Its High Time Again on a Train Bound for Nowhere

1951 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Strangers on a Train
Poster by Bill Gold
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by	Raymond Chandler Whitfield Melt Czenzi Ormonde
Based on	Strangers on a Railroad train by Patricia Highsmith
Produced by	Alfred Hitchcock
Starring	Farley Granger Ruth Roman Robert Walker
Cinematography	Robert Burks
Edited by	William H. Ziegler
Music by	Dimitri Tiomkin
Production company	Transatlantic Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	June thirty, 1951 (1951-06-30)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	Usa
Language	English
Budget	$one.6 million[ane]
Box role	$7 million[2]

Strangers on a Train is a 1951 American psychological thriller film noir produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Information technology was shot in the fall of 1950 and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951, starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker.

The story concerns two strangers who meet on a railroad train, ane of whom is a psychopath who suggests that they "exchange" murders then that neither volition exist caught. The film initially received mixed reviews but has since been regarded as 1 of Hitchcock'due south finest films. In 2021, the picture show was selected for preservation in the United states National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[three]

Play film's original trailer; runtime 00:02:30

Plot [edit]

Amateur tennis star Guy Haines wants to divorce his promiscuous married woman Miriam so he can ally Anne Morton, the daughter of a U.s. Senator. On a train, wealthy shine-talking psychopath Bruno Antony recognizes Haines and reveals his idea for a murder scheme: two perfect strangers meet and "swap murders" — Bruno suggests he kill Miriam and Guy kill Bruno'southward hated father. Each volition murder a total stranger, with no apparent motive, so neither will exist suspected. Guy humors Bruno by pretending to discover his idea agreeable, but is so eager to get abroad from Bruno that he carelessly leaves behind his engraved cigarette lighter, which Bruno keeps.

Guy meets with Miriam, who is pregnant by someone else, at her workplace in Metcalf, their hometown. Miriam informs Guy that she no longer wants to terminate their wedlock. She threatens to claim that he is the father, in order to thwart any divorce-attempt. They fence loudly.

That evening, Bruno follows Miriam to an amusement park and strangles her to death while Guy is traveling on the train back to Washington. When Guy arrives home, Bruno informs him Miriam is dead and insists that he must at present honor their deal, by killing Bruno's father.

Guy goes to the Mortons' home, where Anne's father informs Guy that his wife has been murdered. Anne's sister Barbara says that the police will think that Guy is the murderer since he has a motive. The police question Guy, only are unable to confirm his alibi: a professor Guy met on the train was so drunk that he cannot recall their run across. Instead of arresting Guy, the constabulary assign an around-the-clock escort to watch him.

To pressure Guy, Bruno follows him around Washington, introduces himself to Anne, and appears at a party at Senator Morton's house. To amuse another guest, Bruno playfully demonstrates how to strangle someone, by putting his hands effectually her neck. His gaze falls upon Barbara, whose glasses and physical appearance resemble Miriam'southward. This triggers a flashback; Bruno compulsively squeezes the adult female'due south neck, and other guests intervene to terminate him from strangling the woman to death. Barbara tells Anne that Bruno was looking at her while strangling the other woman, and Anne realizes Barbara'due south resemblance to Miriam. Her suspicions aroused, Anne confronts Guy, who tells her the truth almost Bruno'southward crazy scheme.

Bruno sends Guy a package containing a pistol, a house key, and a map showing the location of his begetter's bedroom. Guy creeps into Bruno'due south father's room to warn him of his son's murderous intentions, but instead he finds the suspicious Bruno in that location waiting for him; the begetter is non at home. Guy tries to persuade Bruno to seek psychiatric help; Bruno threatens to punish Guy for breaking their bargain.

Anne visits Bruno's habitation and unsuccessfully tries to explicate to his befuddled mother that her son is a murderer. Bruno mentions Guy's missing cigarette lighter to Anne and claims that Guy asked him to search the murder site for information technology. Guy correctly infers that Bruno intends to plant it at the scene of the murder, and incriminate him. After winning a lawn tennis lucifer, Guy evades the constabulary-escort, and heads for the entertainment park to finish Bruno.

Bruno is delayed when he accidentally drops Guy's lighter downward a tempest drain and must think information technology. When Bruno arrives at the amusement park, a carnival worker recognizes him from the night of the murder; he informs the law, who mistakenly retrieve he has recognized Guy. After Guy arrives, he and Bruno fight on the park's carousel. Believing that Guy is trying to escape, a police officer shoots at him, simply the shot misses, and instead kills the carousel operator, causing the carousel to spin out of control. A carnival worker crawls underneath it and applies the brakes besides abruptly, causing the carousel to violently spin off its back up, trapping the mortally injured Bruno underneath. The worker who had called the police at present tells them that Bruno, not Guy, is the one whom he remembers seeing the night of the murder. As Bruno dies, his fingers open up to reveal Guy'southward lighter in his mitt. Realizing that Guy is not the murderer, the police ask him to come to the station the next 24-hour interval to tie up any loose ends.

In a final train scene, another stranger attempts to strike up conversation with Guy in the aforementioned way every bit had Bruno. Guy and Anne coldly walk abroad from him.

Cast [edit]

In one of his trademark cameos, Hitchcock boards the train in Metcalf afterward Farley Granger's character exits.

• Farley Granger as Guy Haines
• Ruth Roman every bit Anne Morton
• Robert Walker as Bruno Antony
• Leo M. Carroll as Senator Morton
• Patricia Hitchcock as Barbara Morton
• Kasey Rogers as Miriam Joyce Haines
• Marion Lorne every bit Mrs. Antony
• Jonathan Hale as Mr. Antony
• Howard St. John as Constabulary Capt. Turley
• John Brown as Professor Collins
• Norma Varden every bit Mrs. Cunningham
• Robert Gist as Detective Hennessey
• John Doucette as Detective Hammond (uncredited)
• Georges Renavent as Monsieur Darville (uncredited)
• Odette Myrtil as Madame Darville (uncredited)
• Murray Alper equally Boatman who recognizes Bruno (uncredited)
• Barry Norton as Tennis Match Spectator (uncredited)

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo advent occurs 11 minutes into the flick. He is seen carrying a double bass every bit he climbs onto a train.

Hitchcock said that correct casting saved him "a reel of storytelling time", since audiences would sense qualities in the actors that did not have to be spelled out.^[4] Hitchcock said that he originally wanted William Holden for the Guy Haines role,^{[5] [half-dozen]} merely Holden declined. "Holden would accept been all wrong—as well sturdy, too put off by Bruno", writes critic Roger Ebert.^[iv] "Granger is softer and more elusive, more convincing as he tries to slip out of Bruno'southward conversational spider web instead of flatly rejecting him."^[4]

Warner Bros. wanted their own stars, already under contract, cast wherever possible. In the casting of Anne Morton, Jack Fifty. Warner got what he wanted when he assigned Ruth Roman to the project, over Hitchcock's objections.^[7] The director institute her "bristling" and "defective in sex activity appeal" and said that she had been "foisted upon him."^[8] Perhaps it was the circumstances of her forced casting, merely Roman became the target of Hitchcock's scorn throughout the production.^[9] Granger described Hitchcock'southward attitude toward Roman every bit "disinterest" in the actress, and said he saw Hitchcock treat Edith Evanson the same mode on the ready of Rope (1948). "He had to have one person in each film he could harass," Granger said.^[ix]

Kasey Rogers (credited as Laura Elliott) noted that she had perfect vision at the time the movie was made, just Hitchcock insisted she wearable the character'southward thick eyeglasses, even in long shots when regular glass lenses would take been undetectable. Rogers was effectively blind with the glasses on and needed to be guided by the other actors.^[10]

Production [edit]

Pre-production [edit]

Hitchcock secured the rights to the Patricia Highsmith novel for just $7,500 since information technology was her commencement novel. As usual, Hitchcock kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase toll low.^[eleven] Highsmith was quite annoyed when she later discovered who bought the rights for such a small amount.^[12]

Securing the rights to the novel was the to the lowest degree of the hurdles Hitchcock would have to vault to get the property from printed page to screen. He got a handling that pleased him on the 2nd effort, from author Whitfield Cook, who wove a homoerotic subtext (just hinted at in the novel) into the story and softened Bruno from a coarse alcoholic into a dapper, mannerly mama'southward male child — a much more Hitchcockian villain.^[13] With treatment in hand, Hitchcock shopped for a screenwriter; he wanted a "name" writer to lend some prestige to the screenplay, but was turned downwardly by eight writers, including John Steinbeck and Thornton Wilder, all of whom thought the story too tawdry and were put off by Highsmith'south first-timer condition.^[14] Talks with Dashiell Hammett got further,^[12] but here besides communications ultimately broke down, and Hammett never took the consignment.^[12]

Hitchcock and so tried Raymond Chandler, who had earned an Oscar nomination for his outset screenplay, Double Indemnity, in collaboration with Billy Wilder.^{[12] [15]} Chandler took the chore despite his opinion that it was "a giddy little story."^[14] But Chandler was a notoriously difficult collaborator and the two men could not take had more dissimilar meeting styles: Hitchcock enjoyed long, rambling off-topic meetings where oftentimes the film would non fifty-fifty be mentioned for hours, while Chandler was strictly business and wanted to go out and get writing. He called the meetings "god-atrocious jabber sessions which seem to be an inevitable although painful part of the picture business."^[12] Interpersonal relations deteriorated chop-chop until finally Chandler became openly combative; at i bespeak, upon viewing Hitchcock struggling to exit from his limousine, Chandler remarked within earshot, "Expect at the fat bounder trying to get out of his car!"^[sixteen] This would be their last collaboration. Chandler completed a first draft, and then wrote a second, without hearing a single word back from Hitchcock; when finally he did get a communication from the managing director in late September, it was his dismissal from the project.^[16]

Next, Hitchcock tried to hire Ben Hecht, but learned he was unavailable. Hecht suggested his assistant, Czenzi Ormonde, to write the screenplay.^[16] Although Ormonde was without a formal screen credit, she did take two things in her favor: her recently published drove of brusk stories, Laughter From Downstairs, was attracting good notices from critics, and she was "a off-white-haired beauty with long shimmering hair."^[17]—e'er a plus with Hitchcock. With his new writer, he wanted to start from square one:

At their first conference, Hitchcock made a show of pinching his nose, then holding up Chandler'south draft with his pollex and forefinger and dropping it into a wastebasket. He told the obscure writer that the famous one hadn't written a solitary line he intended to utilise, and they would accept to showtime all over on page one, using Melt's treatment as a guide. The director told Ormonde to forget all virtually the book, and so told her the story of the picture himself, from commencement to end.^[17]

There was non much time though — less than 3 weeks until location shooting was scheduled to offset in the East. Ormonde hunkered downward with Hitchcock's acquaintance producer Barbara Keon—disparagingly called "Hitchcock'southward factotum" by Chandler^[18]—and Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife. Together the three women, working under the dominate'due south guidance and late into nearly nights,^[xvi] finished enough of the script in time to transport the company East. The rest was complete by early Nov.^[eighteen] 3 notable additions the trio had made were the runaway merry-become-circular, the cigarette lighter, and the thick eyeglasses.^[19]

In that location was one point of agreement between Chandler and Hitchcock, although information technology would come only much later, near the release of the flick: they both best-selling that since virtually none of Chandler'southward work remained in the terminal script, his proper noun should exist removed from the credits.^[xviii] Hitchcock preferred the writing credit of Whitfield Cook and Czenzi Ormonde, but Warner Bros. wanted the cachet of the Chandler name and insisted it stay on.^[eighteen]

Even while the torturous writing stage was plodding its course, the director's excitement virtually the project was boundless. "Hitchcock raced ahead of everyone: the script, the cast, the studio... pieces of the motion picture were dancing like electrical charges in his brain."^[20] The more the motion picture resolved in his mind'south eye, the more than he knew his director of photography would play a critical role in the scenes' execution. He found exactly what he needed correct on the Warners lot in the person of staff cameraman Robert Burks, who would continue to work with Hitchcock, shooting every Hitchcock picture through to Marnie (1964), with the exception of Psycho.^[21] "Depression-keyed, mild mannered", Burks was "a versatile risk-taker with a penchant for moody temper. Burks was an exceptionally apt choice for what would prove to be Hitchcock's most Germanic motion picture in years: the compositions dense, the lighting almost surreal, the optical furnishings demanding."^[22] None was more than enervating than Bruno'due south strangulation of Miriam, shown reflected in her eyeglass lens: "It was the kind of shot Hitchcock had been tinkering with for twenty years—and Robert Burks captured it magnificently."^[23]

Burks considered his fourteen years with Hitchcock the best of his career: "Y'all never have any trouble with him as long as you know your job and practise it. Hitchcock insists on perfection. He has no patience with mediocrity on the set or at a dinner table. There can exist no compromise in his work, his food or his wines."^[21] Robert Burks received the film's sole Academy Laurels nomination for its black and white photography.^[23]

Product [edit]

With cast nailed downwardly, a script in mitt, and a director of photography in tune with Hitchcock'south vision on board, the company was ready to commence filming. Hitchcock had a crew shoot background footage of the 1950 Davis Cup finals held August 25–27, 1950 at the West Side Tennis Club in Woods Hills, New York. While in that location, the crew had done some other location scouting.^[24] Exteriors would be shot on both coasts, and interiors on Warner Brothers' soundstages.

Hitchcock and his cast and crew decamped for the East Coast on October 17, 1950.^[vii] For six days, they shot at Penn Station in New York Metropolis, at the railroad station at Danbury, Connecticut—which became Guy'southward hometown Metcalf—and in spots around Washington, D.C.^[seven]

Past month's end, they were dorsum in California. Hitchcock had written exacting specifications for an entertainment park, which was constructed on the ranch of director Rowland Lee in Chatsworth, California.^[nine] The amusement park exteriors were shot there and at an actual Tunnel of Love at a fairground in Canoga Park, California.^[9] Hitchcock had already shot the long shots for the tennis friction match at Forest Hills and would add together closer shots with Granger and Jack Cushingham, Granger's tennis coach off-screen and Guy'southward tennis opponent Fred Reynolds on-screen at a tennis club in South Gate, California.^[21] The residual of the shooting would take identify on Warner soundstages, including many seemingly outside and on-location shots that were actually done inside in front of rear-projection screens.

Strangers on a Train marked something of a renaissance for Hitchcock, later on several years of depression enthusiasm for his late-1940s output,^[25] and he threw himself into the micromanagement of some of its production. Hitchcock himself designed Bruno's lobster tie, revealed in a close-up to have strangling lobster claws,^[26] and "he personally selected an orangish pare, a chewing-glue wrapper, wet leaves, and a flake of crumpled paper that were used for sewer debris"^[21] in the scene where Bruno inadvertently drops Guy's lighter down the storm bleed.

He likewise showed intense interest in a seldom-considered detail of character depiction: food.

"Preferences in nutrient narrate people..." Hitchcock said. "I accept always given it conscientious consideration, then that my characters never eat out of grapheme. Bruno orders with gusto and with an interest in what he is going to eat — lamb chops, French chips, and chocolate ice cream. A very practiced option for train food. And the chocolate ice cream is probably what he idea virtually first. Bruno is rather a child. He is also something of a hedonist. Guy, on the other hand, shows little interest in eating the lunch, plain having given it no advance idea, in dissimilarity to Bruno, and he merely orders what seems his routine choice, a hamburger and coffee."^[27]

Hitchcock and Burks collaborated on a double printing technique to create this iconic shot still studied in film schools today.

One of the most memorable single shots in the Hitchcock canon — it "is studied past film classes", says Laura Elliott, who played Miriam^[28] – is her character's strangulation past Bruno on the Magic Isle. "[I]due north 1 of the most unexpected, most aesthetically justified moments in film,"^[29] the irksome, almost graceful, murder is shown as a reflection in the victim's eyeglasses, which have been jarred loose from her head and dropped to the basis. The unusual angle was a more than complex suggestion than information technology seems. Showtime Hitchcock got the exterior shots in Canoga Park, using both actors, then subsequently he had Elliott solitary report to a soundstage where there was a large concave reflector fix on the floor. The camera was on one side of the reflector, Elliott was on the other, and Hitchcock directed Elliott to turn her back to the reflector and "float backwards, all the way to the floor... like yous were doing the limbo."^[30] The starting time six takes went badly—Elliott thudded to the floor with several anxiety yet to go^[23]—but on the seventh take, she floated smoothly all the way. Hitchcock's even-strained response: "Cut. Next shot."^[thirty] Hitchcock so had the two elements "ingenious[ly]" double printed,^[31] yielding a shot of "oddly appealing originality [with] a stark fusion of the grotesque and the beautiful.... The astheticizing of the horror somehow enables the audition to contemplate more fully its reality."^[29]

Hitchcock was, in a higher place all, the principal of slap-up visual setpieces,^[32] and "[p]erhaps the most memorable sequence in Strangers on a Railroad train is the climactic fight on a berserk carousel."^[21] While Guy and Bruno fight, the ride runs out of control until it tears itself to pieces, flinging wooden horses into the crowd of screaming mothers and squealing children. "The climactic carousel explosion was a marvel of miniatures and background projection, interim close-ups and other inserts, all of it seamlessly matched and blended under film editor William H. Ziegler's heart."^[22]

Hitchcock took a toy carousel and photographed it diddled up by a small accuse of explosives. This piece of film he then enlarged and projected onto a vast screen, positioning actors around and in front end of information technology so that the effect is ane of a mob of bystanders into which plaster horses and passengers are hurled in deadly anarchy. It is i of the moments in Hitchcock'south work that continues to bring gasps from every audience and adulation from cinema students.^[33]

The explosion is triggered past the attempts of a carnival man to stop the ride later crawling under the whirling carousel deck to go to the controls in the centre. Although Hitchcock admitted to undercranking the shot (artificially accelerating the action),^[34] it was non a trick shot: the man actually had to clamber under the spinning ride, just inches from possible injury. "Hitchcock told me that this scene was the most personally frightening moment for him in any of his films", writes biographer Charlotte Chandler. "The man who crawled under the out-of-control carousel was not an histrion or a stuntman, simply a carousel operator who volunteered for the job. 'If the man had raised his head even slightly", Hitchcock said, "it would have gone from beingness a suspense film into a horror film."^[35]

The final scene of the so-called American version of the pic has Barbara and Anne Morton waiting for Guy to call on the telephone. Hitchcock wanted the phone in the foreground to dominate the shot, emphasizing the importance of the telephone call, but the limited depth-of-field of contemporary motion motion-picture show lenses made information technology difficult to get both phone and women in focus. So Hitchcock had an oversized phone constructed and placed in the foreground.^[28] Anne reaches for the big phone, but actually answers a regular i: "I did that on one have", Hitchcock explained, "by moving in on Anne so that the big phone went out of the frame equally she reached for it. Then a grip put a normal-sized phone on the table, where she picked information technology up."^[28]

Main photography wrapped only before Christmas, and Hitchcock and Alma left for a vacation in Santa Cruz,^[26] and so in late March 1951, on to St. Moritz, for a 25th anniversary European circuit.^[36]

Music [edit]

Composer Dimitri Tiomkin was Jack Warner's choice to score Strangers on a Railroad train. While he had previous Hitchcock experience on Shadow of a Dubiousness (1943), and would go on to score ii more than consecutive Hitchcock films, the director and composer "simply never developed much of a kinship"^[22] and "the Hitchcock films are non Tiomkin'due south all-time".^[22]

Nevertheless, the score does choice upwards on the ubiquitous theme of doubles — often contrasting doubles — right from the opening championship sequence: "The first shot — two sets of male person shoes, loud versus conservative, moving toward a railroad train — carries a gruff bass motif ready confronting Gershwin-like riffs, a two-role medley called "Strangers" and "Walking" that is never heard once more."^[37] The powerful music accurately underscores the visuals of that championship sequence — the massive granite building of New York's Pennsylvania Station, standing in for Washington'due south Union Station—because it was scored for an unusually large orchestra, including alto, tenor and baritone saxes, 3 clarinets, four horns, iii pianos and a novachord.^[38]

Tiomkin's contrasting musical themes continued throughout the pic, delineating two characters with substantial differences: "For 'Guy's Theme', Tiomkin created a hesitant, passive thought, made-to-order music for Farley Granger's performance."^[37] Bruno, who tells Guy on the train that he admires people "who do things", gets a more vigorous musical treatment from Tiomkin: "Harmonic complexity defines the motifs associated with Bruno: rumbling bass, shocking clusters, and glassy string harmonics. These disturbing sounds, heard to superb effect in cues such as 'The Meeting,' 'Senator'due south Role,' and 'Jefferson Memorial,' are not just near Bruno, but about how he is perceived by those whose lives he crosses—first Guy, and then everyone in Guy's entourage."^[37]

Just perhaps the nigh memorable music in Strangers is the calliope music,^[22] heard offset at the fairground and again, later on, when Bruno is strangling Mrs. Cunningham at Senator Morton's soirée, and experiences his unfortunate flashback and subsequent fainting spell. It was Hitchcock, not Tiomkin, whose idea brought the 4 evocative numbers^[22] — "The Ring Played On", "Carolina in the Morning time", "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", and "Infant Face up" — to the soundtrack:

In one of Hitchcock'due south most explicit operatic gestures, the characters at the fateful funfair sing the score, giving it full dimension as role of the drama. In a conventional picture, the melody would play in the groundwork every bit a clever ironic backdrop. Just Hitchcock takes music to another level. Miriam and the 2 boyfriends in her odd ménage à trois bring "The Ring Played On" to life by singing information technology on the merry-go-round, lustily and loudly... Grinning balefully on the horse behind them, Bruno and so sings it himself, making it his motto. The band plays on through Bruno'south stalking of his victim and during the murder itself, clarion from the front of the screen, then receding into the darkness as an eerie obbligato when the doomed Miriam enters the Tunnel of Love.^[39]

"The Band Played On" makes its concluding reprise during Guy'southward and Bruno'south fight on the merry-get-round, even itself shifting to a faster tempo and college pitch when the policeman'southward bullet hits the ride operator and sends the carousel into its frenzied hyper-drive.

Critic Jack Sullivan had kinder words for Tiomkin's score for Strangers than did biographer Spoto: "[S]o seamlessly and inevitably does information technology fit the motion-picture show's design that it seems like an chemical element of Hitchcock's storyboards", he writes.^[xl] It is a score that "goes largely uncelebrated."^[40]

Promotion and release [edit]

With a release scheduled for early summer, the studio press agents swung into high gear early on in 1951. Hitchcock, promotionally photographed many times over the years strangling diverse actresses and other women — some one-handed, others ii — plant himself in front end of a camera with his fingers around the neck of a bust of daughter Patricia;^[26] the photograph found its manner into newspapers nationwide.^[41] He was also photographed adding the letter 50 to Strangers on the official studio poster for the film,^[26] thus changing the word to Stranglers.

One studio press release gave ascension to a myth that still lingers on today.^[42] Hitchcock and Patricia both were afraid of heights, and begetter offered daughter a hundred dollars to ride the Ferris cycle — simply to order the power cutting, leaving her in the dark at the very top of the ride. The press release embellished the tale, claiming he left her "dangling in total darkness for an 60 minutes,"^[36] only and then allowing his "trembling daughter" to be lowered and released.^[36] Although that account continues to be published in books to this day, "it just wasn't true", according to Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell.^[43] Start of all, she was not up there alone: flanking her were the actors playing Miriam'southward two boyfriends — "and I accept a pic of u.s. waving."^[43] "This was good stuff for press agents paid to stir up thrills and information technology has been repeated in other books to bolster the thought of Hitchcock's sadism,"^[36] simply "nosotros were [only] up there ii or three minutes at the exterior.... My father wasn't ever sadistic. The only sadistic office was I never got the hundred dollars."^[43]

Strangers on a Train previewed on March five, 1951 at the Huntington Park Theatre, with Alma, Jack Warner, Whitfield Melt and Barbara Keon in the Hitchcock party^[26] and information technology won a prize from the Screen Directors Social club.^[44] Information technology premiered in New York on July 3, marking the reopening of the extensively remodeled Strand Theatre as the Warner Theatre, and in a dozen cities around the country.^[44] Hitchcock fabricated personal appearances in most of them, and was oftentimes accompanied by his daughter.

Some audition feedback arriving at Jack Warner'southward part condemned the film for its sordid story, while just as many others were favorable.^[44] Of greater interest to Warner was the box role accept, and the "receipts presently told the true story: Strangers on a Train was a success, and Hitchcock was pronounced at the height of his form as main of the dark, melodramatic suspense thriller."^[44]

Themes and motifs [edit]

The flick includes a number of puns and visual metaphors that demonstrate a running motif of crisscross, double-crossing, and crossing i's double. Talking about the construction of the pic, Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "Isn't it a fascinating design? Ane could study information technology forever."^[5]

The two characters, Guy and Bruno, tin exist viewed equally doppelgängers. As with Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is ane of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. The pair has what writer Peter Dellolio refers to as a "dark symbiosis."^[45] Bruno embodies Guy's night desire to kill Miriam, a "real-life incarnation of Guy's wish-fulfillment fantasy".^[45]

Doubles [edit]

The theme of doubles is "the key element in the moving-picture show's construction,"^[46] and Hitchcock starts right off in his title sequence making this signal: there are two taxicabs, ii redcaps, two pairs of anxiety, two sets of railroad train rail that cross twice. One time on the train, Bruno orders a pair of double drinks — "The only kind of doubles I play", he says charmingly. In Hitchcock'due south cameo he carries a double bass.

There are two respectable and influential fathers, ii women with eyeglasses, and ii women at a party who delight in thinking up ways of committing the perfect crime. At that place are ii sets of ii detectives in two cities, two little boys at the two trips to the fairground, two old men at the carousel, 2 boyfriends accompanying the woman about to be murdered, and two Hitchcocks in the pic.^[46]

Hitchcock carries the theme into his editing, crosscutting between Guy and Bruno with words and gestures: 1 asks the time and the other, miles away, looks at his watch; one says in anger "I could strangle her!" and the other, far afar, makes a choking gesture.^[46]

This doubling has some precedent in the novel; but more than of it was deliberately added past Hitchcock, "dictated in rapid and inspired profusion to Czenzi Ormonde and Barbara Keon during the last days of script preparation."^[46] It undergirds the whole film considering it finally serves to associate the world of light, order, and vitality with the world of darkness, chaos, lunacy and death."^[47]

Guy and Bruno are in some means doubles, simply in many more ways, they are opposites. The two sets of feet in the title sequence match each other in motion and in cutting, but they immediately establish the dissimilarity betwixt the two men: the offset shoes "showy, vulgar chocolate-brown-and-white brogues; [the] 2nd, plain, unadorned walking shoes."^[48] They also demonstrate Hitchcock's souvenir for deft visual storytelling: For nearly of the film, Bruno is the role player, Guy the reactor, and Hitchcock always shows Bruno'southward feet first, then Guy's. And since it is Guy'due south foot that taps Bruno's nether the table, we know Bruno has not engineered the meeting.^[48]

Roger Ebert wrote that "it is this sense of two flawed characters — one evil, one weak, with an unstated sexual tension — that makes the movie intriguing and halfway plausible, and explains how Bruno could come so close to carrying out his programme."^[4]

Darkness–light continuum [edit]

It is those flaws that gear up the real themes of Strangers. It was not enough for Hitchcock to construct merely a earth of doubles — even contrasting doubles — in a strict polar-opposite structure; for Hitchcock, the adept-and-evil, darkness-and-calorie-free poles "didn't take to be mutually exclusive."^[4] Blurring the lines puts both Guy and Bruno on a good-evil continuum, and the space shades of gray in betwixt, became Hitchcock's canvass for telling the story and painting his characters.

At commencement glance, Guy represents the ordered life where people stick to rules, while Bruno comes from the world of chaos,^[49] where they get thrown out of multiple colleges for drinking and gambling. Still both men, similar then many of Hitchcock's protagonists, are insecure and uncertain of their identity. Guy is suspended between tennis and politics, between his tramp wife and his senator's daughter, and Bruno is seeking desperately to establish an identity through trigger-happy, outré actions and flamboyance (shoes, lobster-patterned tie, proper name proclaimed to the world on his tiepin)."^[50]

Bruno tells Guy early on that he admires him: "I certainly admire people who practice things", he says. "Me, I never do anything important." Nonetheless every bit Bruno describes his "theories" over tiffin, "Guy responds to Bruno — we see it in his face up, at in one case amused and tense. To the man committed to a career in politics, Bruno represents a tempting overthrow of all responsibleness."^[48] And at this indicate the blurring of good and evil accelerates: Guy fails to repudiate Bruno'southward suggestive argument almost murdering Miriam ("What's a life or two, Guy? Some people are better off dead.") with any strength or conviction. "When Bruno openly suggests he would similar to kill his wife, he merely grins and says 'That's a morbid idea,' just we sense the tension that underlies it."^[48] It ratchets upwardly a notch when Guy leaves Bruno's compartment and "forgets" his cigarette lighter. "He is leaving in Bruno's keeping his link with Anne, his possibility of climbing into the ordered existence to which he aspires.... Guy, and then, in a sense connives at the murder of his wife, and the enigmatic link betwixt him and Bruno becomes clear.^[51]

Calorie-free and dark onscreen [edit]

Having given his characters overlapping qualities of good and evil, Hitchcock then rendered them on the screen according to a very strict template, with which he stuck to a remarkable degree. Ebert wrote:

Hitchcock was a classical technician in terms of decision-making his visuals, and his employ of screen space underlined the tension in ways the audience isn't always aware of. He always used the convention that the left side of the screen is for evil and/or weaker characters, while the right is for characters who are either good or temporarily dominant.^[52]

Nowhere is this more evident than the scene where Guy arrives domicile at his D.C. apartment to find Bruno lurking across the street; Bruno killed Miriam that evening in Metcalf, and has her spectacles to give to Guy near as a "receipt" that he has executed his part of their "bargain". "On one side of the street, [are] stately respectable houses; towering in the background, on the right of the screen, the floodlit dome of the U.S. Capitol, the life to which Guy aspires, the globe of light and order."^[53] Bruno tells Guy what he has done and gives him the glasses. "You're a gratuitous human being now", he says, just as a constabulary machine drives upwards, looking for the husband of a certain recent murder victim. Guy nervously steps into the shadows with Bruno, literally backside the bars of an fe fence; "You've got me acting like I'm a criminal", he says. "The scene gives a beautifully exact symbolic expression to Guy'south human relationship with Bruno and what he stands for."^[53]

Hitchcock continues the interplay of light and dark throughout the picture show: Guy's bright, calorie-free tennis attire, versus "the gothic gloominess of [Bruno's] Arlington mansion";^[46] the crosscutting between his game in the sunshine at Forest Hills while Bruno'south arm stretches into the dark and debris of the storm bleed trying to fish out the cigarette lighter;^[54] fifty-fifty a single paradigm where "Walker is photographed in one visually stunning shot equally a malignant stain on the purity of the white-marble Jefferson Memorial, as a blot on the order of things."^[55]

Political subtext [edit]

Although its first rumblings came in 1947 with the trial and conviction of the "Hollywood Ten," the so-called Red Scare was gathering steam in 1950, with the espionage-related arrests of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the trial of Alger Hiss. These events were the groundwork to their work, while Hitchcock, Cook, Ormonde and Keon were preparing the script for Strangers, and film scholar Robert Fifty. Carringer has written of a political subtext to the movie.^[13] Treatment author Cook used Guy to make the film "a parable quietly defiant of the Common cold War hysteria sweeping America."^[xiii]

That hysteria was targeting homosexuals along with Communists as enemies of the state.... The U.S. Senate was busy investigating the suspicion that 'moral perverts' in the government were also undermining national security — going so far every bit to commission a written report, Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex activity Perverts in Regime.^[20]

Carringer has argued that the moving-picture show was crucially shaped by the Congressional inquiries, making Guy the stand-in for victims of the homophobic climate.^[20] "To all appearances Guy is the all-American stereotype, an athlete, unassuming despite his fame, conservatively dressed," wrote Carringer; he is "a man of indeterminate sexual identity found in circumstances making him vulnerable to being compromised."^[xx] Hitchcock, who had drawn gay characters then sharply yet subtly in Rope in 1948, "drafted the left-leaning Cook... expressly because he was comfortable with sexually ambiguous characters."^[13]

Differences from the novel [edit]

Fifty-fifty before sewing upwards the rights for the novel, Hitchcock's heed was whirling with ideas about how to adapt it for the screen. He narrowed the geographic scope to the Northeast corridor, between Washington, D.C. and New York — the novel ranged through the southwest and Florida, amongst other locales.^[20] The scripting team added the lawn tennis match — and the crosscutting with Bruno's storm drain travails in Metcalf — added the cigarette lighter, the Tunnel of Dear, Miriam'southward eyeglasses; in fact, the amusement park is only a cursory setting in the novel.^[xx]

Hitchcock's biggest changes were in his 2 atomic number 82 characters:

The graphic symbol called Bruno Antony in the picture show is called Charles Anthony Bruno in the volume.^[56] "Highsmith's Bruno is a physically repugnant alcoholic... but in [Whitfield Cook's] easily, the flick's Bruno became a groovy, a mama'due south male child who speaks French, and who professes ignorance of women."^[thirteen] In the volume, Bruno dies in a boating accident^[56] far removed from a merry-go-circular.

In the novel, Guy Haines is not a tennis player, merely rather a promising architect, and he does indeed go through with the murder of Bruno's begetter.^[56] In the movie, "Guy became a decent guy who refuses to carry out his role of the crazed bargain..." writes Patrick McGilligan, "to head off the censors."^[thirteen] In the novel, Guy is pursued and entrapped by a tenacious detective.^[sixteen]

The merry-go-round scene is not in the volume, but is taken from the climax of Edmund Crispin'due south 1946 novel The Moving Toyshop.^[57] All the major elements of the scene — the two men struggling, the accidentally shot attendant, the out-of-command merry-go-round, the itch under the moving merry-become-round to disable it — are nowadays in Crispin's account,^[58] though he received no screen credit for information technology.

In Raymond Chandler's second draft script — which Hitchcock ceremoniously dropped into the wastebasket while daintily holding his nose — the concluding shot is Guy Haines, institutionalized, bound in a straitjacket.^[eighteen]

Reception [edit]

Critical reception [edit]

Upon its release in 1951, Strangers on a Train received mixed reviews. Multifariousness praised it, writing: "Functioning-wise, the cast comes through strongly. Granger is excellent as the harassed fellow innocently involved in murder. Roman's role as a overnice, agreement girl is a switch for her, and she makes it warmly constructive. Walker's function has extreme color, and he projects it deftly."^[59]

Conversely, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times criticized the motion picture: "Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it volition stand up without back up. ... Perhaps there volition be those in the audition who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and past Mr. Hitchcock'southward sleekly melodramatic tricks. ... But, for all that, his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand."^[60] Leslie Halliwell felt that Hitchcock was "at his best" and that the motion-picture show "makes superior suspense amusement," but called the story "unsatisfactory."^[61]

In contrast, modern reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 98% based on reviews from 52 critics, with an average rating of 8.80/ten. The website's consensus reads, "A provocative premise and inventive ready design lights the way for Hitchcock diabolically entertaining masterpiece."^[62] Roger Ebert has called Strangers on a Train a "offset-rate thriller" that he considers 1 of Hitchcock's v best films.^[6] He added the film in his Great Movies list.^[six] In 2012, The Guardian praised the motion picture writing "Hitchcock'due south study of the guilt that taints the human condition is only one cinematic masterstroke afterwards some other".^[63]

David Keyes, writing at Cinemaphile in 2002, saw the motion-picture show as a seminal entry in its genre: "Aside from its very evident approach every bit a crowd-pleasing popcorn motion-picture show, the moving picture is i of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human behavior is the driving force backside the truthful macabre rather than supernatural elements. Even classic endeavors like Fargo and A Uncomplicated Plan seem directly fueled by this concept..."^[64]

Almar Haflidason was effusive about Strangers on a Train in 2001 at the BBC website: "Hitchcock'due south favourite device of an ordinary homo caught in an ever-tightening web of fear plunges Guy into i of the director's most fiendishly effective movies. Ordinary Washington locations become sinister hunting grounds that mirror perfectly the creeping terror that slowly consumes Guy, as the lethally smoothen Bruno relentlessly pursues him to a frenzied climax. Fast, exciting, and woven with wicked style, this is one of Hitchcock'south virtually efficient and ruthlessly delicious thrillers."^[65]

Patricia Highsmith'due south stance of the film varied over fourth dimension. She initially praised it, writing: "I am pleased in full general. Specially with Bruno, who held the film together every bit he did the book." Afterward in life, while nonetheless praising Robert Walker'south performance as Bruno, she criticized the casting of Ruth Roman as Anne, Hitchcock's determination to turn Guy from an builder into a tennis player, and the fact that Guy does non murder Bruno'southward begetter as he does in the novel.^{[66] [67]}

Box office [edit]

Co-ordinate to Warner Bros' records, the picture earned $1,788,000 domestically and $1,144,000 in foreign territories.^[1]

Accolades [edit]

Award	Category	Bailiwick	Upshot
Academy Laurels	Best Cinematography	Robert Burks	Nominated
Directors Lodge of America Award	Outstanding Directing – Characteristic Picture	Alfred Hitchcock	Nominated
National Lath of Review Accolade	Best Moving-picture show[68]		Nominated

American Moving-picture show Plant listed the film as #32 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.

Culling versions [edit]

An early preview edit of the movie, sometimes labeled the "British" version although it was never released in Uk or anywhere else, includes some scenes either non in, or else dissimilar from, the moving picture as released.^[69] Co-ordinate to biographer Charlotte Chandler (Lyn Erhard), Hitchcock himself did non like either the "British" or the "American" version:

Hitchcock told [Chandler] that the picture should have ended with Guy at the amusement park after he has been cleared of murdering his wife. He wanted the final line of the moving picture to be Guy describing Bruno as "a very clever fellow". This ending, however, was not acceptable to Warner Bros.^[28]

In 1997, Warner released the film onto DVD as a double sided disc, with the "British" version on one side, and the "Hollywood" version on the reverse. Between the ii versions of the film, the "British" version about prominently omits the terminal scene on the train.^[69] A two-disc DVD edition was released in 2004 containing both versions of the movie, this time with the "British" version titled "Preview Version" (102:49 long) and the "Hollywood" version titled "Final Release Version" (100:40 long). The film was after made available on Blu-ray in 2012 with the same contents equally the 2004 DVD edition.^[lxx]

Legacy [edit]

Strangers on a Railroad train was adapted for the radio program Lux Radio Theatre on two occasions: on December three, 1951, with Ruth Roman, Frank Lovejoy, and Ray Milland, and on April 12, 1954, with Virginia Mayo, Dana Andrews, and Robert Cummings.^[44]

BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play broadcast on 29 September 2011 was Strangers on a Picture show by Stephen Wyatt, which gives an imagined business relationship of a serial of meetings between Hitchcock (Clive Swift) and Raymond Chandler (Patrick Stewart), as they unsuccessfully effort to create the screenplay for Strangers on a Train.

The 1987 film Throw Momma from the Train by Danny DeVito was inspired by Strangers on a Train, which is as well watched by DeVito'due south graphic symbol in the film.^{[71] [72]}

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the U.s. National Pic Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically meaning".^[73]

Run across besides [edit]

• Influence on Ballad Burnett's Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Warner Bros financial information in The William Shaefer Ledger. Come across Appendix 1, Historical Periodical of Picture, Radio and Telly, (1995) 15:sup1, 1–31 p 31 DOI: x.1080/01439689508604551
2. ^ "Strangers on a Train (1951)". The Numbers . Retrieved May 7, 2020.
3. ^ Tartaglione, Nancy (December 14, 2021). "National Picture Registry Adds Render Of The Jedi, Fellowship Of The Ring, Strangers On A Train, Sounder, WALL-E & More". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved December 14, 2021.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e} Ebert 2006, p. 428.
5. ^ ^{a b} Truffaut, François (1967). Hitchcock By Truffaut. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-60429-5
6. ^ ^{a b c} Ebert, Roger (Jan ane, 2004). "Strangers on a Train film review". rogerebert.com.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Spoto 1983, p. 345.
8. ^ McGillian 2006, p. 450. sfn mistake: no target: CITEREFMcGillian2006 (help)
9. ^ ^{a b c d} Spoto 1983, p. 346.
10. ^ Strangers on a Train: The Victim's P.O.5. (2004), DVD documentary
11. ^ Spoto 1983, p. 341.
12. ^ ^{a b c d due east} Spoto 1983, p. 342.
13. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McGilligan 2004, p. 442.
14. ^ ^{a b} McGilligan 2004, p. 444.
15. ^ Krohn, Bill. "I Confess – Historical Note". Senses of Picture palace.
16. ^ ^{a b c d east} Spoto 1983, p. 344.
17. ^ ^{a b} McGilligan 2004, p. 447.
18. ^ ^{a b c d e} McGilligan 2004, p. 449.
19. ^ Chandler 2006, p. 192.
20. ^ ^{a b c d eastward f} McGilligan 2004, p. 443.
21. ^ ^{a b c d e} Spoto 1983, p. 347.
22. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McGilligan 2004, p. 450.
23. ^ ^{a b c} McGilligan 2004, p. 452.
24. ^ Spoto 1983, p. 343.
25. ^ Spoto 1983, pp. 339–40.
26. ^ ^{a b c d east} Spoto 1983, p. 353.
27. ^ Chandler 2004, pp. 201–02. sfn mistake: no target: CITEREFChandler2004 (help)
28. ^ ^{a b c d} Chandler 2006, p. 197.
29. ^ ^{a b} Spoto 1983, p. 352.
30. ^ ^{a b} Chandler 2006, p. 198.
31. ^ McGillligan 2004, p. 242. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMcGillligan2004 (help)
32. ^ Ebert 2006, p. 429.
33. ^ Spoto 1983, p. 348.
34. ^ Chandler 2006, p. 66.
35. ^ Chandler 2004, p. 194. sfn fault: no target: CITEREFChandler2004 (assist)
36. ^ ^{a b c d} McGilligan 2004, p. 453.
37. ^ ^{a b c} Sullivan 2006, p. 157.
38. ^ Sullivan 2006, p. 156.
39. ^ Sullivan 2006, p. 159.
40. ^ ^{a b} Sullivan 2006, p. 162.
41. ^ Chandler 2006, p. 203.
42. ^ Warner Bros. press release #HO9-1251, November thirty, 1950
43. ^ ^{a b c} Chandler 2006, p. 202.
44. ^ ^{a b c d east} Spoto 1983, p. 354.
45. ^ ^{a b} Dellolio, Peter (2004). "Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Railroad train". Midwest Quarterly. 45 (3): 240–55.
46. ^ ^{a b c d e} Spoto 1983, p. 349.
47. ^ Spoto 1983, p. 350.
48. ^ ^{a b c d} Wood 2004, p. 172.
49. ^ Wood 2004.
50. ^ Wood 2004, pp. 172–73.
51. ^ Wood 2004, p. 173.
52. ^ Ebert 2006, p. 430.
53. ^ ^{a b} Wood 2004, p. 175.
54. ^ Woods 2004, p. 180.
55. ^ Spoto 1983, pp. 349–50.
56. ^ ^{a b c} Highsmith, Patricia (2001). Strangers on a Railroad train. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. (2001) ISBN 978-0-393-32198-2
57. ^ Swanson, Peter (February 17, 2012). "Armchair Audition: The Moving Toyshop (1946)". Retrieved May 25, 2013.
58. ^ Crispin, Edmund (2007) [1946]. The Moving Toyshop. Vintage. pp. 195–200. ISBN9780099506225.
59. ^ "Strangers on a Train". Diversity. 1951.
60. ^ Crowther, Bosley (July iv, 1951). "The Screen In Review; 'Strangers on a Train,' Some other Hitchcock Venture, Arrives at the Warner Theatre". The New York Times.
61. ^ Halliwell, Leslie, with John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwell'southward Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-273241-2. p. 1139
62. ^ "Strangers on a Train". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved January ane, 2022.
63. ^ Shoard, Catherine (August 2, 2012). "My Favourite Hitchcock: Strangers on a Train". The Guardian.
64. ^ Keyes, David (2002). "Strangers on a Railroad train". Cinemaphile.org. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
65. ^ Haflidason, Almar (June 25, 2001). "Strangers on a Railroad train (1951)". Bbc.co.u.k.. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
66. ^ Schenkar, Joan (2009). The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 318–nineteen. ISBN978-0-312-30375-4.
67. ^ Patricia Highsmith (Leap 1988). "Interview with Patricia Highsmith". Sight & Sound (Interview). Vol. 75, no. two. Interviewed past Gerald Peary. pp. 104–5 – via geraldpeary.com.
68. ^ "Strangers on a Train > Awards". Allmovie . Retrieved Jan eight, 2010.
69. ^ ^{a b} Desowitz, Bill (Nov 17, 1996). "Same Strangers, Different 'Train'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March v, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
70. ^ Kauffman, Jeffrey (October 6, 2012). "Strangers on a Train Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com . Retrieved October 8, 2012.
71. ^ Gardner, Eriq (January 29, 2015). "Two Men Inspired By 'Throw Momma from the Railroad train' Fail To Go Away With Murder". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 7, 2017.
72. ^ Bailey, Jason (January 14, 2015). "David Fincher, 'Strangers on a Train,' and the Catchy Business of Remaking Hitchcock". Flavorwire . Retrieved June seven, 2017.
73. ^ Tartaglione, Nancy (December 14, 2021). "National Moving picture Registry Adds Return Of The Jedi, Fellowship Of The Band, Strangers On A Railroad train, Sounder, WALL-E & More than". Borderline Hollywood . Retrieved December 14, 2021.

Bibliography [edit]

• Chandler, Charlotte (2006). It'due south Only a Film: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography. New York: Applause Books. ISBN978-1-55783-692-2.
• Ebert, Roger (2006). The Great Movies Ii. New York: Broadway Press. ISBN978-0-7679-1986-9.
• McGilligan, Patrick (2004). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Calorie-free. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN978-0-06-098827-ii.
• Spoto, Donald (1983). The Night Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN0-345-31462-X.
• Sullivan, Jack (2006). Hitchcock'southward Music. New Oasis: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-13618-0.
• Wood, Robin (2004). Marshall Deutelbaum; Leland A. Poage (eds.). A Hitchcock Reader. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN978-one-4051-5556-4.

Further reading [edit]

• Hare, Bill. "Strangers on a Train: Hitchcock'southward Rich Imagery Reigning Supreme" on Noir of the Week, Apr 20, 2008.
• Schneider, Dan. "Strangers On A Train – DVD" on Culturevulture.net.

External links [edit]

• Strangers on a Train at IMDb
• Strangers on a Train at AllMovie
• Strangers on a Railroad train at the TCM Movie Database
• Strangers on a Train at the American Film Found Catalog
• Strangers on a Railroad train on Lux Radio Theater: April 12, 1954

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_on_a_Train_(film)

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