Strangers on a Train
1951, US, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Black & White, Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD, Region 2, Warner, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Mono
Professional tennis star Guy Haines is about to go through a bitter divorce with his argumentative coquette of a wife when he meets someone during a train journey who claims to be a fan of his, the man turning out to be surprisingly knowledgeable about Haines and his domestically dramatic life. The sociopath introduces himself as Bruno Anthony and proceeds to at first jokingly hint that they could exchange murders - Bruno murders Haines’s adulteress spouse while Haines kills Bruno’s unwanted father. Not entirely sure how to take such an unorthodox suggestion Haines humours Bruno before leaving him to his business but it seems the man was deadly serious when he later follows Mrs Haines on one of her flirtatious outings to a fairground where he takes her aside and strangles her. Before Haines is officially told of the news Bruno catches up with him and updates the understandably shocked sportsman, but then he is demanding that Haines carries out his part of the perceived bargain and begins making plans to facilitate his father’s murder. Between a rock and a hard place, Haines feels unable to tell the police as Bruno persuades him that Haines would be implicated anyway due to having a strong motive, etc. It seems the police are already following that lead up but the only person that Haines claims saw him at the time of the murder turns out to be too inebriated to remember anything anyway, thus the problem-stricken man finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation and fighting for his innocence, while on the other hand being pushed into a possible genuine murder by a psychopathic man that won’t leave him alone.
The concluding years of the forties and opening section of the fifties had not been especially kind to Hitchcock: Rope, despite being quite daringly experimental, was a commercial failure, while Under Capricorn was a bit of a mess with its long takes requiring set alterations while the camera was rolling in order to facilitate its movements, etc. Reviews of the Ingrid Bergman vehicle weren’t good, not helped by her publicised and media condemned affair with Roberto Rossellini. Stage Fright, an expected return to ‘classic’ Hitchcock form, was rushed into production but turned out to be a little boring - though at least it temporarily appeased Warner Bros., who were at that time unsure about green-lighting the convicted priest film that later became the brilliant I Confess (Catholicism had an influence over film censorship at that period). It was shortly after production of Stage Fright that Hitchcock, his wife (who assisted to no small extent with the writing of his films), and playwright Whitfield Cook became excited about a debut novel by Patricia Highsmith called Strangers on a Train, thus the rights were purchased cheaply (because she was an unknown at the time) and the story adapted into a treatment by Cook for a screenplay by Raymond Chandler, and subsequently Czenzi Ormonde. Elements were changed in the treatment, as they virtually always are with film adaptations, the most notable being the fact that the two central men actually do each other’s murder in the book whereas Haines is a little too weedy and moralistic to kill anyone in the film. The book ends with Bruno dying on a boat and Haines being apprehended by police, so it’s fairly different from the outcome of the movie. The direction is smart and inventive with a style of cinematography that hints at film noir, the gorgeous Black and White imagery suiting the atmosphere exceedingly well. While Farley Granger deliberately plays Haines as a wet rag, Robert Walker is sinister as the unpredictable sociopathic killer Bruno. One bit of casting I love is Patricia Hitchcock (i.e. Alfred’s daughter) as a young amateur sleuth who closely resembles the woman Bruno kills, causing him to lose control at one point and almost strangle another female. Her naïve but perceptive observations on the case at hand bring a little light-heartedness at punctuating points helping to balance out the film’s darker moments and, surely considering this was only 1951, the morbidity is quite strong when it comes to the murder of Haines’s wife: technically taking place off screen Hitchcock still permits the viewer to witness the event as the woman’s broken glasses distortedly reflect the entire action. Despite quite a few problems with censors over the years (many of his projects were changed prior to filming to comply with censorship guidelines and feedback) he continuously pushed boundaries when it came to violence, though this obviously comes second place to his sheer technical brilliance as a film-maker. One other commendable feature of Strangers on a Train is its almost unnoticeable use of special effects, composited shots of miniatures with live actors and the like. Special effects work is not something one thinks about while watching a film such as this and that itself is a testament to their brilliant implementation here. Strangers on a Train is a classic thriller and probably one of its director’s best.
Warner give great present presentation to the film with this double disc release, containing both a preview version and the final cut (with commentary), plus a 36 minute documentary featuring biographers and critics offering opinion alongside Patricia Hitchcock, Farley Granger and Walker‘s son (who looks so much like him I thought it was for a second). A great companion piece, though utilising clips from the film to excess I feel. M. Night Shyamalan makes an appearance for a 12 minute personal evaluation: not as bad as expected he offers genuinely insightful reasoning for his appreciation and touches on a very valid point regarding Hitchcock’s incredible talent for long but gripping dialogue scenes (one of which makes up a portion of the opening act when the two leads meet each other on the eponymous vehicle). There’s a couple of other featurette containing old 8 or 16mm footage of Hitchcock and his family along with some of their recollections laying down for us the legacy of an incredibly important figure in cinema history. The film itself for both versions looks superb, with generally consistent contrast levels and a huge amount of detail considering it’s only standard definition. A great package, both the film and DVD.