Strangers on a Train (1951)

 Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train"

It goes without saying that Alfred Hitchcock is a technical master of his craft. In watching his 1951 smash hit "Strangers on a Train," this is readily apparent. The entire film is shot beautifully. There are images from the film that I simply cannot get out of my head. However, what I've come to notice from watching Hitchcock's filmography is his incredible lack of story and the films' flimsy thematic elements. As much as I want to engage with a Hitchcock film on a deeper level, it appears that style and 'suspense' seem to matter much more than anything else. 

"Strangers on a Train" finds a famous tennis star named Guy Haines who desperately wants to divorce his promiscuous wife Miriam so he can marry Anne Morton, a senator's daughter. While traveling on a train, he meets Bruno Antony who suggests the two 'swap murders.' As in, Bruno will murder Miriam and Guy can murder Bruno's overbearing father. Guy believes this to be a joke and doesn't think much of it when he leaves the train. However, Bruno does in fact murder Miriam and then begins to harass and stalk Guy, wanting him to finish his end of the 'deal.' Guy cannot go to the police because Bruno will say that the entire plan was Guy's idea. Bruno also has a cigarette lighter than he is threatening to leave at the scene of the crime. Throughout the film, investigators follow Guy around, since he has a motive. He leads them to Bruno and as the two of them grapple, the Ferris wheel they are on goes out of control and eventually crashes. Guy tells the police everything and it is confirmed when they find Guy's lighter clutched in Bruno's dead hands.

Visually, the film is stunning. Even the small little details Hitchcock plants throughout the film would provide a feast for a film nerd. The film includes puns and visual metaphors that play on the concept of 'doubles.' Guy and Bruno are like two opposites. One is 'light' and the other is 'dark.' Hitchcock makes a point to cross-cut between the two throughout the film, like cross cutting between their gestures to visually demonstrate a deeper connection between the two opposite forces. In the opening sequence, their sets of feet are shot match each other in motion and cutting. In this way, it seems that Hitchcock is suggesting that these two characters are not only opposites, but one in the same. Bruno embodies Guy's deep, dark desires to kill Miriam. Hitchcock, through lighting, establishes the good and evil through darkness and light. But then, he begins to grey the two together, demonstrating how interconnected they are. 

There are several scenes that have stuck with me after watching the film. The first scene is Miriam's murder. The woman who played Miriam, Kasey Rogers, even notes that the scene is "studied in film classes." The strangulation of Miriam is shown through her eyeglasses after they've dropped onto the ground. After getting the exterior shots on location using both actors, Hitchcock later had Rogers report alone to a sound stage with a large concave reflector set on the floor. With the camera on one side of the reflector and Rogers on the other, Hitchcock had Rogers turn her back to the camera and fall towards it. Hitchcock then had the two elements double printed. The resulting shot is a stark visual extravagance that allows the viewer to grapple with the on-screen horror.

The next two shots I gravitated towards both involved Bruno stalking Guy in order to get him to meet his end of the agreement. Both shots signify Guy's guilt with what was happened. The first shot shows Bruno standing on the steps of the capital building in Washington DC. Hitchcock has Bruno smaller in the frame at the top of the steps staring at Guy. The lack of other people, the higher position at the top of the stairs, and the small imperceptible view of Bruno makes the image unsettling. Because we cannot actually see Bruno with any sort of complexity, he simply looks like a ghostly figure. The second shot occurs when Guy is waiting for his turn on the tennis court. He looks over at the spectators in the stands and sees all of their heads moving back and forth watching the tennis ball. That is, all but one. The only head not moving in sync with the back and forth motion is Bruno, who is just staring at him. The juxtaposition between the stark motion difference really catches the viewer's eye, including Guy's. Just then, Hitchcock suddenly zooms in on Bruno to confirm the viewer's apprehensions about who is staring at us. The effect is yet again chilling.

All of this to say that Hitchcock's direction is superb and cannot be understated. However, when I was watching the film, I found myself growing bored of the film's plot. I understood the film's themes regarding moral identity, yet I did not find myself engaging with them fully. The script was written by Czenzi Ormonde and adapted from the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock had supervised the screenwriting process and even instructed Ormonde how best to adapt and change the content from the source material. The first starts off incredibly intriguing, as I found myself swept up in the concept of a murder plan by two strangers. However, once it becomes clear that Guy wants to maintain his moral purity and instead attempts to 'catch' Bruno, the film turns from a dark moral play into a 'cat and mouse' melodrama. Hitchcock, in his usual form, is able to film scenes in a way that heightens the suspense, yet the planned attempt by Guy to secure his innocence left the last 3/4th of the film dull and unsatisfying. I did, however, find myself enjoying the film. As I stated earlier, much of the film is intriguing and visually stunning. The latter part of the film would even have sat well with me had this work been by some other Hollywood director. However, because of the esteem film history has placed on Hitchcock and his work, you often find yourself expecting a whole lot more.