Groening imitates art

Strangers on a Train

(1951)

Whoa, how weird is this: the movie ends, and I tune into Fox thinking I'll see what's happening in the baseball playoffs, but there instead, in black and white, are Lisa and Bart on a (playground) merry-go-round, with Lisa wielding a knife trying to get Bart to confess to a murder. Yep--it's the first segment of The Simpsons' Halloween show, and when I rewind it (don'tcha love the DVR?), I find that while it contains a medley of Bernard Herrmann music and a sampler of Hitchcockian moments, the key source text is indeed Strangers on a Train. Spooky or what?

Anyway, I'm thinking this is as close as there is to a flawlessly plotted Hitchcock film, with Raymond Chandler and Ben Hecht contributing to the screenplay adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel. There's nothing I'd change about the film except for the grotesquely inappropriate romantic lead, Farley Granger. But that's more than balanced by the best role daddy ever gave Patricia Hitchcock, absolutely perfect as the love interest's mousy and disarmingly frank sister.

Oh, but I was way off base w/ the notion earlier today about the carousel music: it's the standard "And the Band Played On"--nothing in common with what I heard earlier today save the waltz tempo.