Strangers on a Train is a film released in 1951 by Warner Bros. It was produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Kasey Rogers (credited as Laura Elliott), and Patricia Hitchcock.
The film was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, who also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley. Detective novelist Raymond Chandler wrote an early draft of the screenplay, despite his having considered the story implausible.[citation needed]
This movie is ranked number 121 on IMDB's "Top 250 Films of All-Time" and is number 32 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills.
Plot summary
Amateur tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) wants to divorce his vulgar and unfaithful small-town wife, Miriam (Kasey Rogers), in order to be able to marry the woman he loves, the elegant, beautiful, and rich Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the daughter of a senator. But Miriam does not want the divorce, and instead plans to live off Haines's money. While on a train to meet Miriam, Haines meets the charming, rich, clever, but psychopathic Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). Bruno recognizes Guy and knows something of his marital problems from gossip items in the newspapers. Bruno proceeds to tell Guy about his idea for a perfect murder. He will kill Miriam, and in exchange Guy will kill Bruno's father. Since both are strangers, nobody will suspect them of the crime. Guy hurriedly leaves the compartment, but leaves Bruno thinking he had agreed to the deal. Guy leaves his cigarette lighter behind, which Bruno takes.
Bruno soon heads to Guy's hometown and murders Miriam at a fair. Once the murder is discovered, suspicion immediately falls on Guy, because he had an obvious motive. It turns out that Guy is unable to provide a solid alibi for the time of the crime. Bruno starts making increasingly more intrusive appearances in Guy's life, in order to forcibly remind Guy that Guy is now obliged to kill Bruno's father, according to the bargain that was supposedly struck on the train when they first met.
Bruno gives guy the keys to his house and a map to his fathers room. Guy sneaks in and tries to warn Bruno's father, but Bruno tells him his father had left for the night. Feeling betrayed that Guy will not kill his father, Bruno tells Guy he will frame him for the murder of Miriam. Guy eventually tells Anne about Bruno, and she visits the house. Bruno lets her know that he has the lighter, and can plant it at the scene of the crime during the night to implicate Guy. Ann tells Guy this, and the two hatch a plan for Guy to get to the scene of the crime before Bruno after completing a tennis match.
The match takes longer than expected, however, and Guy ends up at the fair at the same time as Bruno. The two men struggle on the carousel, which spins out of control and crashes. Bruno is mortally wounded in the crash, but still tells the police Guy committed the crime. The police soon find the lighter on Bruno after he dies, which frees Guy of any blame. An amusement park employee (who remembers Bruno's previous visit) confirms that Bruno is in fact the murderer. Guy and Anne are then seen reunited on a train home, and this time there is hope for their future together. A man asks Guy if he is Guy Haines (identical to the way Guy met Bruno), but Guy, fearing another mishap, leaves the compartment with Anne, leaving the man stunned.
Cast
From the trailer for the film
Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearance in this movie occurs 10 minutes into the film. We see him carrying a double bass as he gets onto the train.
In an interview,[specify] Kasey Rogers (playing Miriam) noted that she had perfect vision at the time the movie was made, which meant that the thick glasses she was required to wear in her role effectively blinded her. In one scene, she can be seen dragging her hand along a table as she walks; this was in order for her to keep track of where she was.
Production
Pre-production
In his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock told Truffaut that he originally wanted William Holden for the Guy Haines role,[1] but Holden refused the role. Hitchcock also revealed that he got the rights to the Highsmith novel for just $7,500 since it was her first novel. Hitchcock kept his name out of the negotiations to keep the purchase price low.[2][3] Highsmith was quite annoyed when she later discovered to whom she had sold the rights for such a small amount.[2]
Dashiell Hammett was originally approached to write the screenplay for the film.[4] Communications broke down, and Hammett never took the job.[4] Raymond Chandler was next approached and ultimately hired to write the script.[4][5] Hitchcock and Chandler didn't communicate well (at one point Chandler, upon viewing Hitchcock exit his vehicle, remarked "Look at the fat bastard trying to get out of his car!")[3][4]
Hitchcock finally dismissed Chandler from the film.[4] Next, Hitchcock tried to hire Ben Hecht but Hecht was unavailable. Hecht suggested his assistant Czenzi Ormonde to write the screenplay.[3][4] While Chandler received screen credit, by his own admission the final film has almost none of his work.[4]
Themes and motifs
The film includes a number of puns and visual metaphors that demonstrate a running motif of crisscross, double-crossing, and crossing one's double. Talking about the structure of the film, Hitchcock said to Truffaut, "Isn't it a fascinating design? One could study it forever."[citation needed]
Doubles
Countless pairs, both blatant and obscure, litter the movie throughout.
The film starts out with two pairs of well-shot feet (Guy's and Bruno's) moving into the train station from opposite directions. Bruno and Guy are almost physical doubles, well-dressed, handsome and strong. Bruno seems to be a corrupt and more worldly version of Guy, a more demonic version.
Bruno orders two double drinks on the train. Hitchcock makes his trademark cameo appearance with his own physical “double” – a double bass. There are two young men accompanying the promiscuous Miriam on the fatal night. Her death at the hands of Bruno is doubly reflected in her glasses as if in a double mirror. There are two scenes at an amusement park (filmed on the Warner Bros. back lot) and multiple scenes at the fictional Metcalf train station (actually filmed at the Danbury, Connecticut train station[citation needed]).
Donald Spoto argues in his book The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures that the film’s persistent usage of doubling helps to connect the world of standard order – as in politics, business, and athletics – to the seedy underworld of sin, corruption, and death.[citation needed] Murder is the demonic alternative to divorce.
Doubles even exist in the characters. Barbara Morton (Patricia Hitchcock) reminds Bruno so much of Miriam (Kasey Rogers), the viewer nearly sees him strangle Mrs. Cunningham (Norma Varden), who herself is also a possible double for his mother (Marion Lorne).
The two characters Guy and Bruno can be viewed as doppelgangers. As with Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. The pair has what writer Peter Dellolio refers to as a “dark symbiosis.”[6] Bruno embodies Guy’s dark desire to kill Miriam, a “real-life incarnation of Guy’s wish-fulfillment fantasy”.[6]
Alternate versions
An early preview edit of the film, sometimes labeled the "British" version although it was never released in Britain or anywhere else,[citation needed] includes some scenes either not in, or else different from the film as released. Warner's Region 2 DVD (Japan and Europe) release of the movie is a 'flipper' (double sided) disc, with the "British" version on one side, and the 'Hollywood' version on the reverse. Warner also released a Region 1 'flipper' disc. The "British" version omits the final scene on the train.[citation needed]
Differences from the novel
- The character called Bruno Antony in the film is called Charles Anthony Bruno in the book.
- In the film, Guy agrees to kill Bruno's father but instead attempts to warn him about his son's insanity; in the novel, Guy does go through with the murder.
- Haines is a promising architect in the novel.
Adaptations
Strangers on a Train was adapted to the radio program Lux Radio Theater on two occasions: on December 3, 1951 with Frank Lovejoy and Ray Milland and on April 12, 1954 with Dana Andrews and Robert Cummings.[citation needed]
Critics reactions
The film review site Rotten Tomatoes has the film ranked at a 97% "Fresh" rating. Roger Ebert called Strangers on a Train a "first-rate thriller" among the top five of Hitchcock's films.[1]
Remakes and references in popular culture
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This "In popular culture" section may contain too many minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivia references. (October 2009) |
Hitchcock's film was the basis for the comedy Throw Momma From the Train (1987), starring Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito.
In the 1988 pornographic film Strange Curves, directed by John Leslie, one character proposes to another (played by Joey Silvera) that they trade murders, and both actually make reference to Hitchcock. Silvera's character's wife (Victoria Paris) is indeed murdered, and he spends the rest of the film trying to avoid being blackmailed, framed, or forced to commit murder himself.
This method of committing murder has been referenced in several television series. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in the episode A Night at the Movies, investigated a crime similar to the plot of Strangers on a Train. The idea itself for the crime came from Strangers on a Train. In the episode, two women meet at an art house movie theater. One has a sexual abuse suit against a dentist, the other has a suit against her boss. The two apparently agree to "solve each others problems". One of the women kills the dentist that sexually abused the woman, but the other woman does not hold up her end of the bargain.
Another crime drama series, Law & Order, used Strangers on a Train as the inspiration for the episode C.O.D. In the episode, a delivery man is shot on the stoop of a house in Manhattan, which leads the detectives to his wife, whom he was cheating on with several other women. The other woman in the scheme wanted her husband dead so she could inherit his fortune, which he was attempting to prevent her from spending. Unlike Strangers on a Train, both women committed their individual murders, one before the timeline in the episode, and the other at the beginning.
Also in a NCIS (a crime drama series)episode, "The Inside Man", the movie is mentioned by Tony DiNozzo and the plot is similar to "Strangers on a Train". In the episode, two strangers riding the same train try to make money by exchanging information knowing that when they earn money at the stocks, no one can connect the two.
In an episode of the comedy Peep Show, the two main characters, Mark Corrigan and Jeremy Osborne, decide to get revenge on each other's enemies, with a reference to Strangers on a Train included.
In the series finale of Gary & Mike, Gary accidentally agrees to murder a stranger's wife in exchange for his father's death.
Cat Stevens said in a live concert that his hit song "Peace Train" was inspired by this movie. The lyrics of Sonic Youth's "Shadow of a Doubt" (the title of another Hitchcock movie) from their 1987 album EVOL relate to it with lines such as: "Met a stranger on a train...you'll kill him and I'll kill her...swear it wasn't meant to be.". The song "Strangers on a Train" by Lovage (one of several to contain a Hitchcock reference in title or lyrics) actually refers to events in North by Northwest. The song 'Movies' by Comet Gain includes the lines, "What's your favorite Hitchcock?/ Strangers on a Train is mine."
According to the Internet Movie Database, the film is going to be remade in 2011.[7]
An episode of the British series Murphy's Law featured a similar concept in which the members of a victim support group formed a round robin wherein they would each kill the criminal who had victimized another member of the group.
In the Bollywood movie Strangers, Jimmy Shergill and Kay Kay Menon's characters also meet on a train. They agree to kill each other's wives.
One of the antagonists in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace is named Guy Haines, a senior government official who works for the underground organization Quantum, though whether he is named for the character or it is simply coincidence remains to be seen.
Ab episode of the animated sitcom King of the Hill entitled "Strangeness on a Train," features Peggy and her friends setting up a disco party on a train, however instead of murder-related mishaps, the friends try to solve the mystery of who had sex in the train's bathroom.
The upcoming Simpsons Treehouse of Horror special is scheduled to have a segment where Bart and Lisa get involved in a murder scheme reminiscent of Strangers on a Train.
References
Specific references:
General references:
External links
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