs: Bruno perceives that though he cannot murder his father with impunity, someone else could; when he meets the unhappily married tennis player Guy (Farley Granger), he murders Guy’s wife for him and expects Guy to return the favor. Technically, the climax of the film is the celebrated runaway merry-go-round, but the high point of excitement and amusement is Bruno trying to recover his cigarette lighter while Guy plays a fantastically nerve-racking tennis match. Even this high point isn’t what we remember best—which is Robert Walker. It isn’t often that people think about a performance in a Hitchcock movie; usually what we recall are bits of “business” —the stump finger in The 39 Steps, the windmill turning the wrong way in Foreign Correspondent, etc. But Walker’s performance is what gives this movie much of its character and its peculiar charm.