234. Strangers On A Train (1951)

Directed By Alfred Hitchcock

Synopsis

Two men meet on a train, one of them tells the other how he imagined that the perfect murder would be if two strangers took up the job of murdering each-other's targets. The other guy laughs it off, not imagining that the psycho would actually go on with it, but he does. And when he shows up in order to get his end of the bargain fulfilled, the other guy has to think how to get out of this deal without being implicated in the murder already committed.

Review

Hitchcock gives us another excellent film, and this one has some particularly good moments, inserted into a great premise for a story. The tennis game is more exciting than you ever thought a tennis game could be, the final carousel scene is also great. In fact there are little touches throughout the film which propel it from great to excellent.

Hitchcock lets his obsession with homosexuality show again here, much like in Rope, the villain is most obviously gay and disturbed. There is a slightly worrying inference that the two are related, however, we are in the 50's here where electro-shock treatment to "cure" homosexuality was a normal thing. So, Hitchcock looks quite benevolent in that context.

The acting is amazing throughout, and there is a reason why Hitchcock is a star director, and it is because his directing is heads and shoulders above that of most of his contemporaries, with few exceptions, and you always know you are going to have something good, if not excellent with him.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

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.” 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 “Anthony 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 Ann 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.

Strangulation scene: