Strangers on a Train (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Strangers on a Train


imdb_id = 0044079
writer = Patricia Highsmith (novel)
Whitfield Cook (adaptation)
Czenzi Ormonde (screenplay)
Raymond Chandler (screenplay)
Ben Hecht (uncredited)
starring = Farley Granger
Ruth Roman
Kasey Rogers
Robert Walker
Leo G. Carroll
Patricia Hitchcock
director = Alfred Hitchcock
producer = Alfred Hitchcock
editing = William H. Zeigler
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = June 30 1951
runtime = 101 min (1:41)
language = English
music =
amg_id = 1:47230
budget = US$1,200,000 (est.)

"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 103 on IMDB's "Top 250 Films of All-Time" and is number 32 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills.

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 Anthony (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 imagines that they have in fact 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.

Cast

* Farley Granger as Guy Haines
* Ruth Roman as Anne Morton
* Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony (Charles Anthony Bruno)
* Leo G. Carroll as Sen. Morton
* Patricia Hitchcock as Barbara Morton
* Kasey Rogers as Miriam Joyce Haines
* Marion Lorne as Mrs. Anthony
* Jonathan Hale as Mr. Anthony

Production

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, [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040101/REVIEWS08/40802009/1023 Strangers on a Train (1951)] review by Roger Ebert] 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.cite book
last = Spoto
first = Donald
authorlink =
title = The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
publisher = Da Capo
date = 1999
pages = 320
doi =
isbn = 030680932X ] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044079/trivia IMDB trivia] ] Highsmith was quite annoyed when she later discovered who she had sold the rights to for such a small amount.

Dashiell Hammett was originally approached to write the screenplay for the film.cite book
last = Spoto
first = Donald
authorlink =
title = The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
publisher = Da Capo
date = 1999
pages = 321-324
doi =
isbn = 030680932X ] Communications broke down, and Hammett never took the job. Raymond Chandler was next approached and ultimately hired to write the script. [ [http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/00/10/confessbk.html I Confess - Historical note] ] 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!")

Hitchcock finally dismissed Chandler from the film. Next, Hitchcock tried to hire Ben Hecht but Hecht was unavailable. Hecht suggested his assistant Czenzi Ormonde to write the screenplay. While Chandler received screen credit, by his own admission the final film has almost none of his work.

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 two pairs of well-shod feet moving in to the train station from opposite directions. Bruno and Guy are almost physical doubles, well-dressed, handsome and strong. Bruno seems to be a corrupt and more worldly version of Guy, a more demonic version.

Bruno orders two double drinks on the train. Hitchcock makes his trademark cameo appearance with his own physical “double” – a double bass. There are two young men accompanying the promiscuous Miriam on the fatal night. Her death at the hands of Bruno is doubly reflected in her glasses as if in a double mirror.

Donald Spoto argues in his book "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures" that the film’s persistent usage of doubling helps to connect the world of standard order – as in politics, business, and athletics – to the seedy underworld of sin, corruption, and death. Murder is the demonic alternative to divorce.

Doubles even exist in the characters. Barbara Morton reminds Bruno so much of Miriam, the viewer nearly sees him strangle Mrs. Cunningham, who herself is also a possible double for his mother (214).

The two characters Guy and Bruno can be viewed as doppelgangers. 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.” [Dellolio, Peter. “Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train." Midwest Quarterly 45.3 (2004): 240-255.] Bruno embodies Guy’s dark desire to kill Miriam, a “real-life incarnation of Guy’s wish-fulfillment fantasy” (Dellolio 244).

Crisscrossing

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. There are crossed tennis racquets on Guy's lighter, and of course, there is the crisscrossed murder scheme itself.

The crisscrossing element also shows in activities: the frantic tennis match is crosscut with Bruno’s extreme efforts to retrieve the cigarette lighter he dropped down a drain. Both the prolonged tennis match and the struggle for the lighter cause the two protagonists to use up valuable time they desperately need that day.

The tension-filled scenes of the Forest Hills tennis match are very like a microcosm of the film itself: the thrilling action goes back and forth between two protagonists, and we are the audience watching the game.

"Strangers on a Train" is perhaps the only one of Hitchcock's films in which we identify as much with the villain as we do with the hero.

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 is 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.

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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.

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.

Critics reactions

Roger Ebert called "Strangers on a Train" one of the "Great Films of All Time".

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. "", 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 lyrics of Sonic Youth's "Shadow of a Doubt" (the title of another Hitchcock movie) from their 1987 album EVOL relate to it 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.". 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. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455788/ Strangers on a Train (2008) ] ]

An episode of the British series Murphy's Law featured a similar concept in which the members of a crime victims support group formed a round robin wherein they would each kill the criminal who had victimized another member of the group.

In the bollywood movie Strangers Jimmy Shergill and Kay Kay Menon's characters also meet on a train. They agree to kill each other's wives.

References

External links

* [http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2008/04/strangers-on-train-1951-part-1.html Film Noir of the Week commentary]
*imdb title|id=0044079|title=Strangers on a Train
* [http://www.culturevulture.net/Movies/strangersonatrain.htm Culturevulture.net review of film]
* [http://www.filmdailies.com/archives/review-strangers-on-a-train/ "Strangers on a Train" Review]
* [http://www.laurahird.com/newreview/strangersonapage.html Ron Collins, "Strangers on a Page: Highsmith & Camus"]
* [http://www.eyegate.com/cine/Strangers_on_a_Train/ "Strangers on a Train" Eyegate Gallery]
* [http://www.freewebs.com/krishnakbs/mytake.htm Krishna KBS, "Strangers on a Train: A Bildungsroman"]