Hitchcock Gets Back on Track with Strangers on a Train

 

                A true standout in a vintage year for Hollywood cinema, Warner Brothers’ 1951 release of Strangers on a Train marked a welcome return to form for director Alfred Hitchcock, providing him one of the finest vehicles to mix his deft touch with suspense with a perverse sense of humor, featuring several memorable, artfully executed set pieces that continue to impress. A perfect screenplay by Raymond Chandler and Czenzi Ormonde (based on the even darker novel by Patricia Highsmith and adapted for the screen by Whitfield Cook), exciting, foreboding score by Dimitri Tiomkin and exquisite B&W cinematography by Robert Burks lend Hitchcock ample production assets to craft a remarkable thriller, with a prime cast of players adding much to the film’s uneasy-yet-often-amusing tone, specifically Robert Walker as one of the title characters, the charming, unbalanced Bruno Anthony, a poor little rich boy/man with ingenious and unorthodox ideas regarding how to deal with bothersome figures, both in his life and in anyone else’s he meets.

               After first making a name for himself with top British offerings such as The Lodger, Blackmail (both his and England’s first sound film), The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, Hitchcock made a vastly successful switch to Hollywood with the Oscar-winning Rebecca after signing on with David O. Selznick. Hitchcock would continue to amass good fortune with most of his follow-up films, including Suspicion, Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt and (after Rebecca) two more Oscar nominations for Lifeboat and Spellbound. However, after earning one of his biggest triumphs with critics and audiences via 1946’s Notorious, the ace Helmer found himself as asea as the cast of Lifeboat in regards to most of his subsequent post-WWII film output, with The Paradine Case, Under Capricorn and Stage Fright proving fairly uninspiring, while his most ambitious and inventive film of the period, 1948’s long shot (literally, as Hitchcock experimented with lengthy takes in the film), Rope, initially also faced a disappointing lack of interest upon release, before reassessment of the movie decades later raised its position in the Hitchcock cannon.

                After Stage Fright, Hitchcock clearly sought a project to get his creative juices fully flowing again, and in Strangers he found an inspiring tale to apply his ingenious touch. From the clever opening shots of the film, which follow the two protagonists’ shoes as they work their way onto a train, and finally tap toes for their first meeting, to the exciting climax aboard filmdom’s most rip-roaring merry-go-round, Hitchcock keeps viewers on edge and amused with his artful, sly rendering of the material. Among the director’s most extraordinary efforts in Strangers are the use of glasses to illustrate Bruno’s nefarious actions, and crossing-cutting between a tight tennis match featuring Guy, and Bruno as he travels to that merry-go-round with ill-intent again on his mind. Throughout the film, Hitchcock manages to follow one memorable scene (including the famous Hitchcock cameo) with another one equally noteworthy, allowing Strangers a consistency of tone and entertainment value rivaled by few other Hitchcock works, or other films, period.

                As the clever, amoral-yet-magnetic Bruno, Robert Walker finds his indelible screen role and best outlet to completely display his imposing dramatic talents. Born in 1918, Walker started at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 (wherein he met future wife Jennifer Jones), then play bit parts in films starting in 1939, before an MGM contract would find his stock rising swiftly, typically in roles utilizing his awesome boyish appeal, with 1944’s See Here, Private Hargrove establishing Walker as a top MGM player, the same year he costarred with Jones to fine effect in David O. Selznick’s Since You Went Away, another big hit, filmed while Jones was in the midst of leaving Walker for Selznick. Throughout the rest of the 1940s, Walker would continue mainly at MGM in films of various quality, with his lovely teaming opposite the similarly sensitive Judy Garland in 1945’s The Clock representing possibly his best work and film of this fruitful period. With his iconic work as Bruno, Walker deftly meshes his vulnerable nice-guy image with a psychotic mentality, creating a fascinating portrait of a man with a Jekyll and Hyde persona, but not one lacking urbane wit and charm. He also daringly makes Bruno’s strong attraction to the other chief stranger of the piece, great-looking tennis pro Guy Haines, clear in an overt fashion rarely seen in major studio films of the period, especially with the Hayes Code looming over every movie. Walker’s superlative accomplishment as Bruno suggested a bright career awaited him in richly diverse parts, but sadly Strangers proved to be Walker’s penultimate film (followed by the interesting but less impressive My Son John) before the troubled actor’s untimely passing at the tender age of 32 in 1951.

                As the two other, much more moralistically sound leads, Haines and his devoted high-society lady love, Anne Morton, Farley Granger and Ruth Roman make a handsome couple and perform proficiently, but in a more standard, stoic manner than the flair with which Walker and some of their other costars bring to the film. Granger had made a nice impact and appeared admirably engaged theatrically as a jittery killer in his previous Hitchcock outing, Rope, and he sometimes suggests the emotional upheaval and pressure Guy is facing during his best scenes with Walker but often comes off as somewhat stiff and impassive. Similarly Roman, who had recently provided animated, impressive work in such fare as Champion, The Window and Beyond the Forest, maintains a glacial reserve as Anne while adopting an acting approach that seems studied, without adding much humor or dimension to the role to help viewers identify with and support Anne as she becomes embroiled in the film’s central mystery.

Patricia Hitchcock has claimed her father would only cast her if she was exactly right for a part; fortunately, in the case of Strangers any nepotism paid off, as Ms. Hitchcock tackles the significant role of Barbara, Anne’s younger, knowing sister with abundant verve, whether engaging in repertoire with her father or reacting with fear after attracting Bruno’s ice-cold gaze, while also meeting the physical requirements of the role, which become evident as the story unfolds. Similarly, as Guy’s flirtatious, unfaithful wife Miriam, Laura Elliott (also known as Kasey Rogers) adds great flavor and individuality to her small role, and is rewarded by prominently featuring in one of Hitchcock’s most famous and imaginatively-shot sequences. In the 1960s Elliott/Rogers would gain fame on television with Peyton Place and Bewitched, but in movies was never able to capitalize on her standout work in Strangers. Leo G. Carroll, a Hitchcock semi-regular since Rebecca, utilities his wry delivery style to fine effect as Senator Morton, Barbara and Anne’s father, who is sympathetic to Guy’s plight.

 In a rare feature film appearance, Marion Lorne scores in magnificent fashion as Bruno’s adoring, artistic and addle-minded mother. Lorne imbues the role with her unique, scatterbrained comic sensibility, as Mrs. Antony frets over her son, while also being amused by his “naughty boy” behavior, but also shows a sager side to the character with her later dismissal, in a calm, resolute manner, of Anne’s pertinent claims against Bruno, indicating the protective mother may actually have a much deeper understanding of how dangerous his wayward son may be. After her sublime work in Strangers, Lorne would find major success on television during the 1950s and 1960s playing similar absent-minded types, specifically in the sitcoms Mister Peepers and via her enduring performance as Aunt Clara in Bewitched, for which she won a well-deserved Emmy posthumously, after passing at age 84 in 1968. Finally, Norma Varden also makes a strong appearance as a gregarious society lady who has an eventful encounter with Bruno in yet another vivid scene. 

Released in June of 1951, Strangers on a Train gained Hitchcock his best reviews in years, while also drawing in plenty of patrons eager to see one of the Master of Suspense’s most engrossing thrillers, amassing close to three million in worldwide rentals during its initial release. Hitchcock would maintain this top-level of craftsmanship with nearly every endeavor for the next decade, including other all-time classics such as Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho. Strangers would receive notice during the awards season, winning Hitchcock a Quarterly award from the Director’s Guild, placing among the National Board of Review’s Top Ten films of the year and granting Burks an Oscar nomination for his outstanding lensing of the film. The lasting appeal of Strangers, with revival and television showings and physical media releases exposing the top-quality production to new generations of fans, has led to the film placing at #32 in 2001 on the AFI’s 100 Years. . . 100 Thrills list, then inclusion on the National Film Registry’s prestigious 2021 preservation list. Viewers wanting to catch one of the cinema’s most stimulating mixtures of crafty comedy and tension-packed exploits need only familiarize themselves with the rich intrigue found via an encounter with Hitchcock’s transfixing Strangers.