Strangers on a Train (film)
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| Strangers on a Train | |
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Alfred Hitchcock (uncredited) |
| Written by | Patricia Highsmith (novel) Whitfield Cook (adaptation) Czenzi Ormonde (screenplay) Raymond Chandler (screenplay) Ben Hecht (uncredited) |
| Starring | Farley Granger Ruth Roman Robert Walker Leo G. Carroll Patricia Hitchcock |
| Editing by | William H. Zeigler |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | June 30, 1951 |
| Running time | 101 min (1:41) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$1,200,000 (est.) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Strangers on a Train is a film released in 1951 by Warner Bros. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Kasey Rogers (credited as Laura Elliott), and Patricia Hitchcock.
The film was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, who also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley. Detective novelist Raymond Chandler wrote an early draft of the screenplay, despite his having considered the story implausible.
This movie is ranked number 97 on IMDB's "Top 250 Films of All-Time" and is number 32 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills.
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[edit] Plot
Amateur Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) wants to divorce his vulgar and unattractive small-town wife, Miriam (Kasey Rogers), in order to be able to marry the woman he loves, the elegant, beautiful, and rich Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the daughter of a senator.
Guy Haines' wife Miriam, however, is not at all interested in divorce: she is having plenty of affairs, has become pregnant by one of her numerous lovers, and is perfectly happy to carry on exploiting her husband indefinitely.
In the opening scenes, Guy Haines chances to meet the charming, rich, clever but psychopathic Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) on a train. Bruno tells Guy his "amusing" idea about how to commit the perfect murder: two people who hardly know one another at all "exchange" murders; that way, neither one would have a motive, and each could arrange to have a perfect alibi for the time when the murder was committed. It would be, as Bruno describes his plan to Guy, "crisscross".
Bruno goes on to explain that for example, he, Bruno, could kill Guy's wife Miriam, and in exchange, Guy could kill Bruno's unpleasantly authoritarian father, and then both of them would be free to do whatever they wanted. Guy thinks Bruno is joking and leaves, but Bruno decides to himself that they have made a bargain with one another.
In his hurry to get away from Bruno, Guy accidentally leaves his gold cigarette lighter behind, and Bruno takes it. Bruno knows that the lighter was an intimate gift to Guy from Anne, and he has seen that it has a tennis logo and "From A to G" engraved on it.
Bruno gets tired of waiting for Guy to contact him in order to set up the appropriate timetable for the murders. Bruno unilaterally goes ahead with his half of the "plan", strangling Guy's wife Miriam on an island in a lake at an amusement park, while she is out on a date with two of her admirers. The audience sees the murder as it is reflected in Miriam's glasses, which have fallen to the ground when Bruno attacks her.
Once the murder is discovered, suspicion immediately falls on Guy, because he had an obvious motive. It turns out that Guy is unable to provide a solid alibi for the time of the crime. Bruno starts making increasingly more intrusive appearances in Guy's life, in order to forcibly remind Guy that Guy is now obliged to kill Bruno's father, according to the bargain that was supposedly struck on the train when they first met.
Finally the police close in on Guy as he chases after Bruno, at sunset in the lakeside amusement park. Bruno is about to "plant" Guy's cigarette case at the scene of the murder, so that the police will have convincing evidence that Guy was the murderer.
The two men struggle on the carousel, which spins out of control and crashes. The police seize Guy, but an amusement park employee (who remembers Bruno's previous visit) points out that Bruno is in fact the murderer. Guy explains to the police what Bruno was about to do with his cigarette lighter.
Bruno is mortally wounded in the crash, but even though he is dying, he lies to the police, insisting that Guy was the one who killed Miriam, and that Guy left the lighter on the island. The moment after Bruno dies however, his fingers open up, revealing the gold cigarette lighter with Guy's and Anne's initials on it.
Guy and Anne are then seen reunited on a train home, and this time there is hope for their future together. A man asks Guy if he is Guy Haines (identical to the way Guy met Bruno), but Guy, fearing another mishap, leaves the compartment with Anne, leaving the man stunned.
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance in this movie occurs 10 minutes into the film. We see him carrying a double bass as he gets onto the train.
In an interview, Kasey Rogers (playing Miriam) noted that she had perfect vision at the time the movie was made, which meant that the thick glasses she was required to wear in her role effectively blinded her. In one scene, she can be seen dragging her hand along a table as she walks; this was in order for her to keep track of where she was.
[edit] Production
[edit] Pre-Production
In his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock told Truffaut that he originally wanted William Holden for the Guy Haines role,[1] but Holden refused the role. Hitchcock also revealed that he got the rights to the Highsmith novel for just $7,500 since it was her first novel. Hitchcock kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase price low.[2][3] Highsmith was quite annoyed when she later discovered who she had sold the rights to for such a small amount.[2]
Dashiell Hammett was originally approached to write the screenplay for the film.[4] Communications broke down, and Hammett never took the job.[4] Raymond Chandler was next approached and ultimately hired to write the script.[4] [5] Hitchcock and Chandler didn't communicate well (at one point Chandler, upon viewing Hitchcock exit his vehicle, remarked "Look at the fat bastard trying to get out of his car!")[3][4]
Hitchcock finally dismissed Chandler from the film.[4] Next, Hitchcock tried to hire Ben Hecht but Hecht was unavailable. Hecht suggested his assistant Czenzi Ormonde to write the screenplay.[4][3] While Chandler received screen credit, by his own admission the final film has almost none of his work.[4]
[edit] Themes and Motifs
The film includes a number of puns and visual metaphors that demonstrate a running motif of crisscross, double-crossing, and crossing one's double. Talking about the structure of the film, Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "Isn't it a fascinating design? One could study it forever."
Doubles
Countless pairs – both blatant and obscure – litter the movie throughout. The film starts out with pairs of feet scurrying about from opposite directions. Bruno orders two double drinks on the train. Hitchcock makes his trademark cameo appearance with his own “double” – a double bass. There are two young men accompanying the promiscuous Miriam on that fatal night, her death doubly reflected in her glasses. The list goes on; the doubles are countless.
Donald Spoto argues in his novel The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures that the film’s persistent usage of doubling helps to relate the world of standard order – as in politics, business, and athletics – to the seedy underworld of sin, corruption, and death.
Doubles even exist in the characters. Barbara Morton reminds Bruno so much of Miriam, the viewer nearly sees him strangle Mrs. Cunningham, a possible double for his mother (214). Like doubles, viewers see doppelgangers with Guy and Bruno. As with Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. The pair has what writer Peter Dellolio refers to as a “dark symbiosis.”[6] Bruno embodies Guy’s dark desire to kill Miriam, a “real-life incarnation of Guy’s wish-fulfillment fantasy” (Dellolio 244). Bruno makes Guy’s fantasy a reality. The list of doubles goes on.
Crisscrossing
Like doubles, there’s a lot to be said for Hitchcock’s usage of crisscrossing in the movie. We see crossing railroad tracks as the train starts its voyage. Guy and Bruno meet on this train when they cross their legs simultaneously, accidentally bumping their feet. The crossed tennis racquets on the lighter, clothing styles, and of course, the crisscrossed murder scheme, are further examples of extensive crisscross use.
The crisscrossing element also parallels activities, the frantic tennis match in broad daylight crosscutting with Bruno’s efforts to retrieve the wayward lighter. The tension-filled scenes at the Forest Hills tennis match are very like a microcosm of the film itself: the thrilling action goes back and forth between the two protagonists, and we are the audience watching the game. This enables viewers to identify as much with the villain as they do with the hero. Crisscrossing is numerous within this film.
Homoeroticism
It is important to note the underlying homoerotic tension between Guy and Bruno, the latter pursuing the former throughout. According to Spoto’s analysis, viewers see Guy as the latent closet type and Bruno is the flamboyant gay who attempting to “out” him. Spoto suggests that the initials “A to G” on Guy’s all-important lighter could stand for “Antony to Guy,” another element in the homosexual courtship (Spoto 212).
From this perspective, one could read homoeroticism in Barbara Morton’s statement “I think it’s wonderful to have a man love you so much he’d kill for you.” Perhaps this rings true of Bruno’s attraction to Guy. Their love/hate relationship climaxes when, after Guy pursues Bruno, they fight to the death on a runaway carousel, a grim parallelism of sex and death. At movie’s end, Spoto proposes that Anne and Guy’s ironic retreat from the inquisitive minister in the movie’s closing scene foreshadows problems within their marriage’s outcome. The psychotic courtship of a closeted homosexual and a sociopathic killer ultimately repels Guy from the altar, possibly stuffing him further into the closet (218). From this standpoint, there is no genuine resolution.
 From the trailer for the film |
[edit] Alternate versions
An early preview edit of the film, sometimes erroneously labeled the "British" version (although it was never released in Britain or anywhere else), includes some scenes either not in, or else different from the film as released. Warner's Region 2 DVD (Japan and Europe) release of the movie is a 'flipper' (double sided) disc, with the 'British' version on one side, and the 'Hollywood' version on the reverse. The "British" version omits the final scene on the train.
[edit] Differences from the novel
- The character called Bruno Antony in the film is called Charles Anthony Bruno in the book.
- In the film, Guy agrees to kill Bruno's father but instead attempts to warn him about his son's insanity; in the novel, Guy does go through with the murder.
- Guy Haines is a promising architect in the novel.
[edit] Critics reactions
Roger Ebert called Strangers on a Train one of the "Great Films of All Time".
[edit] Parodies, remakes and references in popular culture
Hitchcock's film was the basis for the comedy Throw Momma From the Train (1987), starring Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito.
In the 1988 pornographic film Strange Curves, directed by John Leslie, one character proposes to another (played by Joey Silvera) that they trade murders, and both actually make reference to Hitchcock. Silvera's character's wife Victoria Paris is indeed murdered, and he spends the rest of the film trying to avoid being blackmailed, framed, or forced to commit murder himself.
This method of committing murder has been referenced in several television series. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in the episode A Night at the Movies, investigated a crime similar to the plot of Strangers on a Train. The idea itself for the crime came from Strangers on a Train. In the episode, two women meet at an art house movie theater. One has a sexual abuse suit against a dentist, the other has a suit against her boss. The two apparently agree to "solve each others problems". One of the women kills the dentist that sexually abused the woman, but the other woman does not hold up her end of the bargain.
Another crime drama series, Law & Order, used Strangers on a Train as the inspiration for the episode C.O.D. In the episode, a delivery man is shot on the stoop of a house in Manhattan, which leads the detectives to his wife, whom he was cheating on with several other women. The other woman in the scheme wanted her husband dead so she could inherit his fortune, which he was attempting to prevent her from spending. Unlike Strangers on a Train, both women committed their individual murders, one before the timeline in the episode, and the other at the beginning.
In an episode of the comedy Peep Show, the two main characters, Mark Corrigan and Jeremy Osborne, decide to get revenge on each other's enemies, with a reference to Strangers on a Train included.
In the series finale of Gary & Mike, Gary accidentally agrees to murder a stranger's wife in exchange for his father's death.
Cat Stevens said in a live concert that his hit song "Peace Train" was inspired by this movie. The song "Shadow of a Doubt" by Sonic Youth is inspired by Strangers on a Train. The song "Strangers on a Train" by Lovage (one of several to contain a Hitchcock reference in title or lyrics) actually refers to events in North by Northwest. The song 'Movies' by Comet Gain includes the lines, "What's your favorite Hitchcock?/ Strangers on a Train is mine."
According to the Internet Movie Database, the film is going to be remade in 2008. [7]
[edit] Influences of the movie in popular culture
The lyrics of Sonic Youth song "Shadow of a Doubt" (the title of another Hitchcock movie) from their 1987 album EVOL refers to this film with lines such as: "Met a stranger on a train...you'll kill him and I'll kill her...swear it wasn't meant to be."
[edit] References
- ^ Strangers on a Train (1951) review by Roger Ebert
- ^ a b Spoto, Donald (1999). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Da Capo, 320. ISBN 030680932X.
- ^ a b c IMDB trivia
- ^ a b c d e f g Spoto, Donald (1999). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Da Capo, 321-324. ISBN 030680932X.
- ^ I Confess - Historical note
- ^ Dellolio, Peter. “Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train." Midwest Quarterly 45.3 (2004): 240-255.
- ^ Strangers on a Train (2008)
[edit] External links
- Film Noir of the Week commentary
- Strangers on a Train at the Internet Movie Database
- Culturevulture.net review of film
- Strangers on a Train Review
- Ron Collins, "Strangers on a Page: Highsmith & Camus"
- Strangers on a Train Eyegate Gallery
- Krishna KBS, "Strangers on a Train: A Bildungsroman"
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