Alfred Hitchcock has made some pretty effective thrillers in his day -- some of them are quite creepy and twisted, even for films made in the 1950’s, as was the case for Rear Window, Vertigo and The Wrong Man. Many elements of these films are not dated at all -- many scenes and elements are incredibly modern. Think of Rear Window; even though it stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Thelma Ritter, its plot, involving voyeurism and murder, and its cinematic style would not be out of place today -- although there’d probably be more blood and gore if it were made today.

Another terrific thriller from the 50’s is Strangers on a Train. While this film is in black and white, and is a bit more old fashioned looking, being from the earlier part of the 50’s, it still contains scenes that are fairly shocking, and depicts a really nasty psychopathic personality.

Two strangers meet on a train. One, Guy (Farley Granger), is a famous tennis star. The other, Bruno (Robert Walker), is a spoiled adult , a son of a rich family. Once he notices the tennis star, Bruno immediately takes to him, so much so that, as others have said, and as is plainly obvious anyway, it appears like a flirtation.

Bruno has apparently read a lot about Guy’s life, from his tennis wins to his stormy relationships, from his impending divorce, and the rumors about his new relationship with a senator’s daughter. Bruno’s constant inquiries about Guy’s life agitate him to a degree -- although, naturally, he’s agitated enough to begin with. Bruno exploits that, when he suggests something diabolical.

Bruno has a scheme that he considers foolproof. Bruno already has spoken about his father, a man he hates greatly, and Bruno suggests that he’d love to have him killed, just as he figures that Guy would secretly love to have his wife killed. Bruno suggests that they switch murders -- you do my murder, I’ll do yours. The idea is that, since these two people are strangers to each other, nobody would ever suspect that they would help out in this murder plot. Also, it’s clear that both people would have a motive for killing the people they hate, but if the murders were switched, supposedly this would allow a way out, as clearly, the natural suspect would have an alibi, being somewhere else at the time.

Guy just thinks that this guy is a strange man, and laughs it off, before leaving the train at his stop. But Bruno wasn’t just cooking up a theory -- he is deadly serious.

Bruno kills the wife, in a scene that is utterly cold and heartless . He stalks her at an amusement park, where she giddily romps with two young men, and follows them in a boat ride, through the Tunnel of Love, and then to the other side of the lake. He is able to get the woman alone, and strangles her. The scene is done without any score music. He just kills her, and walks away.

Bruno’s theory goes awry in one respect however -- Guy becomes a natural suspect, and soon is followed by the police. Bruno himself makes himself a major pest, as he does all he can to make Guy follow through on his side of the bargain, and, when that fails, tries to incriminate Guy even more for the crime. Guy is in a bind -- he didn’t commit the crime, yet had every reason to. And he figures that he can’t go to the police with the truth, because the truth would be too outrageous to believe. As he says later on, everyone would ask, how did you do it, Guy?

Interestingly enough, all of this drama doesn’t really affect his tennis. We actually get a couple of lengthy tennis matches -- and he, or at least a stand-in who plays in stock footage, holds his own during the tournaments. If this movie were about golf, and involved, I don’t know, Tiger Woods, would he be able to play a good match if he were accused of murder, and had a crazy psychopath stalking him? If he could, then maybe he really is the best golfer the game ever had!

Strangers on a Train is a very intense movie. Obviously, it doesn’t contain graphic violence, but still manages to be sick and twisted, and the strangulation scene is still a brutally cold moment. Guy’s feelings about his wife are accentuated in one scene when he yells on the phone to his new girlfriend that he’d love to break her fowl neck, that he’d love to strangle her. Of course, at that moment, a train passes by loudly, basically screaming at him to admit that, yes, Guy, even though he’s not a psycho such as Bruno, does have feelings of murder. Bruno, despite his insanity, is right, in a sense, when he says to Guy that even though Bruno killed someone, it’s not his murder. Deep down, Guy probably feels happy that this woman, who had affairs, and who only wants his money, is gone. There’s also another sick thing later on when Bruno gets a glance of Guy’s newest gal’s sister; he practically falls into a trance, because this sister bears a resemblance of sorts to the murdered woman. This leads to an ugly scene at a party later on.

Robert Walker plays a great psycho. Bruno is one of those rich kids who is lazy, a bum, as he calls himself, and so all he does is play sick games and get into trouble. He is irresponsible and totally shallow - he also has an Oedipal relationship with his parents; he clearly adores his mother too much, and hates his father so much he wants him dead. His behavior toward Guy is practically homosexual -- he tries to make it look as if the two were meant to be together, and when Guy tries all he can to get rid of Bruno, he considers this a betrayal, and tries to hurt him like a cliché of a spiteful woman would, by spreading false rumors (in this case, involving murder of course). You could probably also say that he’s jealous because Guy has a woman in his life.

Of course, as with most movies of this vintage, certain concessions have to be made. Guy isn’t a bad guy --- this movie could have went all the way and made both men into killers, but that wouldn’t be Hollywood, now would it? We need a hero, even if he’s flawed, and guilty of some things. And isn’t it kind of interesting, from our more respectful era, that the murder victim is a woman who is loose, deceptive? What message is this sending? That women who aren’t prim and proper deserve to be murdered???

But overall, Strangers on a Train is a great thriller, and one of Hitchcock’s best movies. I’m certainly glad that I, as I have been doing recently, ventured once again into the battered old video section of the local video store, to find this movie.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening