Five Great Movie Fights Set on Trains

One of the best scenes of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” is the big fight scene staged in and on top of a train, and it brought to mind some of the better train fights ever staged in film. There have been many as it’s been one of the more classic tropes in fiction, so I listed five of my all time favorites.

What are some of your favorite fights on trains or public transportation?

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Hitchcock and the Censors

Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock engaged in a battle of wits with film censors in Britain, Hollywood and World War II-era Washington. On this episode, we learn about Hitchcock’s ability to evade censorship controls. Our guest on this episode of “The Online Movie Show” is John Billheimer, author of the new book “Hitchcock and the Censors.”

The episode can be heard here.

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The Bootleg Files: Elstree Calling

BOOTLEG FILES 678: “Elstree Calling” (1930 British musical revue co-directed by Alfred Hitchcock).

LAST SEEN: We cannot confirm the last public exhibition of this film.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On bootleg video labels only.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Never made available for U.S. commercial home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:
It is possible, but not a priority.

In 1930, the first British musical feature film was released under the title “Elstree Calling.” Today, most people are aware of the film only because of Alfred Hitchcock’s involvement in the production.

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Rope (1948)

While most people would consider films like “Psycho,” or “Rear Window” to be top notch Hitchcock, I often insist that “Rope” is where Hitchcock manages to shine the most. At the very least it’s what I consider the best Hitchcock has ever been because he manages to challenge himself at every turn here. With “Rope,” adapted from an actual real life crime, Hitchcock lingers on his characters and his setting, adopted ten minute long extended takes that were the length of a normal camera magazine. With the long takes, Hitchcock is allowed to use the camera as a proxy for we, the spectator, who are watching and waiting to see if our villains Phillip and Brandon are going to be caught.

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78/52 (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a hardcore film and horror buff and one of the first shots of a horror movie I ever recall watching was the scene in “Psycho” where Marion Crane is stalked in her shower and mercilessly stabbed to death. It’s a scene I’ve seen at least a thousand times since I was a child and its effectiveness and impact have never worn off for me. Every scene, every second, every single shot is so deliberate and meticulous that Hitchcock creates an entity on to itself in a genuinely flawless horror film. It’s not often you’ll find a full length documentary about one shot in an entire movie, but the iconic moment with Janet Leigh is a sequence that warrants so much examination and analyses. It’s every bit the symbolism and metaphor audiences of the fifties weren’t expecting.

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Grace Kelly Collection (DVD)

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Fans of Grace Kelly will be impressed to see what Warner has in store for them with the release of the Grace Kelly Collection. It’s a compilation of six really important and notable films from Kelly’s acting career, spanning a four year period where she was quite the cinematic heavy hitter. The only caveat to the release is the omission of “Rear Window,” which I think would have topped a great set, but that’s not to say this box set isn’t a heavy weight in its own right either.

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The Wrong Man (1956)

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Imagine waking up one morning to run your errands, and you’re then stopped by police who insist you’ve committed a horrible crime? And what happens when everyone else you come across swears you’ve committed this horrible crime, and you know yourself that you’ve never even held a gun? How do you convince everyone that you’re an innocent man, when people can identify you as a criminal, and present evidence that contradicts your claims? What happens when you’re about to go to jail for a crime you have committed and can’t prove that you didn’t commit it? That’s the nightmare Manny Balestrero, a family man, finds himself in, in Alfred Hitchcock’s gripping and awfully horrifying thriller that sees a wrongly convicted man who has no chance of proving he’s committed the awful crime he’s been accused of.

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