Noir-vember: Strangers On A Train (1951)

It's a classic conceit, but only because this Alfred Hitchcock movie did it so well. Two strangers end up in conversation on a train (hence the title) and one puts forward his idea for a perfect murder: two people who aren't really connected commit a murder on behalf of the other party. So begins this enjoyable thriller, based on a tale by Patricia Highsmith and worked into screenplay by a few different people, including Raymond Chandler.

Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a minor British celeb on the tennis circuit, and Robert Walker is Bruno Antony, the stranger who starts talking about a plan that he actually wants to put into action. Guy is having a hard time trying to arrange a divorce from his wife, Miriam, which would free him up to marry the lovely daughter of a US Senator, while Bruno seems to have spent many years carrying around a hatred of his father. Time passes, and it's not long until Bruno has done what he sees as his part in a confirmed deal. Guy is shocked, and also afraid. He doesn't know how to best explain the situation to the authorities, especially while Bruno has his personalised cigarette lighter in his possession, ready to plant at the murder site to incriminate him much more than the circumstantial evidence.

Although the central idea was very familiar to me, and will be very familiar to anyone who has even the most cursory knowledge of the film, or the many films/TV show episodes it has influenced, I had no idea that things would cut to the chase so quickly. Bruno is a psychopath, which becomes clear after those initial scenes, and that makes it very easy to believe that he starts off this chain of events after the most non-committal conversation with Guy.

As expertly constructed as you would expect from Hitchcock, this arguably sits alongside his lighter offerings. While there is danger for our guilty-looking hero, it always feels as if Guy will find some way out of his predicament. It helps that he eventually confides in his understanding partner, Anne (Ruth Roman), and that he has the truth on his side, even if it won't really seem like the truth when he tries to explain it to the authorities. His actions may seem a bit silly at times, but it's hard to think of other ways in which he could have sought to clear his name and get everything resolved satisfactorily.

Granger is decent in his role, required to look nervous and sweaty for most of his time onscreen, and Walker is very entertaining as someone who quickly casts off any semblance of normalcy once a sliver of his dangerous madness is shown. Roman is lovely, just the kind of person you would want on your side if trying to clear your name and maintain a smooth course on a journey of true love, Leo G. Carroll is as good as ever as her father, the Senator, and Patricia Hitchcock (daughter of the man in the director's chair) has fun in her role, the younger sister of Roman's character, prone to saying whatever she thinks, without considering whether or not it is something others may want to hear.

I can't say that this would rank up there with the very best of the Hitchcock movies I have seen, and I have seen a great many of his works, but it's absolutely worth seeing, and makes up for a lack of major set-pieces throughout with a finale that features the police firing a gun far too carelessly at a funfair, a carousel on superspeed, and a villain who remains unrepentant even as some major evidence comes into plain sight.

8/10

This is the set you want.