I first saw Strangers On A Train on the same bill as Notorious at a revival theatre in San Francisco many years ago. I can’t imagine sitting through that long a double feature now even though they came in at #3 and #2 on my Alfred Hitchcock Dozen respectively.
The story should be familiar to many of you. Farley Granger meets Robert Walker on a train.
Granger plays Guy Haines a tennis player with political ambitions. Robert Walker plays Bruno Anthony, a spoiled rich kid who is as gay as the production code allowed in 1951. He proposes a murder swap with Granger: Criss-cross. Granger thinks nothing of it until his ex is murdered at a carnival in his hometown:
Walker is a psychopath who keeps showing up wherever Granger is including at a tennis match:
Granger is in love with a senator’s daughter played by Ruth Roman. He’s almost as much in love with her father (Leo G. Carroll) and pesky kid sister who is played by the director’s daughter Pat:
Walker crashes a party at Leo G. Carroll’s crib and nearly strangles some poor socialite. He’s triggered by Pat Hitchcock’s resemblance to Granger’s ex:
Granger and Roman both try warning Walker’s parents that he’s a dangerous lunatic. They don’t listen. What can you expect when Walker’s mom is played by Marian Lorne who played bumbling witch Aunt Clara on Bewitched:
In a classic wrong man gambit, Granger is the prime suspect in his ex’s slaying. He needs to recover the MacGuffin to prove his innocence.
The movie concludes with a thrilling scene on a carousel.
That’s all the story I’m willing to share. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all.
The acting in Strangers On A Train is superb. I paid special heed to Ruth Roman’s performance this time. It’s all in her big beautiful and expressive eyes. Robert Walker came in second on my list of Hitchcock villains and Farley Granger is great as the mild mannered tennis star who grows a pair over the course of the movie.
The real scene stealer is Pat Hitchcock, seen here with her real life father:
The movie is based on the novel by the great Patricia Highsmith:
The screenplay made several changes to the book, most importantly making Farley Granger’s character a tennis player. That added depth, intrigue, and action to the plot. Raymond Chandler is credited as the co-writer of the movie but Hitchcock didn’t use his work. The real scenarists were Czenzi Ormonde and Whitfield Cook with an assist from an uncredited Ben Hecht.
Do I have to say that Hitchcock’s direction was sublime? That goes for cinematographer Robert Burks as well.
I’ve seen Strangers On A Train ten+ times and get something new from each viewing. This time it opened an odd memory. Like Farley Granger, I once had an intense conversation with a stranger but it was on a plane, not train. It was on the flight home from my mother’s funeral. Criss-cross was not involved.
Grading Time: I give Strangers On A Train 4 stars and an Adrastos grade of A. It’s a stone cold classic.
One advantage of writing about such a famous film is that there’s a wealth of images online. That’s also the downside. I spent more time on images for this post than usual. Oh well, what the hell.
It’s time to posterize your life or some such shit. Here are side-by-side international long sheets:
The best posters are quads:
I’ve already used 2 lobby cards but feel the need to stretch my legs and go to the lobby to see the rest.
My legs were stiff just contemplating the double bill I mentioned at the top of the post. Let’s kick around some more lobby cards.
It’s time to exit the lobby and board the trailer.
The last word goes to Eddie Muller with special guest Rosie Perez.
