Get on a Train Well Be Strangers Again

1951 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Strangers on a Train
Poster by Pecker Gilded
Directed past	Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by	Raymond Chandler Whitfield Cook Czenzi Ormonde
Based on	Strangers on a Railroad train by Patricia Highsmith
Produced past	Alfred Hitchcock
Starring	Farley Granger Ruth Roman Robert Walker
Cinematography	Robert Burks
Edited past	William H. Ziegler
Music by	Dimitri Tiomkin
Production company	Transatlantic Pictures
Distributed past	Warner Bros.
Release date	June 30, 1951 (1951-06-xxx)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1.6 million[1]
Box function	$7 million[2]

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

The story concerns 2 strangers who meet on a train, 1 of whom is a psychopath who suggests that they "exchange" murders so that neither volition be defenseless. The moving picture initially received mixed reviews simply has since been regarded as i of Hitchcock'southward finest films. In 2021, the motion-picture show was selected for preservation in the United States National Motion picture Registry past the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[3]

Play picture show's original trailer; runtime 00:02:thirty

Plot [edit]

Apprentice lawn tennis star Guy Haines wants to divorce his promiscuous wife Miriam and then he can marry Anne Morton, the daughter of a United states of america Senator. On a train, wealthy shine-talking psychopath Bruno Antony recognizes Haines and reveals his thought for a murder scheme: two perfect strangers meet and "swap murders" — Bruno suggests he impale Miriam and Guy impale Bruno'southward hated male parent. Each will murder a total stranger, with no apparent motive, so neither will be suspected. Guy humors Bruno by pretending to detect his idea agreeable, but is so eager to go away from Bruno that he carelessly leaves backside his engraved cigarette lighter, which Bruno keeps.

Guy meets with Miriam, who is pregnant past someone else, at her workplace in Metcalf, their hometown. Miriam informs Guy that she no longer wants to end their matrimony. She threatens to claim that he is the begetter, in social club to thwart any divorce-attempt. They contend 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 laurels their deal, by killing Bruno's male parent.

Guy goes to the Mortons' home, where Anne's male parent informs Guy that his wife has been murdered. Anne'due south 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 excuse: a professor Guy met on the train was so drunkard that he cannot recall their encounter. Instead of arresting Guy, the police assign an around-the-clock escort to lookout him.

To pressure Guy, Bruno follows him effectually Washington, introduces himself to Anne, and appears at a party at Senator Morton's house. To amuse another invitee, Bruno playfully demonstrates how to strangle someone, past putting his hands around her neck. His gaze falls upon Barbara, whose spectacles and physical appearance resemble Miriam's. This triggers a flashback; Bruno compulsively squeezes the woman'southward 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's resemblance to Miriam. Her suspicions aroused, Anne confronts Guy, who tells her the truth near Bruno's crazy scheme.

Bruno sends Guy a package containing a pistol, a house fundamental, and a map showing the location of his father's bedroom. Guy creeps into Bruno's father'due south room to warn him of his son's murderous intentions, but instead he finds the suspicious Bruno at that place waiting for him; the male parent is not at home. Guy tries to persuade Bruno to seek psychiatric help; Bruno threatens to punish Guy for breaking their bargain.

Anne visits Bruno's domicile and unsuccessfully tries to explicate to his befuddled mother that her son is a murderer. Bruno mentions Guy'south 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 tennis friction match, Guy evades the police-escort, and heads for the amusement park to stop Bruno.

Bruno is delayed when he accidentally drops Guy's lighter down a storm bleed and must call back it. When Bruno arrives at the amusement park, a carnival worker recognizes him from the night of the murder; he informs the police, who mistakenly call back he has recognized Guy. After Guy arrives, he and Bruno fight on the park's carousel. Believing that Guy is trying to escape, a law officeholder shoots at him, but 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 too abruptly, causing the carousel to violently spin off its support, trapping the mortally injured Bruno underneath. The worker who had called the police at present tells them that Bruno, non Guy, is the 1 whom he remembers seeing the night of the murder. As Bruno dies, his fingers open to reveal Guy'due south lighter in his hand. Realizing that Guy is not the murderer, the law inquire him to come up to the station the next day to necktie upward whatsoever loose ends.

In a terminal railroad train scene, another stranger attempts to strike upwards conversation with Guy in the same way as had Bruno. Guy and Anne coldly walk away from him.

Cast [edit]

In one of his trademark cameos, Hitchcock boards the train in Metcalf afterwards Farley Granger'due south graphic symbol exits.

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

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance occurs 11 minutes into the film. He is seen carrying a double bass equally he climbs onto a railroad train.

Hitchcock said that correct casting saved him "a reel of storytelling time", since audiences would sense qualities in the actors that did not take to be spelled out.^[4] Hitchcock said that he originally wanted William Holden for the Guy Haines function,^{[5] [6]} but Holden declined. "Holden would accept been all wrong—too sturdy, as well put off by Bruno", writes critic Roger Ebert.^[4] "Granger is softer and more than elusive, more convincing every bit he tries to slip out of Bruno's conversational web instead of flatly rejecting him."^[4]

Warner Bros. wanted their own stars, already under contract, bandage wherever possible. In the casting of Anne Morton, Jack 50. Warner got what he wanted when he assigned Ruth Roman to the projection, over Hitchcock's objections.^[7] The managing director found her "bristling" and "lacking in sex appeal" and said that she had been "foisted upon him."^[8] Perhaps it was the circumstances of her forced casting, simply Roman became the target of Hitchcock's scorn throughout the product.^[ix] Granger described Hitchcock'southward attitude toward Roman as "disinterest" in the actress, and said he saw Hitchcock treat Edith Evanson the same way on the set of Rope (1948). "He had to have one person in each film he could harass," Granger said.^[nine]

Kasey Rogers (credited as Laura Elliott) noted that she had perfect vision at the time the movie was made, but Hitchcock insisted she wear the character's thick eyeglasses, even in long shots when regular drinking 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-product [edit]

Hitchcock secured the rights to the Patricia Highsmith novel for just $7,500 since information technology was her offset novel. As usual, Hitchcock kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase price low.^[11] Highsmith was quite annoyed when she after discovered who bought the rights for such a small amount.^[12]

Securing the rights to the novel was the least of the hurdles Hitchcock would have to vault to get the property from printed page to screen. He got a treatment that pleased him on the second attempt, from author Whitfield Cook, who wove a homoerotic subtext (only hinted at in the novel) into the story and softened Bruno from a coarse alcoholic into a dapper, charming mama'due south boy — a much more Hitchcockian villain.^[13] With handling in hand, Hitchcock shopped for a screenwriter; he wanted a "proper name" writer to lend some prestige to the screenplay, but was turned down by 8 writers, including John Steinbeck and Thornton Wilder, all of whom thought the story likewise tawdry and were put off by Highsmith'southward first-timer status.^[14] Talks with Dashiell Hammett got further,^[12] but here too communications ultimately bankrupt down, and Hammett never took the assignment.^[12]

Hitchcock and so tried Raymond Chandler, who had earned an Oscar nomination for his offset screenplay, Double Indemnity, in collaboration with Billy Wilder.^{[12] [15]} Chandler took the task despite his opinion that it was "a dizzy little story."^[14] But Chandler was a notoriously hard collaborator and the two men could not accept had more different coming together styles: Hitchcock enjoyed long, rambling off-topic meetings where ofttimes the film would not even be mentioned for hours, while Chandler was strictly business and wanted to become out and get writing. He called the meetings "god-awful jabber sessions which seem to be an inevitable although painful part of the motion-picture show business."^[12] Interpersonal relations deteriorated rapidly until finally Chandler became openly combative; at one betoken, upon viewing Hitchcock struggling to leave from his limousine, Chandler remarked within earshot, "Look at the fatty bastard trying to get out of his car!"^[sixteen] This would be their last collaboration. Chandler completed a first typhoon, and then wrote a second, without hearing a unmarried discussion back from Hitchcock; when finally he did get a communication from the director in late September, information technology was his dismissal from the projection.^[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 have 2 things in her favor: her recently published drove of brusk stories, Laughter From Downstairs, was attracting good notices from critics, and she was "a fair-haired dazzler with long shimmering pilus."^[17]—always a plus with Hitchcock. With his new author, he wanted to start from square i:

At their beginning conference, Hitchcock made a evidence of pinching his nose, and so holding up Chandler's draft with his thumb 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 apply, and they would have to start all over on page one, using Cook's treatment equally a guide. The director told Ormonde to forget all well-nigh the volume, and so told her the story of the film himself, from beginning to end.^[17]

There was non much time though — less than three weeks until location shooting was scheduled to starting time in the Eastward. Ormonde hunkered down with Hitchcock'due south associate producer Barbara Keon—disparagingly chosen "Hitchcock's factotum" by Chandler^[18]—and Alma Reville, Hitchcock'south wife. Together the three women, working nether the boss'due south guidance and late into almost nights,^[16] finished plenty of the script in time to transport the visitor Due east. The residue was consummate by early November.^[18] Three notable additions the trio had made were the delinquent merry-go-circular, the cigarette lighter, and the thick eyeglasses.^[19]

There was one point of agreement betwixt Chandler and Hitchcock, although it would come only much subsequently, most the release of the moving-picture show: they both acknowledged that since about none of Chandler'southward work remained in the final script, his proper name should be removed from the credits.^[18] Hitchcock preferred the writing credit of Whitfield Melt and Czenzi Ormonde, simply Warner Bros. wanted the cachet of the Chandler name and insisted it stay on.^[18]

Fifty-fifty while the torturous writing stage was plodding its course, the director's excitement well-nigh the project was boundless. "Hitchcock raced alee of anybody: the script, the cast, the studio... pieces of the film were dancing similar electrical charges in his brain."^[20] The more than the film resolved in his mind'due south centre, the more he knew his manager of photography would play a critical role in the scenes' execution. He found exactly what he needed right on the Warners lot in the person of staff cameraman Robert Burks, who would continue to piece of 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 atmosphere. Burks was an exceptionally apt selection for what would prove to exist Hitchcock's most Germanic motion picture in years: the compositions dense, the lighting nigh surreal, the optical effects demanding."^[22] None was more demanding than Bruno'southward strangulation of Miriam, shown reflected in her eyeglass lens: "Information technology was the kind of shot Hitchcock had been tinkering with for twenty years—and Robert Burks captured it magnificently."^[23]

Burks considered his 14 years with Hitchcock the all-time of his career: "You never have any problem with him as long as you know your job and exercise it. Hitchcock insists on perfection. He has no patience with mediocrity on the gear up or at a dinner table. At that place tin can be no compromise in his work, his food or his wines."^[21] Robert Burks received the picture show'southward sole Academy Honor nomination for its blackness and white photography.^[23]

Production [edit]

With cast nailed down, a script in hand, and a managing director of photography in melody with Hitchcock'southward vision on board, the company was ready to embark filming. Hitchcock had a crew shoot background footage of the 1950 Davis Loving cup finals held August 25–27, 1950 at the Westward Side Tennis Guild in Woods Hills, New York. While there, the crew had done some other location scouting.^[24] Exteriors would exist 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.^[seven] For six days, they shot at Penn Station in New York City, at the railroad station at Danbury, Connecticut—which became Guy'southward hometown Metcalf—and in spots effectually Washington, D.C.^[seven]

By calendar month'southward end, they were back in California. Hitchcock had written exacting specifications for an amusement park, which was constructed on the ranch of managing director Rowland Lee in Chatsworth, California.^[9] The amusement park exteriors were shot there and at an bodily Tunnel of Dear at a fairground in Canoga Park, California.^[9] Hitchcock had already shot the long shots for the tennis friction match at Woods Hills and would add together closer shots with Granger and Jack Cushingham, Granger's tennis double-decker off-screen and Guy'south tennis opponent Fred Reynolds on-screen at a tennis club in South Gate, California.^[21] The rest of the shooting would take place on Warner soundstages, including many seemingly exterior and on-location shots that were really done inside in front end of rear-project screens.

Strangers on a Train marked something of a renaissance for Hitchcock, after several years of low 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-gum wrapper, wet leaves, and a chip of crumpled paper that were used for sewer debris"^[21] in the scene where Bruno inadvertently drops Guy's lighter downwardly the tempest drain.

He also showed intense interest in a seldom-considered detail of character depiction: nutrient.

"Preferences in food characterize people..." Hitchcock said. "I accept always given it careful consideration, so that my characters never eat out of character. Bruno orders with gusto and with an interest in what he is going to eat — lamb chops, French fries, and chocolate water ice cream. A very good choice for railroad train food. And the chocolate ice cream is probably what he thought almost first. Bruno is rather a child. He is also something of a hedonist. Guy, on the other paw, shows fiddling interest in eating the tiffin, apparently having given information technology no accelerate thought, in dissimilarity to Bruno, and he only orders what seems his routine selection, a hamburger and coffee."^[27]

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

I of the most memorable unmarried shots in the Hitchcock canon — it "is studied by film classes", says Laura Elliott, who played Miriam^[28] – is her character's strangulation by Bruno on the Magic Isle. "[I]northward ane of the almost unexpected, nigh aesthetically justified moments in motion-picture show,"^[29] the slow, about graceful, murder is shown as a reflection in the victim's eyeglasses, which accept been jarred loose from her head and dropped to the basis. The unusual angle was a more complex suggestion than it seems. First Hitchcock got the outside shots in Canoga Park, using both actors, then later he had Elliott alone report to a soundstage where there was a large concave reflector set 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 style to the floor... similar you were doing the limbo."^[30] The outset six takes went desperately—Elliott thudded to the floor with several feet yet to go^[23]—but on the 7th take, she floated smoothly all the way. Hitchcock's even-strained response: "Cut. Adjacent shot."^[thirty] Hitchcock and 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 cute.... The astheticizing of the horror somehow enables the audience to contemplate more than fully its reality."^[29]

Hitchcock was, above all, the master of great 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 information technology seamlessly matched and blended under film editor William H. Ziegler's eye."^[22]

Hitchcock took a toy carousel and photographed information technology blown up by a pocket-size accuse of explosives. This piece of flick he so enlarged and projected onto a vast screen, positioning actors effectually and in front of it so that the effect is i of a mob of bystanders into which plaster horses and passengers are hurled in deadly chaos. Information technology is one of the moments in Hitchcock'due south work that continues to bring gasps from every audience and applause from cinema students.^[33]

The explosion is triggered by the attempts of a carnival human to end the ride after itch nether the whirling carousel deck to become to the controls in the middle. Although Hitchcock admitted to undercranking the shot (artificially accelerating the action),^[34] it was non a fox shot: the man actually had to clamber nether the spinning ride, just inches from possible injury. "Hitchcock told me that this scene was the most personally frightening moment for him in whatsoever of his films", writes biographer Charlotte Chandler. "The man who crawled nether the out-of-control carousel was not an player or a stuntman, but a carousel operator who volunteered for the job. 'If the man had raised his head fifty-fifty slightly", Hitchcock said, "it would accept gone from existence a suspense film into a horror moving picture."^[35]

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

Chief photography wrapped merely before Christmas, and Hitchcock and Alma left for a holiday in Santa Cruz,^[26] then in tardily March 1951, on to St. Moritz, for a 25th anniversary European excursion.^[36]

Music [edit]

Composer Dimitri Tiomkin was Jack Warner's pick to score Strangers on a Train. While he had previous Hitchcock experience on Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and would continue to score 2 more sequent Hitchcock films, the director and composer "simply never developed much of a kinship"^[22] and "the Hitchcock films are non Tiomkin's best".^[22]

Nevertheless, the score does pick upwards on the ubiquitous theme of doubles — oft contrasting doubles — right from the opening title sequence: "The first shot — two sets of male shoes, loud versus conservative, moving toward a railroad train — carries a gruff bass motif set against Gershwin-similar riffs, a two-office medley called "Strangers" and "Walking" that is never heard once more."^[37] The powerful music accurately underscores the visuals of that title sequence — the massive granite edifice of New York's Pennsylvania Station, standing in for Washington's Matrimony Station—because information technology was scored for an unusually large orchestra, including alto, tenor and baritone saxes, 3 clarinets, four horns, three pianos and a novachord.^[38]

Tiomkin's contrasting musical themes continued throughout the film, delineating two characters with substantial differences: "For 'Guy's Theme', Tiomkin created a hesitant, passive idea, made-to-society music for Farley Granger's functioning."^[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 Coming together,' 'Senator's Office,' and 'Jefferson Memorial,' are not but nigh Bruno, but most how he is perceived by those whose lives he crosses—first Guy, then everyone in Guy'south entourage."^[37]

But maybe the most memorable music in Strangers is the calliope music,^[22] heard first at the fairground and again, afterward, when Bruno is strangling Mrs. Cunningham at Senator Morton's soirée, and experiences his unfortunate flashback and subsequent fainting spell. Information technology was Hitchcock, non Tiomkin, whose idea brought the four evocative numbers^[22] — "The Ring Played On", "Carolina in the Morn", "Oh, Y'all Beautiful Doll", and "Baby Face" — to the soundtrack:

In one of Hitchcock'due south about explicit operatic gestures, the characters at the fateful funfair sing the score, giving it full dimension as part of the drama. In a conventional movie, the tune would play in the background as 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 past singing it on the merry-go-round, lustily and loudly... Grinning balefully on the equus caballus behind them, Bruno then sings it himself, making it his motto. The ring plays on through Bruno'south stalking of his victim and during the murder itself, blaring 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 terminal reprise during Guy's and Bruno's fight on the merry-go-round, even itself shifting to a faster tempo and higher pitch when the policeman's 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 it fit the film's design that information technology seems similar an element of Hitchcock'south storyboards", he writes.^[40] It is a score that "goes largely uncelebrated."^[xl]

Promotion and release [edit]

With a release scheduled for early summer, the studio press agents swung into loftier gear early in 1951. Hitchcock, promotionally photographed many times over the years strangling various actresses and other women — some one-handed, others two — institute himself in front of a photographic camera with his fingers effectually the neck of a bust of daughter Patricia;^[26] the photo found its way into newspapers nationwide.^[41] He was also photographed adding the letter L to Strangers on the official studio affiche for the flick,^[26] thus changing the word to Stranglers.

1 studio press release gave rise to a myth that nevertheless lingers on today.^[42] Hitchcock and Patricia both were afraid of heights, and father offered girl a hundred dollars to ride the Ferris cycle — only to order the power cut, leaving her in the nighttime at the very top of the ride. The press release embellished the tale, claiming he left her "dangling in total darkness for an hr,"^[36] only then allowing his "trembling daughter" to be lowered and released.^[36] Although that account continues to be published in books to this day, "information technology merely wasn't true", according to Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell.^[43] Offset of all, she was not up there alone: flanking her were the actors playing Miriam's two boyfriends — "and I take a picture of us waving."^[43] "This was good stuff for printing agents paid to stir up thrills and it has been repeated in other books to bolster the idea of Hitchcock's sadism,"^[36] but "we were [but] up there 2 or three minutes at the exterior.... My father wasn't ever sadistic. The but sadistic function was I never got the hundred dollars."^[43]

Strangers on a Railroad train previewed on March v, 1951 at the Huntington Park Theatre, with Alma, Jack Warner, Whitfield Cook and Barbara Keon in the Hitchcock party^[26] and it won a prize from the Screen Directors Guild.^[44] It 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 made personal appearances in near of them, and was often accompanied by his girl.

Some audience feedback arriving at Jack Warner's role condemned the picture for its sordid story, while just every bit many others were favorable.^[44] Of greater interest to Warner was the box office take, and the "receipts shortly told the truthful story: Strangers on a Train was a success, and Hitchcock was pronounced at the top of his form as chief of the dark, melodramatic suspense thriller."^[44]

Themes and motifs [edit]

The motion-picture show includes a number of puns and visual metaphors that demonstrate a running motif of crisscross, double-crossing, and crossing one'south double. Talking almost the structure of the motion picture, Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "Isn't it a fascinating design? Ane could report it forever."^[5]

The two characters, Guy and Bruno, can exist viewed as doppelgängers. As with Shadow of a Uncertainty, Strangers on a Train is 1 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'southward dark desire to impale Miriam, a "real-life incarnation of Guy's wish-fulfillment fantasy".^[45]

Doubles [edit]

The theme of doubles is "the key element in the film's structure,"^[46] and Hitchcock starts right off in his title sequence making this bespeak: there are 2 taxicabs, two redcaps, two pairs of feet, two sets of railroad train rails that cross twice. In one case on the train, Bruno orders a pair of double drinks — "The simply kind of doubles I play", he says charmingly. In Hitchcock'southward cameo he carries a double bass.

There are two respectable and influential fathers, two women with eyeglasses, and two women at a party who delight in thinking up ways of committing the perfect criminal offense. There are ii sets of two detectives in two cities, two piddling boys at the ii trips to the fairground, 2 one-time men at the carousel, two boyfriends accompanying the woman most to be murdered, and two Hitchcocks in the motion-picture show.^[46]

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

This doubling has some precedent in the novel; but more of information technology was deliberately added by Hitchcock, "dictated in rapid and inspired profusion to Czenzi Ormonde and Barbara Keon during the concluding days of script training."^[46] It undergirds the whole picture show because it finally serves to associate the globe of light, order, and vitality with the earth of darkness, anarchy, lunacy and death."^[47]

Guy and Bruno are in some ways doubles, only in many more ways, they are opposites. The ii sets of feet in the title sequence match each other in motility and in cutting, but they immediately found the contrast betwixt the two men: the first shoes "showy, vulgar brown-and-white brogues; [the] second, plain, unadorned walking shoes."^[48] They also demonstrate Hitchcock's gift for deft visual storytelling: For most of the film, Bruno is the actor, Guy the reactor, and Hitchcock always shows Bruno'due south feet first, and then Guy's. And since it is Guy's foot that taps Bruno's under 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 motion-picture show intriguing and halfway plausible, and explains how Bruno could come up so close to carrying out his programme."^[iv]

Darkness–light continuum [edit]

Information technology is those flaws that fix up the real themes of Strangers. Information technology was not enough for Hitchcock to construct merely a world of doubles — fifty-fifty contrasting doubles — in a strict polar-reverse structure; for Hitchcock, the good-and-evil, darkness-and-calorie-free poles "didn't have to exist mutually exclusive."^[iv] Blurring the lines puts both Guy and Bruno on a good-evil continuum, and the infinite shades of grey in between, became Hitchcock's canvas for telling the story and painting his characters.

At start glance, Guy represents the ordered life where people stick to rules, while Bruno comes from the earth of chaos,^[49] where they become thrown out of multiple colleges for drinking and gambling. However both men, similar so many of Hitchcock'due south protagonists, are insecure and uncertain of their identity. Guy is suspended between lawn tennis and politics, between his tramp wife and his senator's girl, and Bruno is seeking badly to establish an identity through violent, outré actions and flamboyance (shoes, lobster-patterned tie, name proclaimed to the globe on his tiepin)."^[50]

Bruno tells Guy early that he admires him: "I certainly adore people who do things", he says. "Me, I never practise anything important." Yet as Bruno describes his "theories" over lunch, "Guy responds to Bruno — we see information technology in his face, at once amused and tense. To the man committed to a career in politics, Bruno represents a tempting overthrow of all responsibility."^[48] And at this signal the blurring of proficient and evil accelerates: Guy fails to repudiate Bruno's suggestive statement well-nigh murdering Miriam ("What's a life or two, Guy? Some people are ameliorate off dead.") with any force or conviction. "When Bruno openly suggests he would like to impale his wife, he merely grins and says 'That's a morbid thought,' only we sense the tension that underlies information technology."^[48] Information technology ratchets upward a notch when Guy leaves Bruno'southward 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, then, in a sense connives at the murder of his wife, and the enigmatic link between him and Bruno becomes clear.^[51]

Light and nighttime 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 controlling his visuals, and his use of screen infinite underlined the tension in means the audition isn't e'er aware of. He ever 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 proficient or temporarily ascendant.^[52]

Nowhere is this more axiomatic than the scene where Guy arrives home at his D.C. flat to notice Bruno lurking across the street; Bruno killed Miriam that evening in Metcalf, and has her glasses to give to Guy nearly every bit a "receipt" that he has executed his part of their "deal". "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.Southward. Capitol, the life to which Guy aspires, the globe of light and order."^[53] Bruno tells Guy what he has washed and gives him the glasses. "You lot're a gratuitous man now", he says, just as a police automobile drives upwardly, looking for the husband of a sure contempo murder victim. Guy nervously steps into the shadows with Bruno, literally backside the bars of an iron contend; "You've got me interim like I'm a criminal", he says. "The scene gives a beautifully exact symbolic expression to Guy's relationship with Bruno and what he stands for."^[53]

Hitchcock continues the interplay of lite and nighttime throughout the film: Guy's bright, light lawn tennis attire, versus "the gothic gloominess of [Bruno's] Arlington mansion";^[46] the crosscutting betwixt his game in the sunshine at Forest Hills while Bruno's arm stretches into the night and debris of the storm drain trying to fish out the cigarette lighter;^[54] even a single prototype where "Walker is photographed in ane visually stunning shot as a malignant stain on the purity of the white-marble Jefferson Memorial, equally a blot on the order of things."^[55]

Political subtext [edit]

Although its commencement rumblings came in 1947 with the trial and confidence 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 background to their work, while Hitchcock, Cook, Ormonde and Keon were preparing the script for Strangers, and moving-picture show scholar Robert L. Carringer has written of a political subtext to the motion picture.^[13] Treatment writer Cook used Guy to make the pic "a parable quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America."^[xiii]

That hysteria was targeting homosexuals forth with Communists as enemies of the state.... The U.Southward. Senate was decorated investigating the suspicion that 'moral perverts' in the government were also undermining national security — going so far equally to commission a study, Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government.^[xx]

Carringer has argued that the motion-picture show was crucially shaped past 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 establish in circumstances making him vulnerable to beingness compromised."^[20] Hitchcock, who had fatigued gay characters so sharply yet subtly in Rope in 1948, "drafted the left-leaning Cook... expressly considering he was comfortable with sexually ambiguous characters."^[thirteen]

Differences from the novel [edit]

Fifty-fifty before sewing up the rights for the novel, Hitchcock's mind was whirling with ideas about how to accommodate it for the screen. He narrowed the geographic scope to the Northeast corridor, betwixt Washington, D.C. and New York — the novel ranged through the southwest and Florida, among other locales.^[20] The scripting squad added the lawn tennis lucifer — and the crosscutting with Bruno'southward tempest drain travails in Metcalf — added the cigarette lighter, the Tunnel of Love, Miriam'southward eyeglasses; in fact, the entertainment park is only a brief setting in the novel.^[xx]

Hitchcock's biggest changes were in his two lead characters:

The character called Bruno Antony in the film is called Charles Anthony Bruno in the volume.^[56] "Highsmith's Bruno is a physically repugnant alcoholic... but in [Whitfield Cook's] easily, the movie'due south Bruno became a swell, a mama's boy who speaks French, and who professes ignorance of women."^[13] In the book, Bruno dies in a boating blow^[56] far removed from a merry-become-circular.

In the novel, Guy Haines is not a tennis player, but rather a promising architect, and he does indeed go through with the murder of Bruno's male parent.^[56] In the movie, "Guy became a decent guy who refuses to behave out his part of the crazed bargain..." writes Patrick McGilligan, "to head off the censors."^[13] In the novel, Guy is pursued and entrapped by a tenacious detective.^[16]

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

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.^[18]

Reception [edit]

Critical reception [edit]

Upon its release in 1951, Strangers on a Train received mixed reviews. Variety praised it, writing: "Performance-wise, the cast comes through strongly. Granger is fantabulous equally the harassed beau innocently involved in murder. Roman'due south part as a dainty, agreement daughter is a switch for her, and she makes it warmly effective. Walker'due south role has extreme color, and he projects it deftly."^[59]

Conversely, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times criticized the film: "Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con u.s. into thinking that it will stand up without support. ... Mayhap there will be those in the audition who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by Mr. Hitchcock'southward sleekly melodramatic tricks. ... But, for all that, his basic premise of fear fired by menace is and so thin and and so utterly unconvincing that the story merely 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, mod reviews take been overwhelmingly positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approving rating of 98% based on reviews from 52 critics, with an average rating of 8.eighty/x. The website'due south consensus reads, "A provocative premise and inventive set design lights the manner for Hitchcock diabolically entertaining masterpiece."^[62] Roger Ebert has chosen Strangers on a Railroad train a "commencement-charge per unit thriller" that he considers one of Hitchcock's five best films.^[half-dozen] He added the film in his Corking Movies list.^[6] In 2012, The Guardian praised the film writing "Hitchcock'south report of the guilt that taints the man condition is only one cinematic masterstroke later on some other".^[63]

David Keyes, writing at Cinemaphile in 2002, saw the film equally a seminal entry in its genre: "Aside from its very axiomatic approach equally a crowd-pleasing popcorn motion picture, the movie is one of the original shells for identity-inspired mystery thrillers, in which natural human being behavior is the driving strength behind the true macabre rather than supernatural elements. Even classic endeavors like Fargo and A Unproblematic Plan seem directly fueled by this concept..."^[64]

Almar Haflidason was effusive near Strangers on a Railroad train in 2001 at the BBC website: "Hitchcock'due south favourite device of an ordinary man caught in an ever-tightening web of fearfulness plunges Guy into one of the managing director's about fiendishly effective movies. Ordinary Washington locations get sinister hunting grounds that mirror perfectly the creeping terror that slowly consumes Guy, as the lethally smooth Bruno relentlessly pursues him to a frenzied climax. Fast, heady, and woven with wicked mode, this is ane of Hitchcock'south well-nigh efficient and ruthlessly delicious thrillers."^[65]

Patricia Highsmith'due south opinion of the picture varied over time. She initially praised it, writing: "I am pleased in full general. Especially with Bruno, who held the movie together equally he did the book." Later on in life, while still praising Robert Walker's performance as Bruno, she criticized the casting of Ruth Roman equally Anne, Hitchcock's decision to turn Guy from an architect into a lawn tennis player, and the fact that Guy does not murder Bruno's father as he does in the novel.^{[66] [67]}

Box office [edit]

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

Accolades [edit]

Award	Category	Subject	Consequence
Academy Award	Best Cinematography	Robert Burks	Nominated
Directors Gild of America Accolade	Outstanding Directing – Feature Film	Alfred Hitchcock	Nominated
National Board of Review Award	Best Film[68]		Nominated

American Film Establish listed the film equally #32 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.

Alternative versions [edit]

An early on preview edit of the film, sometimes labeled the "British" version although it was never released in Britain or anywhere else, includes some scenes either non in, or else different from, the motion-picture show as released.^[69] Co-ordinate to biographer Charlotte Chandler (Lyn Erhard), Hitchcock himself did not like either the "British" or the "American" version:

Hitchcock told [Chandler] that the picture should have ended with Guy at the amusement park later he has been cleared of murdering his wife. He wanted the final line of the motion-picture show 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 pic onto DVD as a double sided disc, with the "British" version on one side, and the "Hollywood" version on the contrary. Betwixt the ii versions of the moving-picture show, the "British" version well-nigh prominently omits the final scene on the train.^[69] A two-disc DVD edition was released in 2004 containing both versions of the picture show, this fourth dimension with the "British" version titled "Preview Version" (102:49 long) and the "Hollywood" version titled "Final Release Version" (100:twoscore long). The motion picture was after made bachelor on Blu-ray in 2012 with the same contents equally the 2004 DVD edition.^[70]

Legacy [edit]

Strangers on a Train was adapted for the radio program Lux Radio Theatre on 2 occasions: on December three, 1951, with Ruth Roman, Frank Lovejoy, and Ray Milland, and on Apr 12, 1954, with Virginia Mayo, Dana Andrews, and Robert Cummings.^[44]

BBC Radio iv'south Afternoon Play broadcast on 29 September 2011 was Strangers on a Motion-picture show by Stephen Wyatt, which gives an imagined business relationship of a series of meetings between Hitchcock (Clive Swift) and Raymond Chandler (Patrick Stewart), as they unsuccessfully attempt to create the screenplay for Strangers on a Railroad train.

The 1987 motion picture Throw Momma from the Railroad train past Danny DeVito was inspired past Strangers on a Train, which is also watched by DeVito's character in the film.^{[71] [72]}

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry past the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[73]

See also [edit]

• Influence on Carol Burnett'due south Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} Warner Bros fiscal information in The William Shaefer Ledger. Run into Appendix ane, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television set, (1995) fifteen:sup1, 1–31 p 31 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
2. ^ "Strangers on a Train (1951)". The Numbers . Retrieved May 7, 2020.
3. ^ Tartaglione, Nancy (December xiv, 2021). "National Picture show Registry Adds Return Of The Jedi, Fellowship Of The Band, 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-v
6. ^ ^{a b c} Ebert, Roger (January 1, 2004). "Strangers on a Train movie review". rogerebert.com.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Spoto 1983, p. 345.
8. ^ McGillian 2006, p. 450. sfn fault: no target: CITEREFMcGillian2006 (aid)
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 e} 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 Annotation". Senses of Cinema.
16. ^ ^{a b c d e} 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 due east f} McGilligan 2004, p. 450.
23. ^ ^{a b c} McGilligan 2004, p. 452.
24. ^ Spoto 1983, p. 343.
25. ^ Spoto 1983, pp. 339–twoscore.
26. ^ ^{a b c d e} 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 error: no target: CITEREFChandler2004 (help)
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. printing release #HO9-1251, November 30, 1950
43. ^ ^{a b c} Chandler 2006, p. 202.
44. ^ ^{a b c d due east} Spoto 1983, p. 354.
45. ^ ^{a b} Dellolio, Peter (2004). "Hitchcock and Kafka: Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train". Midwest Quarterly. 45 (3): 240–55.
46. ^ ^{a b c d eastward} 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} Woods 2004, p. 175.
54. ^ Wood 2004, p. 180.
55. ^ Spoto 1983, pp. 349–fifty.
56. ^ ^{a b c} Highsmith, Patricia (2001). Strangers on a Train. New York: Westward.Westward. Norton and Co. (2001) ISBN 978-0-393-32198-2
57. ^ Swanson, Peter (February 17, 2012). "Armchair Audience: 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". Variety. 1951.
60. ^ Crowther, Bosley (July 4, 1951). "The Screen In Review; 'Strangers on a Train,' Another Hitchcock Venture, Arrives at the Warner Theatre". The New York Times.
61. ^ Halliwell, Leslie, with John Walker, ed. (1994). Halliwell's Film Guide. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-273241-2. p. 1139
62. ^ "Strangers on a Railroad train". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved January 1, 2022.
63. ^ Shoard, Catherine (Baronial 2, 2012). "My Favourite Hitchcock: Strangers on a Train". The Guardian.
64. ^ Keyes, David (2002). "Strangers on a Train". Cinemaphile.org. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
65. ^ Haflidason, Almar (June 25, 2001). "Strangers on a Railroad train (1951)". Bbc.co.great britain. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
66. ^ Schenkar, Joan (2009). The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Fine art of Patricia Highsmith. New York: St. Martin's Printing. pp. 318–nineteen. ISBN978-0-312-30375-iv.
67. ^ Patricia Highsmith (Jump 1988). "Interview with Patricia Highsmith". Sight & Sound (Interview). Vol. 75, no. 2. Interviewed past Gerald Peary. pp. 104–v – via geraldpeary.com.
68. ^ "Strangers on a Train > Awards". Allmovie . Retrieved January viii, 2010.
69. ^ ^{a b} Desowitz, Bill (November 17, 1996). "Same Strangers, Different 'Train'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on March five, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
70. ^ Kauffman, Jeffrey (October 6, 2012). "Strangers on a Train Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com . Retrieved October viii, 2012.
71. ^ Gardner, Eriq (Jan 29, 2015). "Two Men Inspired By 'Throw Momma from the Train' Fail To Become Away With Murder". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved June 7, 2017.
72. ^ Bailey, Jason (January 14, 2015). "David Fincher, 'Strangers on a Train,' and the Tricky Business of Remaking Hitchcock". Flavorwire . Retrieved June 7, 2017.
73. ^ Tartaglione, Nancy (Dec 14, 2021). "National Picture show Registry Adds Return Of The Jedi, Fellowship Of The Band, Strangers On A Train, Sounder, WALL-East & More". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved December fourteen, 2021.

Bibliography [edit]

• Chandler, Charlotte (2006). It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal Biography. New York: Adulation Books. ISBN978-1-55783-692-ii.
• Ebert, Roger (2006). The Peachy Movies II. New York: Broadway Printing. ISBN978-0-7679-1986-9.
• McGilligan, Patrick (2004). Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN978-0-06-098827-2.
• Spoto, Donald (1983). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN0-345-31462-X.
• Sullivan, Jack (2006). Hitchcock's Music. New Haven: Yale University Printing. ISBN978-0-300-13618-0.
• Wood, Robin (2004). Marshall Deutelbaum; Leland A. Poage (eds.). A Hitchcock Reader. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN978-i-4051-5556-4.

Further reading [edit]

• Hare, Neb. "Strangers on a Train: Hitchcock's Rich Imagery Reigning Supreme" on Noir of the Calendar week, April 20, 2008.
• Schneider, Dan. "Strangers On A Railroad train – DVD" on Culturevulture.net.

External links [edit]

• Strangers on a Train at IMDb
• Strangers on a Train at AllMovie
• Strangers on a Train at the TCM Motion picture Database
• Strangers on a Train at the American Movie Establish Catalog
• Strangers on a 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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