Film Review: Strangers on a Train (1951)

10 months ago (Edited)

(source: tmdb.org)

"The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture." This is one of the most famous quotes by Alfred Hitchcock, made when he was discussing his work with François Truffaut during his famous interviews. If we define "success" as being formidable, memorable and iconic characters, villains indeed represent an important part of the Hitchcockian formula, used in a number of Hitchcock's greatest films. Probably the most representative example can be found in Strangers on a Train, a 1951 thriller which is considered one of Hitchcock's best works.

The film is based on the eponymous novel by Patricia Highsmith. The plot begins on a train with a chance encounter between two men who, despite different characters and lifestyles, belong to the upper strata of society and appear to have a similar problem. Guy Haines (played by Farley Granger) is an amateur tennis player who considers switching careers to politics under the tutelage of U.S. Senator Morton (played by Leo G. Carroll), father of his socialite girlfriend Anne Morton (played by Ruth Roman); however, he is still married to shop clerk Miriam Joyce Haines (played by Kasey Rogers) who, despite being unfaithful and carrying another man's child, refuses to grant a divorce. Bruno Anthony (played by Robert Walker) is a hedonistic playboy whose carefree lifestyle might come to a brutal end if his father (played by Jonathan Hale) cuts his allowance. Bruno suggests that both men might solve their problems by murder and evade capture simply by swapping their targets, thus giving themselves perfect alibis and leaving investigators without a clear motive. Guy doesn't take much of an idea and leaves the train slightly amused, but Bruno gets serious, tracks and murders Miriam. Guy is later contacted by Bruno who demands that he must make his part of the bargain and return the favour by murdering Bruno's father. Guy is appalled and doesn't want to go through with it, but Bruno now threatens to go to the police and confess the murder while falsely accusing Guy as an accomplice. His threat is backed by incriminating evidence and Guy now must find a way to prevent Bruno from planting it at the scene of the crime.

Strangers on a Train was the first novel in the career of Patricia Highsmith, an author who would soon earn fame with her very dark and misanthropic crime novels, including those featuring psychopathic protagonists that get away with murder. Hitchcock, who was beginning to increasingly toy with misanthropy and increasingly dark themes at that particular point in his career, was mainly attracted to the "high concept" of switching murders and how the seemingly perfect crime would collapse because of the imperfection of its perpetrators. The script, created during a torturous process that had famed writer Raymond Chandler being booted from production despite his name being left on the credits, had diverged from Highsmith's literary source. This allowed Hitchcock freedom to use the plot as the basis for a series of imaginative, original and effective scenes which show the Master of Suspense at his best. Those scenes include the introductory scene during which Guy and Bruno are never shown their faces before the encounter; Miriam being stalked and strangled in an amusement park, with the actual deed being reflected in her glasses fallen to the ground; a tennis match which Guy must finish quickly if he is to catch Bruno before he plants evidence. The last scene, which features an apocalyptic showdown on a malfunctioning carousel with dozens of screaming children, is unusually disturbing and a little bit too melodramatic, but it nevertheless shows a great display of Hitchcock's skill.

Hitchcock, apart from a good script, also had great talents at his disposal. The black-and-white cinematography by Robert Burks is very effective in allowing Hitchcock to play with lights and shadows, creating a quasi-noirish atmosphere and signalling the plight in which Guy finds himself. Strangers on a Train was the first collaboration between Burks and Hitchcock, which would continue for the next two decades, resulting in some of Hitchcock's grandest films. Experienced film composer Dimitri Tiomkin delivers a serviceable, but not particularly memorable score.

The cast is, for the most part, very good, most notably Robert Walker in the role of the psychopathic villain who has such a commanding presence on the screen that the audience all but cheers for him despite his murderous lunacy and his acts being reprehensible. Walker's performance is even more impressive in light of the fact that the actor was suffering from serious mental problems that would lead to his tragic death only a few months after the premiere. This performance easily overshadows Farley Granger who, despite his athleticism and good looks, as well as the role of nominal protagonist, ends up quite bland. Ruth Roman, who was cast against Hitchcock's wishes, is even blander and many Hitchcock enthusiasts, as well as Hitchcock himself, have pointed to her as the least satisfying element of Strangers on a Train. Hitchcock was more fortunate with his daughter Patricia, here playing Anne's relatively plain-looking bespectacled teenage sister in a role that gave her character some of the most acidic parts of the dialogue and also an important part of the plot.

Just like Rope, made three years earlier, Strangers on a Train later became the subject of speculations and reinterpretations based on the implicit homosexual content. Highsmith, the author of the novel, was a lesbian, while Farley Granger was gay. The character of Bruno was depicted as slightly effeminate and the fatal encounter between him and Guy can be interpreted as an attempted seduction, just as Guy's casual reaction to Bruno's murderous suggestion can be interpreted as a result of Guy's confusion over his own sexuality. However, Hitchcock in the film pays much more attention to other forms of unconventional sexuality or social dysfunction. The party scene in which Bruno demonstrates strangling is inspired by Hitchcock's own habit of entertaining friends with morbid displays of deadly skills. In the murder scene, however, Hitchcock shows more skill in avoiding the rigid censorship of the Hays Code and depicts the victim as scandalously promiscuous; she is not only having fun with two young men at once, but also, when noticing Bruno stalking her, shows what appears to be sexual interest only seconds before Bruno's true intentions would become clear. In a way, the character of Miriam is depicted not very differently from sex-crazed teenagers who would become victims in slasher films decades later.

This trend of using sexual dysfunction and perversions as a subtle but unmistakably present layer of his story was continued by Hitchcock in the next decade, which would be the most fruitful in his career. Strangers on a Train, despite not actually being on the same level as his greatest films, made this golden period possible by becoming a big hit at the box office and turning Hitchcock into one of the most bankable and iconic film directors of his time.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)