Product: The American Friend [VHS] (1977)
Rating: 4.0
Strangers on a Train
Here we have yet another adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel. Made in the 1970's this German version was directed by Wim Wenders. Dennis Hopper is the American friend although the movie pretty much belongs to Bruno Ganz who plays the quiet picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman with a blood disease. Hopper convinces him to take out an enemy of a Frenchman Gerard Blain in a Paris subway. Then there is the pivotal scene in a train lavatory where the best laid plans go awry. The film is set in Hamburg, Paris and New York. Hopper in really an engaging and good performance plays Ripley as a crude American who often wears a cowboy hat, a far cry from Matt Damon ("The Talented Mr. Ripley", John Malkovich ("Ripley's Game") and Alain Delon ("Purple Noon"), all of whom play the character as an urbane sophisticate (while Damon starts out as a novice to culture, he is certainly a fast learner).The cinamatography works very well here, giving the viewer atmospheric shots of Hamburg as well as some interesting closeups, for instance, the frames of TV monitors that catch Zimmerman fleeing from the subway after committing the murder.Highsmith novels continue to engage film directors. Since she has many more novels that have yet to be made into movies, we can only hope other directors take up the Ripley story soon.