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Strangers on a train
Threat advisory: Guarded - General risk of entertaining activities
Movie propaganda
A tennis star plays a match with murder!
Strange thing about this trip. So much occurs in pairs. Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) hates his unfaithful wife, Miriam Joyce (Kasey Rogers). Mysterious Bruno Antony (Robert Walker) hates his father (Jonathan Hale). How perfect for a playful proposal: I'll kill yours, you kill mine. Now look at how Alfred Hitchcock reinforces the duality of human nature. The more you watch the more you'll see. "Isn't is a fascinating design?" the master of suspense often asked.
Actually, it's doubly fascinating. For Hitchcock left behind two versions of Strangers on a train. The original version is an all-time thriller classic. A recently found longer pre-release British print offers a "startling amplification of Bruno's flamboyance, his homoerotic attraction to Guy and his psychotic personality" (Bill Desowitz, Film comment). The laying bare of Bruno's hidden nature, along with the great set pieces and suspense as only Hitchcock can deliver makes for a first class trip.
Persons of interest
- Farley Granger .... Guy Haines
- Ruth Roman .... Anne Morton
- Robert Walker .... Bruno Anthony
- Leo G Carroll .... Senator Morton
- Patricia Hitchcock .... Barbara Morton
- Kasey Rogers .... Miriam Joyce Haines
- Marion Lorne .... Mrs Anthony
- Jonathan Hale .... Mr Anthony
- Howard St John .... Police Captain Turley
- John Brown .... Professor Collins
- Norma Varden .... Mrs Cunningham
- Robert Gist .... Leslie Hennessy
- Patricia Highsmith .... Author
- Raymond Chandler .... Screenwriter
- Ben Hecht .... Screenwriter
- Czenzi Ormonde .... Screenwriter
- Whitfield Cook
- Alfred Hitchcock .... Director
Cinematic intelligence sources
- Studios and distributors:
Intelligence analyst
Special Agent Matti
Theatrical report
Love all.
Strangers on a train lacks a certain depth which seriously undercuts its effect. Things just happen without any respect for the characters or for reality, most noticeably the meeting of Guy and Bruno on the train: Guy would never put up with a guy like Bruno anywhere else and despite the politeness of travellers in the 1950s he would've found a way to be less open to the man. Certainly, he makes attempts to part company (the dining car moment) but they are half-hearted.
However, if you leave those times aside you'll find yourself watching a proto-Fatal attraction. Some people attach themselves to you like a leech. You try to be polite but they don't take the hint. You get blunt and they get blunt back and, finally, you find yourself going along because you can't live with the alternative. It's the sane person's nightmare to be trapped with the insane, and nothing will make you go insane quicker than being surrounded by insanity. Just ask the Marquis de Sade (Quills).
Despite the romantic look at the good old days of black and white movies (on which I grew up, having only a black and white TV and all), Strangers on a train doesn't hold any of the suspense of Alfred's other films, like Vertigo.
Media intelligence (DVD)
- Audio: Mono 1.0
- Disc: two sided
- Picture: Fullscreen 1.33:1
- Languages: USA: English, French, Italian - UK: English
- Subtitles: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Bulgarian, Italian (captions), English (captions)
- Alfred's historical meeting newsreel
Security censorship classification
M (Low level violence, adult themes)
Surveillance time
97 minutes (1:37 hours) - USA version
99 minutes (1:39 hours) - UK version
Not for public release in Australia before date
DVD rental: 2 May 2001
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