Strangers on a Train (1951)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Film Review

Strangers on a Train is the first of the truly great suspense thrillers from Alfred Hitchcock, the first film in which all of the elements of what we now know as the classic American Hitchcock movie fit perfectly into place, with the precision and artistry of an ornate Swiss clock.  Many regard it as one of the director's finest achievements - surpassed only by the superlative Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) - and it certainly rates as one of his most entertaining films, with some deliciously subversive comedy skilfully woven into a dark and sinister web of suspenseful intrigue.

The film is adapted from the first novel (published in 1950)  by Patricia Highsmith, an immensely successful writer of psychological thrillers, perhaps best known for her Tom Ripley novels.  Highsmith's original narrative explored two psychological themes which came to have a huge influence on Hitchcock's later films - duality and transference.  Duality is the idea that everything in nature has its mirror opposite lying beside it, illustrated by the juxtaposition of good and evil in the human psyche.  Transference is the notion that one human being can acquire some elements of the persona of another, or live out the experiences of another, through personal contact.

The best known example of transference is the transference of guilt, a particular Hitchcockian motif that is exemplified by the relationship between Guy Haines and Bruno Anthony.  Because he stands to gain from Miriam's death,  Guy assumes the guilt for Bruno's killing of her, and is hence powerless to bring the real culprit to justice.  It is interesting that, in her novel, Highsmith went one step further and had Guy murder Bruno's father to complete the process of transference and turn a borrowed guilt into a real one, allowing Guy to achieve some kind of catharsis.   In the film, Guy achieves his release less convincingly, through a climactic struggle which ends with Bruno, the villain, being exposed unequivocally as the murderer to the forces of law.

The duality angle is also less well explored in the film, and this perhaps robs it of the psychological depth and impact of the novel.  Some reviewers of the film have commented on the suggested homosexual attraction between the two main protagonists.  Bruno's relentless stalking of Guy certainly has sexual undertones, but the nature of their relationship is made more explicit in the novel, where each of the men develops a perverse kind of love for the other.  Highsmith consistently portrays sexual relationships as dark, mysterious and often deadly, and in her novel the mutual attraction between Guy and Bruno clearly has a sexual dimension, expressed through some explicit and quite disturbing homoerotic imagery.  That both men are deeply flawed psychologically is also evident - each has a near-Oedipal bond with his mother and an obsessive desire for fame, glory and affection.   Outwardly, Guy and Bruno are complete opposites, but it soon becomes clear that beneath the surface they share many of the same character traits and might even be the same person.  The only difference is that whereas Bruno has no conscience and is a genuine psychopath, Guy is a weak and troubled man who allows his sensitivity and guilt to destroy him.  These darker elements of the original story are glossed over, even omitted, in the film, no doubt to make it more acceptable for a contemporary cinema audience.  Raymond Chandler, who worked on the screenplay for the film, is reputed to have been unimpressed by Highsmith's story.

Strangers on a Train is film which clearly inspired Hitchcock and got his creative juices flowing at full throttle.  This is at once apparent in the film's thrilling set-piece sequences - the murder of Miriam, seen through one lens of a pair of spectacles, the intercutting of the tennis match with Bruno's desperate attempt to recover Guy's lighter from a street drain, and the spectacular dual-to-the-death on the fairground merry-go-round.  The staging of these sequences and the imaginative way in which they are shot suggest a level of technical and artistic brilliance that is vitually unsurpassed in a mainstream thriller.

The other great thing about this film is the calibre of the performances.  Particularly memorable is Robert Walker who is magnificent as the utterly charming yet clearly unhinged psychopath Bruno Anthony.  Walker dominates the film and makes a sympathetic villain who is far more engaging than Farley Granger's bland and inconsequential Guy Haines.   This was to be the highpoint of Walker's all-too-brief career and came towards the end of a life that had become marred by domestic trauma, mental illness and alcohol abuse.  Within a year of making this film, the 32-year-old actor died suddenly when a sedative he was given reacted fatally with alcohol in his system.   Walker's fautless, multi-layered performance in Strangers on a Train shows what an immense talent Hollywood lost through his premature death.

Film Synopsis

Professional tennis player Guy Haines is on a train bound for Metcalf, to arrange a divorce with his estranged wife Miriam, when a stranger starts up a conversation with him.  The stranger, Bruno Anthony, makes a bizarre proposal - he will kill Guy's troublesome wife if, in return, Guy will murder his loathsome father.  Believing that Bruno is joking, Guy dismisses the idea and they go their separate ways.  Unfortunately, Bruno is deadly serious.  Having killed Miriam at an amusement park, Bruno begins to harangue the tennis player, insisting that Guy must now fulfil his part of their arrangement...