Download Strangers on a Train

Strangers on a Train (1951)
Directed by
Alfred Hitchcock
Released in US
July 3, 1951
Total US Gross
$7,000,000
$1,200,000
Writing credits Production Budget
Patricia
Prints and Advertising Budget $250,000
Highsmith
(novel)
Whitfield Cook (adaptation)
(more)
Genre: Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Thriller (more)
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (MOVIE)
Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock;
written by Raymond Chandler, Czenzi Ormonde, and Whitfield Cook, based on the novel by Patricia
Highsmith;
cinematographer, Robert Burks;
edited by William Ziegler;
music by Dimitri Tiomkin;
art designer, Ted Haworth;
released by Warner Brothers. Black and white. Running time: 101 minutes.
Complete credited cast:
Farley Granger
.... Guy Haines
Ruth Roman
.... Anne Morton
Robert Walker
.... Bruno Anthony
Leo G. Carroll
.... Sen. Morton
Patricia Hitchcock .... Barbara Morton
Kasey Rogers
.... Miriam Joyce Haines (as Laura Elliott)
Marion Lorne
.... Mrs. Anthony
Jonathan Hale
.... Mr. Anthony
Howard St. John .... Police Capt. Turley
John Brown
.... Prof. Collins
Norma Varden
.... Mrs. Cunningham
Robert Gist
.... Leslie Hennessy
MPAA: Rated PG for some violence and tension.
Strangers on a Train
The plot
Tennis star Guy Haines (Granger) wants to divorce his unfaithful wife in order to marry the woman he loves, Anne Morton
(Roman). Haines meets the unstable and psychotic Bruno Anthony (Walker) on a train and Bruno tells Guy about his idea to
exchange murders: Bruno would kill Guy's wife if Guy kills Bruno's father, and then both of them would be 'free' to do whatever
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they want. Guy doesn't take Bruno seriously, but Bruno kills Guy's wife and then demands that Guy honors his part of the bargain.
Because of the obvious motives he had, Guy is immediately suspected by the police and now he must prove himself innocent.
However, it becomes more and more difficult as Bruno makes more appearances to remind Guy about the murder and slowly more
people get involved.
The motif of the double
Like Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train is one of many Hitchcock films to explore the doppelgänger theme. The film
employs a number of puns and visual metaphors to suggest the motif of double-crossing and crossing one's double.
A few examples:




Bruno orders two double drinks on the train in the beginning of the film.
Guy's lighter, which plays an important role in the film, features two crossed tennis rackets.
A murder committed early in the film is seen doubly reflected in both lenses of the victim's glasses.
Hitchcock's cameo comes early in the film, as he carries a double-bass -- the physical double for the round director.
"Isn't it a fascinating design?" Hitchcock said in an interview with François Truffaut; "One could study it forever."
Farley Granger (left) and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train
Resource: Hitchcock and psychoanalysis website
Displacement & transference
Doppelgangers & exchange of guilt
Sometimes in literature the notion of an alternate self is manifested in a separate character, or
Doppelganger. The Doppelganger is understood as a displaced version of the self, which represents or acts
out the individual's repressed desires. The Doppelganger idea, which is particularly strong in Strangers on
a Train, intersects in Hitchcock with the more theologically-based notion of the exchange of guilt.
Strangers on a Train: Bruno summons Guy into the dark
(a cemetery?)
Guy finds out that Bruno has acted out
his forbidden desire: "I said I could
strangle her!"
http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/pages/psychoanalysis-2.html
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Strangers on a Train
Arguably Alfred Hitchcock's wittiest thriller, the film features Robert Walker as an elegant sociopath who meets tennis celebrity
Farley Granger on a train and proposes "criss-cross murders": Walker will kill Granger's blackmailing estranged wife (and leave
him free to marry a senator's daughter) if Granger will eliminate Walker's tyrannical papa. The movie careens into a delirious triple
climax--a tennis match Granger must win in record time, Walker's efforts to recover a lost cigarette lighter, and a struggle on a
merry-go-round gone out of control.
McGuffin: Secret main character of Strangers on a Train
When Strangers On A Train, Hitchcock’s 37th film, appeared in 1951, it was an instant success. Itself drawing on a
range of stylistic features that were highly popular at the moment, and in the period before it was released, it
continues to be seen as a highly influential film, and as one of Hitchcock’s "masterpieces". It is one of Hitchcock’s
last films shot in black and white, a deliberate choice which had to do with his intentions to create a Film Noir look
and atmosphere. Strangers On A Train is a typical Hitchcock movie in many ways. Even though it was finished well
before some of his more popular films, it fits snugly in his oeuvre. Most of the stylistic techniques he liked to
employ to achieve the effects that his films are famous for are already noticable and of great importance in
Strangers On A Train. Similarly, many of the "Hitchcockian" themes responsible for this director’s reputation as a
renowned auteur are perceivable in this film.
In what follows, I intend to outline, after a brief synopsis of Strangers On A Train, how this film can be used in
analysing Hitchcock’s work from an auteurist perspective. Instead of discussing the film in its entirety, I will confine
my résumé of Strangers On A Train to the sequences that are of principal importance for my treatment of the film.
In my analysis of the film as an auteur’s work, I will focus primarily on one stylistic technique which reoccurs in
many of Hitchcock’s films, and which is interlocked with a series of typical Hitchcock-themes in Strangers On A
Train: The use of a so-called ‘McGuffin’ as a sort of axis around which most of the action revolves.
Hitchcock himself has thus labelled this remarkable technique, in which a essentially unimportant or irrelevant
object is assigned central significance in the development of the story . Here, it is Guy’s cigarette lighter which
Hitchcock uses to develop and move forward the plot. One theme that is closely connected is the theme of the
double (the "criss-cross"-theme). Hitchcock sets up a dual system with the lighter as the centre and Guy and Bruno
as polar opposites, who are nevertheless drawn to each other and whose positions are never clearly defined
throughout the film. This theme of pairs is repeated and referred to in a manifold of instances in Strangers On A
Train, as for example in other groups of characters (e.g. Miriam and Barbara), editing (the cross-cutting sequences
and simultaneous actions of Bruno and Guy), and mis-en-scene (e.g. the cigarette lighter’s engraving, or the
railroad tracks).
The film opens as two pairs of feet approach a train station and board a leaving train. So far, it can only be
assumed that the feet are the main characters’. It is still unclear, however, what roles they will play, and if they are
"good" or "bad" characters . Different perspectives make the two pairs of feet seem to walk towards each other,
foreshadowing their meeting on the train. In an ominous sequence which has a similar function, railroad tracks in
front of a moving train run parallel to each other for a while, but then – reminiscent of the puzzling fact that
theoretically, even parallel lines touch somewhere in the infinite distance and can thus be called tangential and
virtually interchangeable – suddenly intersect and "change sides".
On the now moving train, Guy and Bruno finally meet. We see their feet touch accidentally, as a result of which
Bruno notices the popular tennis player sitting across from him. Our affinity to the characters is still ambivalent.
Even now that we see them and hear them talk, we are undecided as to "who is who": Who should we identify with
(in the way we usually do immediately after a classical Hollywood film opens), and who is the "bad guy" (who – as
we have reason to expect – shall turn up early in the film)? This dilemma resurfaces several times in Strangers On
A Train, as the characters seem to do things we do not expect, and as Hitchcock restricts our knowledge to onscreen action. By not letting us take sides definitively, Hitchcock leaves us stranded in between two protagonists,
each of which has both positive and negative character traits (Bruno is of course the ‘bad’ character, yet Guy is
never identified as essentially ‘good’). Just as the two pairs of feet that we see in the opening sequence, this is part
of the "criss-cross"-theme, for which the McGuffin mentioned above will be of utter importance later on.
Remembering that initial meeting, viewers will later realise that this film and all of its disastrous events are – like so
many of Hitchcock's other movies – based on coincidence and chance : Hitchcock’s famous thematic message (You
can get in deep trouble anywhere; Never feel safe – anything can happen at any moment, and any seemingly
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unimportant incident can turn into a major catastrophe.) is communicated very explicitly in Strangers On A Train.
Here, the touching of a stranger’s foot on a train has the potential to destroy a person’s life.
Right from the beginning, Bruno is taking the initiative. Until late in the film, he is the active part of the duo, he is
the one who does things. Guy, on the other hand is very passive, and lets things happen to him. Bruno expressly
mentions that he "certainly admires people who do things". It seems contradictory that he admires Guy, then, who
is such a passive character and repeatedly (and passively) refuses to act until very late in the film, when the two
characters finally "switch sides" . When Bruno takes out a cigarette, Guy offers him a valuable engraved lighter,
which is engraved with two crossed tennis rackets, as well as the letters "A to G". For the time being, these
engravings seem straightforward and simple to decode, but in the course of the film, they will gain further
meanings.
As the conversation continues, we (along with Guy) get more and more suspicious concerning the trustworthiness
and sanity of Bruno. Further contradictions in what he says establish him as an unstable and strange character.
Guy, who apparently gets more and more uncomfortable in the presence of Bruno, but is fascinated and strangely
drawn to his companion at the same time, reacts with calmness and irony. Already, however, he is stuck with this
strange antagonist, who – by now viewers have surely realised this, after all we are watching "a Hitchcock" – could
very well be his doom. Visually, this is communicated subtly, but powerfully: While Bruno is lounging comfortably
on the soft seats in his compartment, Guy is placed in the frame in a way that suggests entrapment and
helplessness. For most of the sequence, the camera is on eye-level with Bruno, while Guy sits upright on a chair on
the other side of the table. He is positioned low in the frame (only his head and shoulders are visible), as if he was
stuck in the chair and unable to move or resist.
Toying the engraved lighter in his hands, Bruno finally tells Guy about his plan for "swapping murders". He
proposes to murder Guy’s unfaithful wife Miriam, so that he can get re-married to Ann, a Senator’s daughter. In
return, Guy would have to kill Bruno’s tyrannous father. According to Bruno’s logic, they would both get away with
it, since neither of them has a motive for "their murders" . Since nothing works in stopping Bruno’s talk, Guy gives
in: It seems easier to just nod and agree than to argue with this lunatic. Even though he obviously strongly dislikes
the plan, he answers Bruno in an ambiguous way that could be taken as an affirmative, and a final agreement
about their plan. When Guy finally flees the compartment hurriedly, he leaves behind his lighter, which has been
sitting on the table (framed in a central and very prominent position) for most of the sequence. Bruno keeps it, and
mumbles "Criss-cross..", which is a word he used in describing his murderous plan, but might also refer to the
engraving. Although this will become more obvious only later on in the film, the engraved lighter has already
assumed a position of central importance. In a way, it was the lighter which initially provoked the conversation
about the unpleasant situation both characters are in; and in a way, it was the lighter which set Bruno thinking and
helped him come up with his murderous plan. The crossed tennis rackets now symbolise the plan of swapping
murders, and the inscription "A to G" no longer stands for "Ann to Guy", but can be read as "Anthony to Guy"; The
lighter is no longer something that Ann has given to her lover, but something that Bruno Anthony will, or will not,
give back to Guy later on.
When Guy calls his girlfriend Ann on the phone after the confrontation with his wife, the relatedness and
interdependency of Guy and Bruno is further developed. As Guy screams into the phone that he would like to
strangle his wife, the noise of the train which is passing by in the background seems to echo his words – and
Bruno’s proposition of doing it for him. The following dissolve to Bruno’s hands, positioned as if he was strangling
an imaginary throat, is one of many graphic matches that uncannily represent the link between the two
antagonists, their wishes and thoughts, and the way they deal with them.
The next time we see the lighter on-screen is after Bruno murdered Miriam on the Magic Isle. It is now lying in the
grass next to the body of the strangled woman. Already, a terrible possibility begins to take shape: Will Bruno not
"hand over" the lighter, but also the responsibility for Miriam’s death? For now, Bruno takes the lighter with him,
but it has become clear that Guy’s fate is in his hands. Soon after the murder – Guy is still on his way to his
girlfriend Ann’s house – another uncanny simultaneity happens, as both Bruno and Guy are looking at their watches
at the same time (something that happens several times in the film). In this instance, this is a reminder that in a
way, they are both responsible for killing Miriam, and that a bond of guilt unites them from now on.
When Guy arrives at home, the world is unhinged, and his doorway is shot at a kilted angle . Bruno is waiting for
him behind an iron fence to tell him the news. As they are talking, the iron bars separate them. Through the use of
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eye-line matches, Hitchcock creates an interesting visual effect, representative of the "criss-cross"-theme: Guy still
wants to believe that he is not involved in the murder, and that he can get away by simply refusing to interact with
Bruno. Thus, he sees him behind bars. From Bruno’s perspective, however, Guy is already behind bars as well.
These strong symbolic imagery climaxes when the police arrives. Guy instinctively steps over to Bruno’s side of the
fence. Now they are not separated any longer – they are behind bars together. The crossed tennis rackets and the
intersecting railroad tracks come to mind yet again, both symbols of conflict, but also unity (however unwanted it
may be). Bruno tells Guy that he is "a free man now", but we know that he is not. Even now that he has stepped
over to Bruno’s side, he still carries traits of his former self: He is still the passive part of the duo, re-active rather
than active, and incapable of taking initiative to free himself from the threat that Bruno – who now starts to intrude
Guy’s life wherever he can – poses.
It is only later, at the senator’s party, that Guy finally changes. The point-of-view shots upstairs (as he hits Bruno in
the face) mark the turning point. From now on, Guy will actively resist Bruno. Hitchcock, however, chooses to
restrict the viewers’ knowledge drastically, so that we do not really know to which extent Guy has changed. (The
sequence at Bruno’s eerily gothic house is a good example: Here, it is very unclear what will happen.)
Soon after this sequence, the film arrives at its actual climactic point. After Guy realises how fatally dangerous the
lighter can be for him, he infers Bruno’s plan and decides to follow his antagonist back to the scene of the murder.
What follows is a cross-cutting sequence of the first order, in which Hitchcock changed some of the variables of the
conventional formula to attain even more suspense than is usually created by such sequences. At first sight,
nothing about the final cross-cutting sequence seems all too unusual. The participating characters lay out its
structure in advance (goal, obstacles, deadline), which is, naturally, the basis for excitement on the viewers’ part.
But as the sequence unfolds, several variations on standard cross-cutting sequences become discernible. First of all,
not all participating parties actually take part in the race right from the start. Whereas usually, all the parties are
moving towards the goal simultaneously and as fast as possible, here there is a first suspense climax well before
the race actually commences. Part of the suspense of this first climax stems from the relative paralysis of the two
antagonists. More specifically, it is derived from an alternation of very fast and very slow movement. While at first
Guy is kept at the tennis court while Bruno is already racing back to Metcalf, suddenly Guy has to act fast and trick
the police, while Bruno is forced into passive waiting. In addition to that, there are extended little episodes
focussing on one of the characters, respectively, which interrupt the overall cross-cutting pattern. We see the whole
first game of the tennis match, for example, all the while wondering what Bruno might be doing.
Then, as we follow Bruno on his way back to Metcalf, the lighter is of central importance again (in the cab, and
then on the train). Everybody tries to get to the Magic Isle as fast as possible, but the real object of the race is the
lighter, the final constituent of the game of "criss-cross" and double-crossing. Soon after the beginning of the
"race", Bruno arrives in Metcalf, thus seemingly leaving little chance for Guy to ever catch up with him. At this
point, the lighter takes on yet another function. When Bruno drops it into the drain, the "game" is tie again, and
there is another chance for Guy to not only win the tennis match, but also the rest of the game. The commentator’s
remarks at the tennis court intensify this allusion, commenting on Guy’s progress. Meanwhile, the lighter – which
will determine whether the protagonists will spend their lives in jail or in freedom – is symbolically imprisoned in the
drain. Episodic scenes at Guy’s tennis match (in their realisation – elision of small periods of time – reminiscent of
jump cuts) show how fast the time passes. Clocks and watches – which served as links between the two
protagonists throughout the film – usually mark a dissolve from one character to the other. The tension is on its
climax: Both characters are urged to act as fast as they can, yet both are stuck in a temporary stand-still, which
adds to the suspense. At the provisional climax of the sequence, Guy and Bruno almost simultaneously win the
match and regain the lighter, respectively.
After this, Hitchcock focuses on Guy for a while, as he travels to Metcalf. Now it is the sun (another clock) which
marks dissolves between the characters.
Even at the fair in Metcalf, the lighter stays at the locus of attention. The characters never even reach the official
geographical goal of their journey, the Magic Isle. The story is resolved after Bruno dies on the merry-go-round and
finally releases the lighter, which was hidden in his hand. Although not proven innocent, Guy can now live in
freedom and marry Ann, at the cost of both his former wife’s and Bruno’s life.
Strangers On A Train is a typical Hitchcock film. It includes several themes, stylistic patterns and plot elements that
are characteristic of Hitchcock's style. Examples are the "therapeutic theme" which is perceivable in almost all of his
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mature work (somebody is cured of something by indulging in it and living through the consequences; Here it is
Guy’s transformation during the film, from undecided and passive to initiative and active. Accordingly, in the last
scene, when he is approached by yet another stranger on the train, he does not answer politely but gets up and
leaves.), the theme of parent-child relationships , mis-en-scene reflecting central themes of his films, or certain
editing styles that direct viewers’ attention or control range and depth of knowledge. The one stylistic feature that I
chose to focus on in showing that Strangers On A Train can be used in portraying Hitchcock as an auteur is his
repeated use of ‘McGuffins’ (or ‘nothings’). A McGuffin, such as the engraved lighter, to recapitulate, is a device or
plot element that catches the viewers’ attention and helps to develop the plot. It is essentially something that every
main character is concerned with regardless of its seeming irrelevance. The entire story is organised around it, yet
it has no real significance. Although McGuffins are important in advancing the plot, they usually have no major
thematic importance themselves. In Psycho, for example, the money (very important in the first part of the film) is
only needed to move the plot to the Bates Motel. McGuffins are used to draw the viewers’ attention to certain
aspects of the film, and possibly distract them from themes that become important only later in the movie. In
discussing the role of Bruno’s lighter as a McGuffin, I showed how it is linked up with central themes in the film,
and argued its importance in propelling and/or delaying the plot. I showed these themes, in return, to be typical for
Hitchcock’s work as an auteur, by referring to similar uses of them in a number of his other films.
http://angam.ang.univie.ac.at/burger/texts/hitchcock/hitchcock.htm
TRIVIA STUFF ON THE FILM FROM
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/6494/trivia.html#strangers
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
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Hitchcock bought the rights to the original novel anonymously to keep the price down, and got it for just $7,500.
The stunt where the man crawled under the carousel was not done with trick photography. Hithcock claimed that this was
the most dangerous stunt ever performed under his direction, and would never allow it to be done again.
Raymond Chandler is credited as the author of the script, but it was almost completely written by Czenzi Ormonde who
was credited as second author.
As many know, Hitchcock was a master of the smallest details. So much so that for the scene where a lighter was picked
out of a sewer, Hitchcock handpicked an orange peel, a chewing gum wrapper, wet leaves, and a bit of crumpled paper
that was used for sewer debris.
William Holden was Hitchcock's first choice to play Guy Haynes.
Hitch's daughter, Pat, who had a role in Strangers on a Train definitly didn't recieve preferential treatment from her father.
Her agent told her about the part. She then had to come in, as if a stranger, for testing.
Hitchcock's Cameo: Early in the film boarding a train carrying a double bass fiddle as Guy gets off of the train.
Re: Is Bruno Gay?
by - melspurlock (Thu Jul 29 2004 22:40:48 )
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The book that the movie was based on was written by the same woman who wrote the Talented Mr. Ripley which also had a gay
subtext in it. So yes I do believe that the character of Bruno was meant to be gay. On the DVD I rented of this movie it contains a
American version and a British version. Apparently the gay subtext was down played in the American version in order for the film
to make it past censors, but in the British version Bruno is more flamboyantly gay. It is even refered to in the liner notes on back of
the dvd cover. So check it out.
by - osukolbe (Fri Jul 30 2004 20:13:37 )
Thanks for the info. I actually saw a VHS of the British (gay) version.
So what does that do for the movie? Does it increase the creep-out factor by making Guy (the aptly named everyman?) and the
audience uncomfortable with Bruno's "advances"? If so, this does unfortunately indicate homophobia, and it's funny that the simple
existence of a gay character would roil the American censors, even if the movie portrays him negatively. I realize that the book,
which I haven't read, may be more important here than Hitchcock's vision.
I guess I'm asking this: What does hot-for-Guy Bruno do that straight-but-homicidal Bruno couldn't?
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by - u04hmb (Sat Aug 14 2004 15:13:42 )
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The censors would have been up in arms over the gay subtext because the Hay's Code was still in existence when Strangers
on a Train was made. Yes, the fact Bruno is portrayed as being gay makes the film creepier, but only because the idea of
an admirer basically stalking someone is creepy in the first place, no matter whether that admirer is heterosexual or
homosexual.
by - Red7Eric (Mon Jun 13 2005 07:54:08 )
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From Roger Ebert's website:
"Although homosexuality still dared not speak its name very loudly in 1951, Hitchcock was quite aware of Bruno's
orientation, and indeed edited separate American and British version of the film -- cutting down the intensity of the
"seductiveness" in the American print. It's worth noticing that Hitchcock also cast Granger in 'Rope' (1948), based on
the Leopold-Loeb case; it was another story about a murder pact with a homosexual subtext."
So sayeth Roger.
by - The Colourful Jester (Mon Oct 18 2004 21:53:30 )
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I've only just read that both main characters have (or are supposed to - I've not watched the film in 15 years) bat for the other
team.
Someone said there are no other gay characters in Hitchs cannon, (something like that) in an above post in this thread. Rope
has three. :)
by - richard.fuller1 (Sun Oct 31 2004 05:33:40 )
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Colourful Jester says 'Someone said there are no other gay characters in Hitchs cannon, (something like that) in an above
post in this thread. Rope has three.' :)
1930's "Murder!" has the killer with gay overtones that apparently were downplayed.
I fail to see where any of this matters now. If there is any homophobia, what does this reveal about Hitch? Did anyone
think he was closeted? Should his movies be banned now?
The homosexual overtones are very strong in his most popular film, Psycho.
Read here under IMDB that states he liked to play practical jokes in drag. Was he sexually confused then?
And dressing up as Judy Garland or Marlena Dietrich and lip synching to their songs is now considered normal?
I just watched "Young and Innocent" (1937) and was quite surprised to see that the killer was a drummer in a band who
wore blackface. This story is very similar to "39 Steps" but it was rather obvious why you never see "Young and Innocent"
anywhere.
There has been insistences that Dracula the vampire is bisexual and the dress-making killer in "Silence of the Lambs"
certainly wasn't pushing heterosexuality either now was he?
by - janine-32 (Wed Nov 3 2004 15:23:51 )
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yes, bruno is gay. At the time his attire would have been considered very flamboyant, and even though he appears he is flirting
with females, look past that at the hints. heres a double entandra for you, when Barbara comes back into the room after her
father has just "informed" guy of what happened, and he's with Ann, well she says "I still think it's wonderful that to have a man
love you so much he'd kill for you"... It has double meanings... Also the lighter. A to G. Ann to Guy, or... bruno Anthony to
guy... theres hints like this all around.
Martin Landau's character in North By Norhwest is gay
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by - carousel53 (Thu Dec 9 2004 05:41:40 )
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I can't believe you would post that! Bruno isn't gay! I saw the movie hundreds of times and that thought never entered my mind.
This is the 1950's, people had morals back then and the movies were something respectable. Not the trash that's being watched
today. I do, however, understand how Hitchcock can be in his movies. But I don't think he has ever done anything like that
before. I have seen basically every Hitchcock film worth watching, so if I have missed something, please let me know. Hitch's
theme in this movie was the ordinary man in extraordinary situations. Do yourself a favor and watch "Dial H for Hitchcock",
they talk about Strangers on a Train and how it was such a breakthrough for him. Also, keep in mind what Robert Walker is
going through in this time of his life. This film, in my opinion, has immortalized him forever. It was such an accomplishent.
That's all,,,for now.
The Granger/Walker casting was interesting indeed ("switched roles.")
I don't know if anyone can say how much of a "homophobe" Hitchcock was. The term really didn't exist back then; gay love was
"the love that dare not speak it's name."
Certainly, Hitchcock worked in a theatrical industry where gay people were around him all the time; many of his actors were
closeted gays.
I've always felt that Hitchcock put gay characters into his films because Hitchcock always liked to "tease the Hays Code" with
things that were forbidden, and that his audience would thus enjoy seeing.
I think that the real problem, now, is that Hitchcock's gays were invariably the villains in his films. It was suggested, unfortunately,
that their evilness might just be a subset of their repressed gayness, and this is a problem today.
Gay characters in Hitchcock include:
The killer in "Murder"
Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca"
Brandon and Philip in "Rope"
Bruno in "Strangers"
Leonard (Martin Landau) in "North by Northwest"
and possibly
Norman (Anthony Perkins) in "Psycho." Perkins himself was gay, and the role feeds on Norman's sexual repression and sexual
confusion.
Bob Rusk (Barry Foster), the psychotic killer in "Frenzy" who hates women, tries to rape them, strangles them.
P.S. One thing I like about Robert Walker's fantastic performance as Bruno Anthony is that Bruno may be gay, but when he sets
out to seduce and kill Miriam at the fairgrounds, he seems most masculine and sexy to a woman. The "boys" with Miriam seem
like pipsqueaks beside Bruno. His sex appeal stretches in all directions.
by - stargazer31860 (Thu Dec 16 2004 11:07:15 )
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UPDATED Thu Dec 16 2004 14:23:53
I agree that Hitch enjoyed pushing the boundaries of the production codes of the day. It was like a game to him. I always
felt that his putting two men in bed together in The Lady Vanishes was his way of thumbing his nose at the censors at a
time when they couldn't show husband and wife in the same bed. It did get a few laughs as well.
But he sometimes lost. there was a running joke in To Catch a Thief that was excised from the final cut in which the
men surveilling Robie would get bored with their work and pass the time by sharing nudie postcards with each other
(there is a similar joke in Oklahoma! which was released the same year). Hitch did get to keep the fireworks scene
though.
I know I'm straying off the subject a bit...so yes, Bruno is gay, and though the hints are subtle, they are at the same time
quite obvious. And I agree with ecarle's comments about Walker's performance.
by - Red7Eric (Thu Dec 30 2004 09:17:14 )
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Sorry, but this is so silly on so many levels. First of all, to suggest that people were any more "moral" in the 1950's than they
are today is just not true. There was just a lot that didn't get talked about back then. Gay people certainly existed, but were
forced into the closet by a repressive society.
Secondly, gay people have ALWAYS existed, and are no more or less "moral" than straight people.
Thirdly, this is a film about a psychotic murderer. Whether he be gay or straight, to say that this movie epitomized any sort of
higher "moral" code is just too funny.
Finally, Bruno is absolutely gay and if you've never picked up on it after "hundreds" of viewings, then this is not an area in
which you can claim a whole lot of perception or insight.
As to the original post and whether or not Hitchcock was a homophobe, I doubt it. The society in which he worked was
certainly more homophobic than the 21st-century world we live in today ... but if he were a true homophobe, he never would
have cast Farley Granger to be his leading man. As to whether the film itself is homophobic, I choose to see it as a product of
its time. To me, there are two possibilities: Bruno is both gay and psychotic, and one has little to do with the other; or more
likely, Bruno is gay and hates himself because of it. It's likely that his father reacted to his son's sexuality by cutting off all
love and affection to him when he was very young, and being part of such a rich and influential family makes the closet that
much more necessary and that much more restrictive. In this scenario, it would be more accurate to say that external
homophobia caused Bruno's psychosis than it would be to say that Bruno's homosexuality made him nuts.
by - billymac72 (Wed Jan 5 2005 13:52:24 )
Not sure if this has been brought up, but the concept of a homosexual or bi-sexual killer is not necessarily homophobic.
Patricia Highsmith herself was a homosexual and used these subtexts to explore, in part, her own repression & feelings of
societal anger. She revealed in interviews that she experienced homocidal thoughts growing up, specifically towards her
father, and chanelled this emotion into her writing, which served not only as an outlet for her, but tended to be pretty dark
(a la Ripley).
On the commentary track for the new DVD, a snippet of a Peter Bogdanovich interview with Hitchcock is played wherein
he reveals that Bruno is a homosexual.
Another level this character trait operates on is that of contrast. The "meet" between Bruno & Guy on the train is so
flirtatious, that one can't help but believe that Guy could have the same type of tendencies. I'm not pointing this out to
equate homosexuality with killers, mind you. Highsmith used the concept of everyone's capacity to commit murder at great
length in her stories, this being one of them. She liked to tempt us and her otherwise "good" characters with the
possibilities of committing a crime or murder. Indeed, this is why Miriam is so unsympathetic; Guy feels guilty about the
freedom he feels from her murder. So even though he & Bruno are so different, they're also bound to each other in many
ways. In the same respect, Hitchcock uses the story's homosexual element not so much as to suggest it's perverse, but to
show how two men can tempt each other when representing such differnce on the surface. Bruno, like Ripley, wants the
fame & adoration that Guy has.
by - jamesboy5555 (Wed Jan 5 2005 13:59:40 )
In the documentary contained on the "Strangers on a Train" DVD, one of the people interviewed states that the movie has a gay
sub-text and that some of the more "overtly homosexual" scenes had to be trimmed to get it past the censors. Reading the other
comments about whether Hitchcock was a homophobe or not, or if the "gay" characters portrayed in his films are usually
negative representations, miss the vital point. The fact is, most producers and directors in the golden years on Hollywood had no
desire or thought to put gay characters on film in any way. That gay characters are present, in albeit a subtle fashion, in several
Hitchcock films is an achievement in itself.
by - 2Q2BSTR8 (Sun May 1 2005 18:43:44 )
Even if there wasn't a british version of this movie making it MORE obvious than in the American version, it's so obvious the
dude's gay. o_O lol I mean geez his best friend in the movie is his mom. He hates his father. In the first scene he's in with his
mother, he's wearing a rather girlish looking bathrobe! lol And just his manerisms in general...But then again I love reading
WAY too much into gay subtext when i notice it.
by - KingCoody (Sat Jun 18 2005 12:55:41 )
9
Hitchcock had several villains who could be considered "mommas boys". The popular image of a whiny crybaby incapable of
any "manly actions" had been popularized on films ranging from the "Our Gang/Little Rascals"comedies to someother
comedies usually with a Edward Everett Horton or Grady Dutton type. Hitchcocks mommas boys darkened the pool so to
speak. Both in Sabotuer and Notorious both son and mother were Nazi sympathisers,Psycho had Norman Bates whose
repressed rage had first claimed his mother and any other who happened across his path,and Strangers on a Train had Bruno,a
layabout to lazy to even be a dilettante,whose mother,while not an aristocratic lioness as in Sabotuer and Notorious or a
demented harpy as in Psycho, embodied the empty headed useless aged debutante,whose only main asset was her family
name/fortune and the ability to stand up straight in society page pictures. Bruno like Claude raines character is an iron spined
cultured killer. Raines loved Ingrid Bergman but was perfectly willing to kill her to save he and his mother's neck. Bruno
though in love with Guy,could be as charming to the middle class hussy Miriam as it required to kill her and entrap Guy in his
plot. From comic relief to forces of sinister intent the mommas boy image owes its depth to Alfred Hitchcock.
Isn't it funny how in the movie, the characterization of Bruno is mired in controversy as to his sexual orientation, when in real
life it is actually Farley Granger (the guy who played Guy Haines) who actually is gay. Just a quirky observation..
by - krazyforkitties (Fri Oct 28 2005 20:41:35 )
Well, the gay aspect of Bruno is something I never thought of either. I just thought he was a immature momma's boy weirdo
that needed a psychiatrist.
I also thought he had a hero worship for Guy...you know, kind of like a lot of straight men worship football players.
I worked in a law office and a salesman with a super bowl ring on came in for an appointment. Well, the two attorneys and a
male client in the reception area got all teenage girl excited. The attorneys took superbowl salesman to lunch (it's usually the
other way around) and for all I know kissed his ring.
by - mcornett (Mon Nov 7 2005 08:38:52 )
I recently watched STRANGERS with a group of my gay friends and we had a laugh over Walker's mincing walk in the
opening scenes. One even speculated that it was a woman in male dress.
We definitely felt that Bruno was attracted to Guy, and that Guy felt a reciprocating attraction that he was fighting. I
thought it was telling at the party scene when Guy slugs Bruno, but then straightens his tie for him and walks him out.
Still, any way you look at it, a damned fine film.
by - brmanla (Fri Dec 16 2005 21:15:05 )
Unfortunately I also believe that Bruno was directed to appear gay and less than masculine. This makes me very unhappy and
truly sick of villains and murderers so often being gay in so very many major motion pictures.
Where are the uplifting or normal gay role models in cinema history past or present? Gays are always mixed up, AIDS
ridden, silly, sex starved, one dimensional, nelly queens etc. They are always creepy outcasts. I call on educated people,
filmmakers, producers, writers and gay men and women everywhere to make a positive change truly happen.
Help stop the negative stereo types of gay men and women in films and TV. Even films in the last 10 - 15 years have been
unkind to gays. When will this change? Wake Up Hollywood. Since many in Hollywood are gay you think that the images on
the screen would be more positive role models but just the opposite has happened. We are in the dark ages here in 2005. Very
Sad.
I have not seen Brokeback Mountain.... I hope this will be a new beginning.
I am not sure about this though I can see why some people would interpret the character as gay.What is certain is that Hitchcock
was fascinated by Freudian concepts and other psychological theories of behaviour and explored the repression of feelings
(including sexual desire) in many of his films. In this one Bruno is clearly acting out the oedipus complex of wanting to kill the
father and sleep with the mother.I'm not sure this fits well with the idea that Bruno is gay.
Bruno's revealing line was: "I'm afraid I don't know what a smoocher is..."
followed by the quick reply (by the fair worker,to hide the true meaning): "alright...so I ain't educated...!"
This is one film that works best the very first time you see it. It wears a little thin after repeating viewings, but the first time:
it's dynamite...!! Regards, Steve
10
Strangers on a Train
This Hitchcock movie was actually one of only three that I have seen in my lifetime, but the more I see of his films, the
more I want to see. His attention to specific details and background information that help to explain hidden details and
the many symbolistic meanings of the movie is incredible and is un-matched by anyone else. I really enjoyed watching
this 1948 classic about two strangers “chance” meeting on a train.
Hitchcock was a master, and his films and scripts show that. This is simply one of several scenes that make this film, uch like all of
Hitchcock’s films great due to great editing. itics and has been dating a senator's daughter is awaiting a divorce from his wife.
Specifically the shots of the glasses used to show the killers point of view and what is going on inside his head.
What I find so intriguing about Hitchcock’s film was his editing style.
I also thought that Hitchcock’s use of similar shots was a true sign of what was going on deeper in the film. The scene plays for
about a minute but the tension built by the cutting makes us feel like cheering and crying, hoping and giving up. Meanwhile Bruno
wants to kill his father, but knows he will be caught because he has a motive. It seems that this film is a perfect example of how a
film is supposed to be cut. Guy takes this as a joke, but Bruno is serious and takes things into his own hands. The scene that shows
great cutting and great pacing is the scen in which the lighter is dropped in a storm drain by Bruno and he is trying to reach it while
at the same time it is inter-cut with Guy playing tennis.
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/77689.html
Strangers on a Train Motifs
Alfred Hitchcock’s, Strangers on a Train reinforces the duality of human nature and effectively transforms a highly improbable
situation into a series of logical events, which lead to murder. Hitchcock has constructed most of the events in this particular movie
around the idea of twos in regard to his film technique (crosscutting/match cuts) as well as a number of references to doubles
(shoes in the opening scene) throughout Strangers on a Train. A great deal occurs in pairs in this film. These twos act as an integral
part of the films plot. Furthermore, there are a number of reoccurring symbols or motifs in the film that go hand in hand with the
idea of duality. In my section of this web project I am going to elaborate on a number of scenes from the film and provide evidence
to support my various arguments regarding the idea of pairs. “You’d like your wife killed, wouldn’t you? Ill do it for you if you’ll
kill someone for me, and since we’re strangers we’ll be free of suspicion.”
The film, Strangers on a Train is an extremely slick, psychological thriller that succeeds in tackling blackmail, murder and issues of
taboo sexuality.
Guy’s lighter has symbolic undertones as well. When Guy and Bruno are discussing the idea of swapping murders Guy acts like he
isn’t interested in the proposal, yet he listens intently and at no point does he seriously sound as if he is truly appalled by the idea.
These two women lead very different lives to say the least. The scene at the party in which Guy is strangling a dim-witted older
woman is set up to contrasts the lives of Barbara and Miriam while at the same time drawing a connection between them through a
common object such as glasses. Guy desperately wants to marry the Senator’s daughter but his old flame is all that stands in his
way. Although she talks ignorantly at times, she really means well. There is definitely a contrast between the two men in that Guy
is a very successful tennis player and Bruno could be described as a loser. Guy and Bruno would be on even ground in that they
would each be living for that moment alone.
Furthermore, when Bruno orders a pair of drinks on the train he orders one for Guy. After all, it would indeed solve his problem.
http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/81630.html
'What's a MacGuffin?'
Here's how I answered that question in 'The Alfred Hitchcock Story' (UK edition, 1999, p. 101):
The term ‘MacGuffin’ was coined by Hitchcock’s Scottish friend, screenwriter Angus MacPhail, for
something that sets the film’s plot revolving around it. It’s really just an excuse and a diversion. In a
whimsical anecdote told by Hitchcock, he compared the MacGuffin to a mythical ‘apparatus for trapping
lions in the Scottish Highlands’. In other words, it could be anything - or nothing - at all. In Notorious, it’s
just a lot of fizz: uranium-ore hidden in [red wine] bottles. In North by Northwest, it’s ‘government
secrets’, whatever they may be. (Hitchcock considered that this was his ‘best’ MacGuffin, because virtually
non-existent.) Actually North by Northwest turns out to be one vast MacGuffin, being full of ‘nothings’ like
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the ‘O’ in Roger O. Thornhill’s name, or the empty prairie, or the non-existent agent named Kaplan. In
effect, the function of a MacGuffin is like the ‘meaning’ of a poem - which T.S. Eliot compared to the bone
thrown by a burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind while the poem goes about its own, deeper
business. Hitchcock’s most prescient MacGuffin is in Torn Curtain, whose ‘Gamma Five’ project,
concerning an anti-missile missile, anticipated by more than a decade President Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’
project.
Prof. Peter Conrad (who has read my book) appreciated the reference to T.S. Eliot enough to use it himself in his book 'The
Hitchcock Murders' (2000, p. 10). There he asks:
How much opposition does the rational guard dog, bribed with food by Eliot's thief, actually offer? In Strangers on a Train,
Farley Granger steals into Robert Walker's house after dark. A mastiff sprawls on the stairs, barring his way. Granger freezes; the
dog growls, lunges towards him - and then licks his hand in welcome, letting him pass. Films for Hitchcock were assaults that we,
the victims, only pretend to resist.
In other words, there's a 'willing suspension of disbelief' by the audience once they begin to feel comfortable with the film - and
with each other. (For more about that, read comments by John Michael Hayes, the screenwriter of Rear Window, in 'The AH
Story', p. 129.) Accordingly, a function of the MacGuffin is to give audiences something they can readily understand, something
to feel comfortable with - a bit like a child's teddy-bear! (And for more on 'object-relations' psychology, and its roots in infancy,
see below.) The author of 'Strangers on a Train', Patricia Highsmith, says in her 'Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction' (c. 1960)
that an audience's credulousness, and goodwill, can be stretched quite a bit - like elastic - though not indefinitely. So remember, if
you're an author or a filmmaker, that after you have won an audience's trust, you should be careful not to forfeit it!
As we'll see, there's much more to the MacGuffin and what I call 'the MacGuffin principle'. First, though, a point of scholarship. I
claimed above, following Donald Spoto's 'The Life of Alfred Hitchcock' (UK edition, 1983, p. 145), that the term 'the MacGuffin'
was coined by Angus MacPhail. Spoto seems to have got his information from Ivor Montagu's article, "Working With
Hitchcock", in 'Sight and Sound', Summer 1980, p. 192. (Cf. also Leonard Leff, 'Hitchcock and Selznick', UK edition, 1988, p.
192.) But, on examination, none of these references is really conclusive. What we can assuredly say is that the first tangible
appearance of the MacGuffin occurs in Hitchcock's 'chase' films of the 1930s, beginning with Number Seventeen (cf. Charles
Barr, 'English Hitchcock', 1999, p. 125), The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The 39 Steps. There, the MacGuffin is a
necklace, a kidnapped child (and her parents' knowledge of a planned assassination), and the top-secret plans of a new aircraft
engine, respectively.
There were precedents, of course. Hitchcock himself cites the 'plans of the fort' in some of Rudyard Kipling's espionage tales set
on the Northwest Frontier in India. And in James L. Smith's excellent monograph 'Melodrama' (1973, p. 36), occurs this
suggestive passage:
Awful Secrets are always [finally] revealed and The Missing Papers found. These necessary documents provide endless
excitement. Heroes are always searching for secret despatches, scientific formulae, forgotten marriage-lines, mortgage deeds,
holograph confessions or forged receipts, and every villain hides a will of his own.
Next, a brief note on the 'etymology' of the word 'MacGuffin'. 'Mac' may come from 'Angus MacPhail' (see above). And of course
Hitchcock told a story about the Scottish Highlands to illustrate his concept, so that also fits. As for 'Guff', Chambers Dictionary
defines such a word as slang for 'nonsense, humbug'. And wasn't a 'griffin' (or 'gryphon') a mythological beast with the body of a
lion (again recalling Hitchcock's story about the Scottish Highlands)? [Hearty thanks to reader Henry Olszewski for suggesting
several of these associations.]
The MacGuffin became a key device in Hitchcock's films. So perhaps we may seek a 'psychoanalytic' explanation. In an article
that appeared on this website, "The Universal Hitchcock: The Trouble With Harry", I wrote about how Harry's body is that film's
MacGuffin, and (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) I analysed the film in terms of object-relations theory. The much-buried, muchexhumed Harry effectively represents the 'hole' an infant experiences when the mother withdraws her breast. Thereafter, each
infant/child creates what early-childhood researcher D.W. Winnicott calls a 'transitional object', its first cultural artifact, to help it
through its period of 'disillusionment'. For that purpose, practically anything will serve: a piece of cloth, a teddy bear, a ritual.
That's to say, the object has no intrinsic value, it merely provides the occasion for a growing-up experience - which may continue
all through life. (So many of Hitchcock's movies are about 'growing up'.) Harry is the transitional object re-visited, and mocked.
Robert Samuels, in 'Hitchcock's Bi-Textuality' (1998) makes a related claim. For him, the MacGuffin 'is not just an empty hole in
the middle of Hitchcock's discourse; rather, this missing object ("the maternal phallus") takes on a great significance as the sign of
the missing "primal scene"'. (p. 63) No doubt a good example of this mechanism at work may be found in Rear Window, where
12
the primal scene (the parents' lovemaking) is symbolically played out for Jeff's benefit in the apartments around the empty
courtyard.
To me, the very ambiguity of a Hitchcock film, whose ending typically reflects what Father Neil Hurley ('Soul in Suspense', 1993,
p. xiii) calls 'Hitchcock's "open-ended pessimism"', is bound up with the MacGuffin principle. There is no clear-cut 'meaning' to a
Hitchcock film such as The Birds. Rather, each viewer is free to interpret the film as s/he likes. Other artists come to mind at this
point, ranging from Lewis Carroll (1832-98) - of 'Jabberwocky' fame - to Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), who, roughly
contemporaneously with the German Expressionist movement, was creating his own 'insubstantial' drama with plays intriguingly
called, for example, 'Right You Are (If You Think You Are)' and 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' - some of which
Hitchcock would certainly have seen on the London stage.
In sum, Hitchcock was nothing if not an eclectic filmmaker (whatever his claims not to be influenced by other directors' work!),
and the MacGuffin was a device which he knew from both intuition and observation to be extremely effective, rhetorically and
psychologically. It was typical of him to reduce the notion of the MacGuffin to a nonsense-story about trapping lions in Scotland
(itself based, apparently, on an old joke about a non-existent mongoose and a man who sees snakes), but nonsense in Hitchcock
nearly always conceals profundity and/or potency ... Further reading: François Truffaut, 'Hitchcock' (any edition)
http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/faqs_c.html
THE ORIGINAL REVIEW BELOW FROM 1951
July 4, 1951
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
By BOSLEY CROWTHER It appears that Alfred Hitchcock is fascinated with the Svengali theme, as well as with his own
dexterity in performing macabre tricks. His last picture, Rope, will be remembered as a stunt (which didn't succeed) involving a
psychopathic murderer who induced another young man to kill for thrills. Now, in his latest effort, called Strangers on a Train,
which served to reopen the Strand Theatre last night under its new name, the Warner, Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy
murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it will stand up without support.
And again his instigator of evil is a weirdly unbalanced young man who almost succeeds in enmeshing a young tennis star in a
murder plot. This time the two individuals meet by seeming chance on a train, making what appears a devious journey from
Washington to New York. And before the trip is over, the Svengali has hatched a scheme whereby he will do a murder for the
athlete if the athlete will do one for him.
As a matter of fact, he doesn't even wait for the tennis star to agree to the scheme—or even to show an interest in it. He just goes
out and murders the athlete's wife. And then he fast-talks the poor, scared fellow into thinking that he is somehow involved and
keeping him in a state of terror and grave anxiety until the end of the film.
Perhaps there will be those in the audience who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by Mr.
Hitchcock's sleekly melodramatic tricks. Certainly, Mr. Hitchcock is the fellow who can pour on the pictorial stuff and toss what
are known as "touches" until they're flying all over the screen. From the slow, stalking murder of a loose girl in a tawdry
amusement park to a "chase" and eventual calamity aboard a runaway merry-go-round, the nimble director keeps piling "touch"
and stunt upon "touch." Indeed, his desire to produce them appears his main impulse in this film.But, for all that, his basic premise
of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand. And the actors, as much as they
labor, do not convey any belief—at least, not to this observer, who will give a Hitchcock character plenty of rope. Robert Walker
as the diabolic villain is a caricature of silken suavity and Farley Granger plays the terrified catspaw (as he did in Rope) as though
he were constantly swallowing his tongue. Ruth Roman holds herself in solemn tension as the latter's hopeful fiancée and Patricia
Hitchcock, the daughter of the director, bounces about like a bespectacled tennis ball as the sister of Miss Roman and a
convenience to the paternal "touch." Leo G. Carroll and Laura Elliott are others who jump and jig according to how Mr. Hitchcock
arbitrarily yanks on the strings.Also, it might be mentioned that there are a few inaccuracies in this film that may cause some
knowing observers considerable skeptical pause—such as the evidence that you get to the Washington Union Station by going into
Virginia over the Memorial Bridge. Also a purist might question how a tennis star could race around Washington half the night and
then win three grueling sets of tennis in a Forest Hills tourney the next day.
Frankly, we feel that Mr. Hitchcock is "touching" us just a bit too much and without returning sufficient recompense in the
sensation line.
13
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS DIFFICULT BUT HAS SOME INTERESTING POINTS: bb
Expressionist Themes in Strangers on a Train
Literature Film Quarterly, 2003 by Dellolio, Peter J
Strangers on a Train is a parable about a wish fulfillment fantasy overtaking reality by means of
metaphysical freedom, opposing energies, and deadly consequences. The film suggests that dangerous
moral, ethical, and material forces are unleashed when conscious behavior and subconscious wishes are
in conflict. The narrative and stylistic organization of the film (based on the notion of inner-directed
elements controlling the objective world) is deeply influenced by some of the precepts of Expressionism.
Hitchcock's style harnesses many of the rules of visual communication derived from expressionist
concepts. His films are not traditional or textbook examples of expressionist cinema, yet they
systematically utilize much of the aesthetic phrasing of expressionist thinking. As Robin Wood suggests:
Expressionism evades simple definition, but a central impulse was clearly the attempt to "express"
emotional states through a distortion or deformation of objective reality, "expression" taking
precedence over representation. The continuing dominance of such an aesthetic aim in Hitchcock could
be suggested by innumerable examples, of varying degrees of subtlety, from any of the films. (27)
Hitchcock is consistently preoccupied with finding formal figures that telescope or mirror his
protagonist's psychic content. He is without peer in his depiction of the critical elements of his
protagonists' thoughts, feelings, and perceptions through a variety of spatial and formal equivalences.
These are useful, often overlooked analytic tools for examining Hitchcock's work in general and
Strangers on a Train in particular.
Beginning with his silent films and early exposure to the influence of German filmmaking during the
1920s, Hitchcock's cinema can be regarded as a highly selective distillation of key psychological, visual,
and narrative elements found in Expressionism.1 A principal characteristic of this manner of artistic
thinking is that the subjective or the emotional can reshape materiality, that the world as we know it
and perceive it can be distorted by the idiosyncrasies of point of view and psychology, resulting in what
Mike Budd calls "the expressionist externalization of passionate, individual emotion" (46). The essential
expressionist credo is that stylistic exaggerations and manipulations are commensurate with a
protagonist's extraordinary anxiety and inner conflicts. For example, shortly after Miriam's (Laura Elliot)
murder, there is a medium long shot of Guy's (Farley Granger) cab pulling up to his apartment building
with the bright Capitol building in the far-ground (a dissolve from Guy on the train returning to
Washington precedes this long shot). After Guy exits the cab and approaches the building, there is a
14
medium shot as he goes up the steps followed by a closer medium shot of him opening the front door.
This second shot becomes a medium close-up as Guy (hearing Bruno call his name from offscreen)
turns around and moves closer to the camera, looking across the street, to the right of frame. Much
later, a second pair of shots (analogous in form and function to this first pair) is used when Guy goes to
the Anthony house on the pretext of agreeing to murder Bruno's (Robert Walker) father.2 In both sets
of shots, the obliquity of the frame makes the images appear askew.
In the first example, Guy is called by Bruno and discovers Miriam is dead, a turn of events that brings
its own pair of conflicting elements (relief that he is free and terror that he will be blamed). Later, the
slanted framing is used to show Guy's approach to Bruno's house: first in a medium long shot as Guy
walks along the canopies, followed by a medium shot at the doorway. Here again, the tilted framing
makes the images unbalanced and tense. In both examples, Guy enters a building (his apartment, the
Anthony residence). The psychological context in the first pair of shots is anticipatory anxiety: Guy is
about to learn something devastating (Miriam's death) and that information controls the space. The
psychological context in the second pair of shots is cumulative anxiety: Guy has reached the end of his
rope in the twisted relationship with Bruno and this attempt to reason with Bruno's father is an act of
desperation that controls the space. The asymmetry of the compositions is a corollary for Guy's state of
mind. Interestingly, the disorientation in the first pair of shots illustrates something awry in the viewer's
perception of Guy: when he goes up those steps and is called by Bruno, it is the viewer who already
knows that a shocking event has occurred. It is as if the framing gesture was an expression of the
viewer's anticipation of what will become an emotionally vertiginous experience for Guy.
Hitchcock never placed the camera in a conspicuous position unless it served very specific psychological
or narrative purposes. Consider, for example, the extreme long shot of Roger Thornhill fleeing the
United Nations building after he is blamed for Mr. Townsend's murder, taken from an aerial perspective
with the camera near the roof of the building. While the canted shot may seem to be more casually
woven into the stylistic fabric of Hitchcock's silent films because the influence of German cinematic
vocabulary was obviously a more contemporaneous factor, it does not disappear after Hitchcock's
arrival in Hollywood. Oblique framing does occur throughout Hitchcock's 1940's films in carefully chosen
ways: Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946) contain some of the more
notable examples. One must also bear in mind that the Hitchcockian style is simultaneously eclectic and
unique, leading several critics to suggest that at least two films in the final period (The Birds, 1963 and
Mamie, 1964) bear some similarity to the European "art" cinema of the '60s.3 Considering this, and
understanding that Hitchcock was a keenly peer-conscious director, one could find some influence on
15
these canted shots from Strangers on a Train coming from The Third Man, released two years earlier in
1949. However, Hitchcock's contorted framing, the logical response to these psychological components
in Strangers on a Train, is a reformulated example of expressionist form. The oblique effect abounds in
German expressionist cinema and usually signifies some kind of internal affliction for a protagonist.
Another important ingredient of Expressionism is its attack upon the primordial issue of identity, often
resulting in the alienation of the individual from what was formerly incontrovertible and familiar. One of
the reasons that Hitchcock's work is frequently subjected to (often superfluous)4 Freudian analysis
stems from the process of dissociation, the psychological end result of extreme anxiety or distress, of
which Expressionism is a major manifestation. Using the suspense-thriller as a basis of source material,
Hitchcock brings his protagonists into play with these ingredients by creating situations that go infinitely
beyond the mainstream vagaries of plot surprises: his heroes must fight not only for their lives but for
their self-identity, their being, their souls.
From its infancy in the silent period to early developments in the British period to greater refinements
and subtleties throughout the different American studios and periods, we see again and again the
archetypical Hitchcockian conflict: the normalcy and predictability of his protagonists' world is suddenly
and inextricably changed into a nightmarish vision of chaos and disorder. As David Sterritt suggests in
his excellent study of Hitchcock, "The broadly based interest in Hitchcock's work stems from a number
of factors, including his lifelong fascination with one of the fundamental concerns of modern art: the
tension between order and chaos" (1). The basis for some kind of ideational kinship with Expressionism
and possibly Franz Kafka begins here (as Francois Truffaut suggests in the introduction to his interview
dialogues with the director, Hitchcock belongs in a group of "artists of anxiety" [20]).5 The Hitchcockian
hero is often a displaced "antihero" as well. There is always some kind of moral or ethical cleansing that
occurs after struggling with challenges to individuality, freedom, and conscience, what Wood calls the
"therapeutic" theme in Hitchcock's work (19). Think of L. B. Jeffries's voyeurism (Rear Window, 1954);
Roger Thornhill's superficiality (North By Northwest, 1959); Devlin's insecurity (Notorious)', Richard
Blaney's rage (Frenzy, 1972); young Charlie Newton's naivete (Shadow of a Doubt)', Scottie Ferguson's
obsessiveness (Vertigo, 1958); and Dr. Ben McKenna's callousness (The Man Who Knew Too Much,
1956). Hitchcock often places his characters in disorienting situations that raise existential and
epistemological questions of self-awareness; they must undergo some kind of difficult awakening to
recover and renew the substance of their lives.
16
In examining the character of Bruno Anthony, there is a temptation to view the negative/ positive
transformations he injects into the world of Guy Haines as thematically reminiscent of those changes
inflicted upon Gregor Samsa's family in Kafka's The Metamorphosis. At the conclusion of The
Metamorphosis, one may look upon Gregor's transformation into an insect-parasite as a fundamental
reflection of his subconscious or submerged wish to be free of the burden of providing for his family. If
the internal premise of Guy's entire being is his wish to kill his unfaithful wife so he will be free to marry
Ann Morton (Ruth Roman) and reap the rewards of a successful tennis career (not to mention the
niceties of inner circle Washington politics), Bruno's obsessive dedication to the removal of Miriam
Haines becomes the externalization of that premise. The systems of spatial parallelism that unite Guy
and Bruno evolve from the expressionist notion that Bruno is another version of Guy: his alter ego; a
doppelganger; his subconscious come to life; his suppressed will, etc.
Guy's latent motivation to kill Miriam objectified by Bruno's real-life incarnation of Guy's wish fulfillment
fantasy share one common condition: in both examples, the fictive dream depends upon a sustained
shock of belief in what is unnatural, impossible, and bizarre. It is in this arena of the fantastic depicted
as natural and the ordinary depicted as bizarre that Kafka's and Hitchcock's thinking about the plight of
modern man begin to converge. Hitchcock has a predilection for injecting the incredible, the impossible,
and the fantastic into his protagonists' world while maintaining the utmost level of reality and
believability within the characteristics of that depiction.
A strong case can be made for the transformation of the subjective impulse in German Romantic
literature into the cinema's first expression of distortion. Without engaging in the excesses of the
semiotic approach to defining cinematic "language," it is not a great leap of thought to regard filmic
expressionist tropes such as radical camera angles, chiaroscuro lighting, and distorted architectural
perspectives as the "adjectives" that facilitate an afflicted perception of objective reality, such as the
"cruel leaves," "shivering walls," and "implacable doors" from Friedrich Vischer's 1884 novel Auch Einer
(Eisner 23). In this sense, which provides much fertile ground for further study, Expressionism as a
visual art form, particularly in cinema, becomes a magnified version of the essence of figuration,
naturally and historically a linguistic phenomenon: literal signification and figurative suggestion. Herein
lies much of the Hitchcockian methodology, for throughout his career and especially in films like
Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock pursues this treatment of reality. More than any other post-silent era
director, his is the style that continues to manufacture this pictorial equation between a protagonist's
psychic content and the spatial environment that contains it.
17
During the luncheon in Bruno's compartment, he explains his philosophy of human nature: "My theory
is that everyone is a potential murderer." Complaining about his father's attempts to curtail his
behavior and force him to earn a living, Bruno admits to Guy: "I get so sore at him sometimes, I want
to kill him!" (foreshadowing Guy's words when his rage over Miriam's refusal to grant the divorce
makes him declare to Ann: "I could strangle her!"). The dissolve from this medium close-up of Guy in
the grip of murderous anger to the close-up of Bruno's outstretched fingers after the manicure with his
mother is the first connection between Guy's desires and Bruno's capacity to fulfill those desires.
In the long shot of Bruno's brief conversation with Guy when he asks if Miriam has consented to the
divorce, we see Bruno's mother and father in the far-ground, arguing about his behavior. The emphatic
counterpoint within this shot, reminiscent of the deep focus photography of Citizen Kane, splits both
visual and auditory concentration, as the medium close-up of Bruno in the foreground of the shot and
his mostly one-sided conversation with Guy occupies our attention. At the same time we see Bruno's
parents in the far-ground and hear enough of their conversation to gain further insight into Bruno's
questionable behavior: we hear Mr. Anthony speak of "hit and run driving"; of his wife having kept it
from him; he speaks of sending Bruno for treatment "before it's too late," that he will have him "put
under restraint" if necessary. We hear Mrs. Anthony (Marion Lorne) being protective and defensive of
her son, dismissing the "unpleasantness" always introduced by her husband. She regards and judges
Bruno as though he were still a little boy. Earlier in the scene after Bruno's manicure, we see how his
mother dotes on him, that she views him only as a mischievous child.
At this point in the film, it appears as though there is an uncontestable, decidedly one-dimensional
aspect to both Mr. Anthony and Miriam. He is bullying, mean, intolerant, unreasonable, overbearing,
etc. She is insincere, manipulative, conniving, shallow, repugnant, etc. It would seem that Guy simply
wants a better life in a new marriage and that Bruno is merely the harmlessly wild son of an extremely
difficult rich man. It is not until after Bruno carries out his plan to "swap" murders with Guy and
strangles Miriam that Mr. Anthony's excellent reasons for wanting to commit Bruno for his own good
become clear and that Mrs. Anthony's inability to see her son's sickness stems from the disturbing,
regressive relationship between mother and son, a psychosexual aberration that Hitchcock revisits in
many of his films. Miriam becomes more of a fleshed-out character as the viewer realizes that part of
what makes her pathetic is her child-like nature, expressed so maliciously with Guy during their heated
argument in the music store. On the merry-go-round Miriam jauntily sings "Strawberry Blonde," the
theme that will later mesmerize Bruno when he associates the killing with Barbara Morton (Patricia
Hitchcock). Miriam is vulnerable, desperately in need of attention and affection, and yet is completely
18
incapable of assessing genuine feeling because of her arrested emotional state. Like Bruno, she is an
adult-child whose pleasures must be instantaneously gratified without concern for consequences or
principles.
When Guy joins Bruno behind the gate across the street from Guy's apartment, after the murder, Bruno
answers Guy's incredulity and recriminations with: "But, Guy, you wanted it!" The certainty with which
Bruno identifies Guy's true feelings about wanting Miriam out of the way amplifies the concept that
Bruno's act is an extension of Guy's will. just before, when Bruno gives Miriam's glasses to Guy,
announcing: "I brought you a little present," there is an effect that produces ironic correlations and
inferences. When Bruno hands the glasses to Guy, he is on the left of the screen, his body framed so
that the bars of the courtyard gate where he has been waiting enclose him in a cell-like pattern, while
Guy standing opposite remains in "free" space without the gate bars. This simply framed shot suggests
several levels of meaning: Bruno has made Guy literally free of Miriam while Bruno remains free of
suspicion because the motive for killing Miriam belongs to Guy, yet Bruno is artificially confined by the
prison-like appearance of the gate bars. Guy's murderous wish has been realized. He is horrified not so
much by the insanity of the act but by the possibility that he may be blamed, yet he enjoys the artificial
freedom of his unfettered space. As William Rothman often points out,6 Hitchcock makes frequent use
of the "bar" motif throughout his work. The emergence of this gesture, however, is not triggered in the
easy, anecdotal way that Rothman suggests. Unique psychological circumstances within different
narrative material, such as in the examples from Strangers on a Train discussed above, give this
gesture a great deal of variety and subtlety. The device does not always convey that a character is
simply and merely "imprisoned."
Clearly, Bruno's character and observations serve as a commentary on the primitive and subconscious
impulse potential in human nature. Certainly between Bruno and Guy there is little doubt of a dark
symbiosis, but one with many paradoxical aspects. It is significant that in many ways Bruno acts with a
kind of simplicity and guilelessness totally lacking in Guy, whose motives are more self-serving and
self-absorbed than one might first assume. A pair of examples that evokes this seemingly contradictory
view of their characters is the conversation between Guy and Detective Hennessey before they enter
the cab and Bruno's conversation with a fairground worker while he is waiting for dusk to fall so that he
can place the lighter on Magic Isle.
In the first example, after revealing a genuine enthusiasm for tennis, Detective Hennessey asks Guy:
"Ever think of turning pro?" Guy replies, a little indignantly, "I don't have to do that. When I'm through
19
with tennis I'm going into politics." When he says "I don't have to do that" he manages to convey the
emotional duplicity that Hitchcock must have wanted to infuse into the Guy Haines persona: it sounds
as if Guy considers turning pro to be beneath him, something not dignified or equal to his self-image,
as though tennis were not a true passion for him and functioned merely as a means to a higher end
(contradicting his assertion to Bruno during the luncheon scene). Just as Guy confirms to Hennessey
that his future does not depend on tennis, there is a long shot of Bruno, staring at Guy, standing on the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The camera pans slightly to the right and the cut back to Guy as he
continues walking and looking at Bruno indicates that this is a brief traveling shot signifying his
viewpoint (Hennessey does not see Bruno). Guy immediately becomes uneasy, quickly ushering
Hennessey into the cab and peering self-consciously at the stationary figure of Bruno. Again the longshot of Bruno is presented from Guy's viewpoint as the camera pans to the left from inside the moving
cab. Miriam's murder is, after all, the means by which Guy's self-serving agenda can be realized. Guy's
aspiration to a privileged life in politics, suggested by the Capitol building in the far-ground of the shot
discussed above, is judged by Bruno's unexpected appearance that challenges Guy's sincerity.
Similarly, when Bruno telephones Guy for the second time at the Morion's shortly after their meeting
when he tells Guy about Miriam, the luminous Capitol appears behind him, another indication that this
inner sanctum of high society and politics is a prize made more accessible for Guy by Bruno.
In the second example, Bruno is sitting by a tree reading a newspaper as he waits for dusk so he can
plant the lighter. He sits on one of many cases of soda pop stacked in front of the camera. The spindly
branches reaching in all directions create the impression of a gigantic spider web. One of the fairground
workers stops by and comments that all the "smoochers," romantic visitors to the lover's lane on Magic
Isle, are now coming back in droves to satisfy their morbid curiosity to see the murder spot. He says,
"Nice business he's doin' over there since the murder." Bruno quips back, saying without irony: "I don't
think that's a very nice way to make money." For Bruno, the act of killing Miriam was as ethically and
mechanically pure as one of the death sentences handed down by the judge he harangues at Senator
Morion's party. His compassion in helping the blind man across the street after the murder is a further
testament to Bruno's belief that the killing did not have an ethical dimension. That Bruno is portrayed
as a spider waiting in his web while rebuking the morally distasteful practice of making a profit from
tragedy is an ironic and ambiguous addition to the whole Guy/Bruno aggregation. This pictorialization of
Bruno as a cunning spider suggests that his prey may very well be the comfortably concealed hypocrisy
of human nature.
20
The first shots of Bruno staring at Guy from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial initiate an important
pattern. Beginning with these unsettling images of Bruno on the steps, there will be a gradual emphasis
on Bruno as he pursues and observes Guy. The next example occurs when he comes upon Guy with
Ann inside the National Gallery ("A slight improvement over Miriam, huh Guy?"), another symbol of the
world to which Guy aspires. Speaking to Bruno as if he were a coconspirator, Guy tells him: "There's a
detective outside. He will see us together." Another impression of creepy stillness is conveyed by the
lateral medium close-up of Bruno transfixed by Barbara when he sees her for the first time. Lastly,
there is the often-cited medium long shot of Bruno sitting in the stands before Guy's practice session.
The camera zooms in on a tightened medium long shot that emphasizes the incongruous
motionlessness of Bruno's head as he stares at Guy while the other spectators turn their heads back
and forth to watch the play. These half-comic, half-chilling tableaux in which the stationary Bruno
silently stares at Guy create an eerie effect: Bruno seems to be an unreal presence. It is Guy who tries
to proceed with the everyday, the normal, yet Bruno's reappearances function as a bond between the
real and the fantastic: a reminder that what Guy imagined is now fact; an indictment of his purity; an
insistent demand for emotional complicity.
Since Andre Bazin coined the term "exchange of guilt" to describe a narrative pattern visible throughout
much of the Hitchcockian landscape, this kind of similitude between characters has become more
recognizable. A few obvious examples that bear some similarity to the Guy/Bruno relationship would be
pairings such as Richard Blaney/Bob Rusk from Frenzy, Father Logan/Otto Keller from I Confess (
1952); Marion Crane/Norman Bates from Psycho (1960); L. B. Jeffries/Lars Thorwald from Rear
Window, Devlin/Alex Sebastian from Notorious. Like the incredible circumstances that free both Gregor
and his family, it is reasonable to think of Guy and Bruno as a metaphysical equation that expresses the
irresistible attraction between suppression and extroversion.
After arriving on Magic Isle, Miriam cavorts about in an attempt to elude her dates and wanders into the
spot where Bruno has been waiting. She turns around, facing the camera in a medium close-up just as
Bruno's hand enters the frame from the right with the ignited lighter, asking: "Is your name Miriam?"
The sudden reminder of the domain of offscreen space is precisely synchronized to Miriam hitting this
mark after skipping away from the two boys, just as, with equally precise timing, Bruno's hand
unexpectedly enters the frame with the lighter just after Miriam's look of surprise and recognition.
Rarely is the "invisible" syntax of cinematic language (the perennial inference of an offscreen world) so
effectively used to evoke another dimension of awareness. Here that awareness pertains to what is
hidden, insidious, threatening, and unforeseeable. A portent of this occurs in the long shot of Miriam
21
and her dates running toward the carousel. Suddenly Bruno emerges from offscreen at the right side of
the frame: he is both a visible and an invisible menace throughout this sequence.
In all of cinema there are few single images that possess a resonance equal to the reflection of the
strangulation on the lens of Miriam's fallen eyeglasses. If the film contains one supremely
communicative moment that perfectly expresses the dreamlike monstrosity of Guy's wish fulfillment
fantasy and Bruno's necromantic control of that fantasy, it occurs here. With the animated but distant
fairground music in sardonic contrast to the silent horror of the act, the strangulation unfolds as a
purely plastic occurrence, distorted and wavery like an underwater image, capturing the quintessential
expressionist element of Grubelei, what Lotte H. Eisner refers to as "the eternal attraction towards all
that is obscure and undetermined." While the silent and sound films of Hitchcock's British period engage
in an explorative assimilation of German film style and the American films successively refine and distill
that assimilation by making the narrative motivation for visual figures more and more recondite,
Hitchcock becomes the chief cinematic practitioner of expressionist thought in the middle third of the
twentieth century.
That Hitchcock's films often explore the moral and emotional evolution of a character that is complacent
within the ordinary only to have the extraordinary turn their world upside down is only a superficial
thematic layer. Beneath this layer lies the notion of exchanged or osmotic guilt with its chaos,
confusion, and potent challenges that ultimately usher the protagonist through some kind of ethical
transfiguration. For example, L. B. Jeffries being almost killed by Thorwald, and Devlin risking his life to
rescue Alicia from Sebastian, are part of the price to be paid for the moral inadequacies of these similar
protagonists. Jeffries's voyeurism is used as a substitute for making an emotional commitment to Lisa;
Devlin's lack of trust makes him culpable for Alicia being in a deadly situation. Guy is free of Miriam but
by the end of the film he faces three desperate options: kill Bruno's father as an affirmation of his
emotional implication in his wife's murder; allow himself to be arrested and charged with his wife's
murder; confront Bruno and somehow prove that he is the real killer. This is an empirical surface that
covers Guy's need to purify his dubious motives: using Ann as a steppingstone to a political career in
much the same way that Miriam wanted to use Guy's tennis success as a way out of her boring smalltown life. As Hitchcock states in the Truffaut interviews, Bruno killing Miriam is the same as Guy killing
her himself (199).
Strangers on a Train is filled with visual structures based upon synchronicity and parallelism, from
obvious, often cited examples to more esoteric and stylized ones. This is not, however, a merely
22
expressive repartee between screenplay and direction, as is suggested in Donald Spoto's cursory
analysis in his chapter on the film (118). Although looked upon more and more seriously as a creative
formal thinker, Hitchcock is rarely given credit for having developed an endemic stylistic language that
organically arises from his subjects. Consider the opening sequence in which Guy and Bruno
simultaneously arrive at the train station. A series of alternating left to right and right to left pans,
showing only their legs and feet, present Guy and Bruno from their arrival at the station entrance to the
moment Guy accidentally bumps Bruno's foot while they are sitting at the same table in the lounge car.
Hitchcock makes clever use of visual synecdoche and its inherent capacity for masking or restricting
information as a way of turning the fateful meeting of Guy and Bruno into an abstraction of
synchronous movements and actions. The "not quite natural, not quite explicable" (48) link that Robin
Wood hints at but does not really explore starts at the beginning of Strangers on a Train.
This economical, unobtrusive, expository sequence contains the whole formal and thematic logic of the
film: the synchronous coexistence and energy of parallel forces that simultaneously repel and attract,
as well as affirm and deny, one another. Throughout the film, Hitchcock expands this spatial
equivalence by linking variations of form, like the pairs of oblique shots of Guy discussed above. Other
examples include the cut from Bruno looking at his watch after the murder to Guy repeating the same
gesture in the observation car with the drunken calculus professor. Bruno's watch says 9:30 and Guy
will be regarded as a suspect chiefly because he cannot absolutely account for his whereabouts at this
time, which is when the murder was committed. The following morning, the professor does not
remember meeting him because of his intoxication.
The visual synecdoche, used so conceptively at the beginning of the film, is a perfect vehicle for
establishing abstraction because the viewer has no information whatsoever. Hitchcock confirms this
when he asserts that he did not want to change the framing to include full shots of Guy and Bruno until
after their feet bump together (Truffaut 196). Given this context of formal articulation, the point of the
opening sequence is that Guy and Bruno are forms themselves, rather than individuals. The suggestion,
sustained throughout the film, is that in a sense they are interrelated entities. Indeed, as Thomas
Elsaesser suggests, "the mathematical figures of the double (parallel) and the diagonal cross emerge as
the true obsession of the film" (118). Bruno's title for his plan of swapped murders ("criss-cross"),
prefigured by the visual panning of the shifting train tracks which literally criss-cross, avoids
obviousness because this track imagery remains a form only, a forecast without a host: the audience
does not yet know anything about the protagonists' lives or the relationship they will have. Hitchcock
23
builds upon this notion throughout the film, where "functional" setups and "simple" spatial
reorganizations become predictive agents signifying narrative and dramatic meaning.
A variation on this kind of architectural prefigurement can be found in The Wrong Man. At the beginning
of the film, again before the viewer is provided any insight into the plight of the protagonist, Manny is
seen coming out of The Stork Club after work. Interestingly, the establishing shot which begins the film
is a skewed angle of the entrance to the The Stork Club: in effect the film opens with a premonition of
the disarranged and the vertiginous. As Manny walks into the street, the camera pans slightly to the left
as two policemen walk just ahead of him. During the pan he is framed, coincidentally, by the space
between them, as though walking "in custody." A cut to a medium long shot from behind shows Manny,
completely at ease, again appearing in the same space between the policemen in the manner of being
led away as he walks past them toward the subway entrance. The delicacy of the "accidental" framing is
in perfect counterpoint to the unfolding of the story and the ways in which Manny is sucked into a
vortex of mistaken identity.
There are many examples of an inconspicuous, prognosticative formal gesture that hints at an
inevitable link between Guy and Bruno. One is the medium close-up of Bruno during the luncheon scene
in which the low angle composes the water pitcher, the glass, and Guy's lighter set at the corner on
Bruno's side of the table. The architecture of the composition works deliberately against the seemingly
innocuous significance of the lighter. The low angle and tight framing create the illusion that the water
pitcher is enormous and the water glass is also proportionally distorted. By dwarfing the lighter, these
objects call attention to it; the contrast accents the lighter's presence just in front of Bruno. Hitchcock
will often use such compositions to conjure implicit significance based on information the viewer does
not yet possess (as in this example) or to reinforce a privileged awareness based on information the
viewer has already been given, like the gigantic cup with the poisoned coffee in Notorious or the glasses
with the doctored wine in The Lady Vanishes; Hitchcock sometimes used specially constructed, enlarged
props to create such effects.7 The lighter becomes the all-important, incriminating link between Guy
and the murder, as Bruno intends to plant it at the scene of the crime after struggling to retrieve it
from the storm drain during Guy's desperate battle to win the match and intercept him before nightfall.
Its discovery in Bruno's hand is the beginning of a "realistic" explanation for Guy's involvement.
The runaway carousel sequence destroys the magical bond between Guy and Bruno. By rendering a
nightmarish version of the carousel out of control with abnormal speed and power, Hitchcock makes an
ironic comment on its role as a machine designed to induce a daydream world by slowly and playfully
24
revolving. The revolutions of the carousel, gentle pleasure giver transformed into monstrous life taker,
symbolize the final, deadly circularity of the Guy/Bruno relationship. The twisted power of the carousel's
centrifugal force metaphorically suggests that the psychic magnetism that drew Guy and Bruno
together has reached an impasse and come "full circle." Consequently, all of the semantic,
psychological, thematic, and philosophical parallels between Guy and Bruno are stripped away.
Most of the shots immediately before and after the carousel's breakup have very dense compositions:
tiered layers of detail expressing the hysteria, destruction, and injury. These are extremely brief shots,
lasting several seconds and maximizing pictorial complexity by the degree to which offscreen space and
on-screen activity are manipulated. Hitchcock mines the depths of the psychic struggle between Guy
and Bruno: the shock and horror of the event, its irrationality and far-reaching devastation, pervade the
space with angularity, suddenness, intricacy, and congestion. This convoluted manipulation of the
material by the immaterial is expressionist thinking in its essential form.
Guy has finally achieved selflessness, dignity, and purity: acting decisively and with conviction, he wins
the match by changing his "wait and see" strategy. The broadcaster's description could just as aptly
refer to Guy's opportunistic orchestration of the events in his life. Ignoring his own safety, he rescues
the little boy thrown to the edge of the carousel by Bruno. Guy shows that he needs Ann's faith and
trust, just as he has put himself in her hands by seeking her help without any artifice or pretense. If
Bruno is an extroverted version of Guy's suppressed desire to destroy ("I could strangle her!") and Guy
is an extroverted version of Bruno's suppressed desire to achieve ("I certainly admire people who do
things!"), the battle on the carousel exorcises these supplemental or transcendent selves from the
original beings and there is a cataclysmic split.
The concatenation of images during the carousel breakup, a more sophisticated version of the montage
flourishes that occur after the explosion on the battleship in Saboteur and Handel Fane's suicide in
Murder!, uses the mythological overtones of sexual violence associated with equine imagery to suggest
that Guy must undergo a rite of passage. The tangible and visceral properties of visual seizure or
convulsion are what interest Hitchcock. The moral rebirth for Guy is a kind of fit of the senses, a spasm
of the soul; the dynamics of the montage imagery forge form from this: all of the lurching, lunging,
hurtling, twisting, etc. For Guy to "become" himself, that is, a purer and better version of that self,
there must be a painful process of renewal and transfiguration.
The implementation of Expressionism in Hitchcock's work goes far beyond the search in the 1920s and
'30s by the young director forging a style and digesting the immediate influence of the German film
25
studios with which he was so closely associated.8 Given its demand for a pervasive, all-consuming
transmogrification of sense and form, Expressionism and its depiction of the human condition seems
innately connected to the illusionism of cinema. Indeed, cinematic language, its foundation based on
the concept of the unreal presented as real, would appear to be the ideal vehicle for an expressionist
imagination.
Strangers on a Train confirms that Hitchcock's Expressionism is a maturational combination of personal
aesthetic choices and certain pre-established formal resources. Hitchcock the artist, the master of style,
like the few truly great artists, turns this union into much more than a formula of influence by
reinventing expressionist art with Hitchcockian art.
Peter J. Dellolio
Notes
1 Jacobowitz and Lippe make note of this by their inclusion of Hitchcock in a group of emigre directors
mentioned as part of a centenary tribute to the career of Douglas Sirk. Hitchcock is included in a group
of American directors influenced by "European modernist movements of the 1920s," with particular
emphasis on German Expressionism and how its style "expresses an internal subjectivity, the
importance of tone and mood, the placement of character motivation within a broader determined
context" (2).
2 In his study of the director, Hitchcock's Films, Robin Wood suggests that outside Mr. Anthony's
(Jonathan Hale) room, Guy shows hesitation as he shifts the luger from his breast pocket to his outside
pocket, indicating the possibility that he may have come there to carry out "his" murder (61-62). Wood
concludes that this is an intentional effect that represents a flaw in Hitchcock's realization of the scene
because Parley Granger's awkward acting overemphasizes the momentary lapse of his moral integrity:
according to Wood, Guy may be capable of carrying out the murder up until the moment he is surprised
by Bruno in his father's bed. This is misdirected. In spite of the occasional lapses in Granger's
performance, his behavior and expression merely indicate that he is uncomfortable and self-conscious
about the preposterous circumstances in which he finds himself: standing outside the bedroom door of
a man he does not know in the middle of the night holding a gun and about to explain that the man's
son is insane! The close-up of the mastiff licking Guy's hand in slow motion adds to the topsy-turvy
character of the situation. It is not that Guy struggles with the temptation to carry out Bruno's wishes in
26
order to be rid of him but that he fights an invisible battle of mixed motives within himself. Herein lies
the ambivalence of Guy's character.
3 Speaking of Marnie, Joe McElhaney maintains, "While clearly emerging out of various lines of
development in Hitchcock's cinema up through the 1960s, the film also seems to be trying to reach a
new level of expressivity and meaning for Hitchcock. In particular, this new level relates to Hitchcock's
desire to incorporate into the film certain innovations in European art cinema of the early 1960s,
directly following experiments begun on The Birds a year earlier. And Mamie does, in fact, have some
suggestive parallels with Antonioni's Red Desert, released the same year" (88).
4 Stanley Cavell states, "Given the blatant presence of Freudian preoccupation and analysis in
Hitchcock's work I see in [Hitchcock's] allusion to Hamlet a kind of warning to Freudians, even a dare,
as if to say: of course my work, like any art, is subject to your interpretations, but why are these
interpretations so often so obvious, unable to grasp the autonomy, the uniqueness, of the object?"
(254).
5 Truffant says, "If one accepts the premise that cinema is an art form, on a par with literature, I
suggest that Hitchcock belongs-and why classify him at all?-among such artists of anxiety as Kafka,
Dostoyevsky, and Poe" (20).
6 Commenting on Hitchcock's introduction of the bar motif in a shot of Richard Hannay, the farmer John
and his wife Margaret in The 39 Steps, Rothman asserts "At this charged moment, Hitchcock performs
an extraordinary gesture. He cuts to a shot with the three in the background, viewed through the bars
of the back of a chair, the bar motif. With this signature shot, the author steps forward and declares the
imprisonment of these people" (139).
7 Hitchcock: "I had two king-size glasses made, and we photographed part of that scene through the
glasses, so that the audience might see the couple all the time, although they didn't touch their drinks
until the very end of the scene. Nowadays, I use magnified props in many pictures. It's a good
gimmick, isn't it? The giant hand in Spellbound, for instance" (Truffant 118).
8 Commenting on Hitchcock's early exposure to German filmmaking, Gottlieb suggests, "we should not
forget about nor underestimate the importance of shadows, stairs, mirrors, images of the double or
'Doppelganger,' dark foreboding landscapes, sudden terrors, and all of the other paraphernalia of many
key German films of the 1920s that clearly had an effect on Hitchcock" (103).
27
Works Cited
Bazin, Andre. "Hitchcock vs. Hitchcock." Focus on Hitchcock. Ed. Albert Lavally. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1972.
Budd, Mike, ed. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Texts, Contexts, Histories. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990.
Cavell, Stanley. "North by Northwest." A Hitchcock Reader. Ames: Iowa State UP, 1986.
Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: U of California P, 1973.
Elsaesser, Thomas. "The Dandy in Hitchcock." Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays. Eds. R. Alien and S.I. Gonzales. London: BFI
Publishing, 1999.
Gottlieb, Sydney. "Early Hitchcock: The German Influence." Hitchcock Annual, 1999-2000. New Hampshire: Hitchcock Annual
Corporation, 1999.
Jacobowitz, Florence, and Richard Lippe. "Douglas Sirk 1900-1987." CineAction 52 (June 2000).
McElhaney, Joe. "Touching the Surface." Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays. Eds. R. Alien and S. I. Gonzales. London: BFI
Publishing, 1999.
Rothman, William. Hitchcock-The Murderous Gaze. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1982.
Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: 50 Years of His Motion Pictures. New York: Hopkinson and Blake, 1976.
Sterritt, David. The Films of Alfred Hitchcock. United Kingdom: Cambridge UP, 1986.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. New York: Simon, 1984.
Wood, Robin. Hitchcock's Films. New York: Paperback Library, 1970.
__________."Retrospective." A Hitchcock Reader. Ames: Iowa State UP, 1986.
Copyright Literature/Film Quarterly 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
Useful web resources for more info
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/05/hitchcock.html
A lengthy profile of Hitchcock's life and work by the 'MacGuffin' editor has been published elsewhere on the Web. It's
been called 'definitive' and includes a bibliography written by Melbourne writer, Ken Mogg.
http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/This is the MacGuffin website which has heaps of analysis regarding Hitchcock’s
themes and analytical ideas in his films.
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