Strangers on a Train is a 1951 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was a master at building suspense and creating a sense of unease in his audience, and Strangers on a Train is no exception. Guy Haines is a young tennis pro trapped in a bad marriage. His wife is cheating on him and is pregnant with another man’s child. Guy desperately wants out of the marriage so he can marry his true love, Anne Morton, the daughter of a U.S. senator. Guy’s wife, however, refuses to give him a divorce. If Guy proceeds with the divorce, she threatens to claim that Guy is the father of her unborn child.
While traveling by train, Guy meets Bruno Antony. Bruno recognizes Guy from newspaper coverage of his tennis career. They talk for a while, and Bruno reveals that he would like his father dead so that he can continue living without having to work for a living. Bruno then proposes what he believes would be the perfect crime: each man murders the other man’s problem. Guy’s wife and Bruno’s father would each be murdered by a complete stranger, leaving no obvious connection between the killer and the victim. Guy plays along with what he considers Bruno’s absurd idea and eventually leaves the train. Guy does not take Bruno seriously—until his wife is murdered.
Some of the movie’s most unsettling moments occur when Bruno begins inserting himself into Guy’s life. He follows Guy around Washington, D.C., and eventually crashes a party at the home of Anne Morton’s father, Senator Morton. At the party, Bruno casually discusses murder with several older women, asking how they might go about killing someone. Bruno explains that he would prefer strangulation and proceeds to demonstrate the technique on one of the women.
During the demonstration, Bruno notices Anne’s younger sister, Barbara, whose appearance reminds him of Guy’s murdered wife. Bruno appears to slip into a trance, as though he is mentally reliving the murder of Guy’s wife. The others finally intervene, snapping Bruno out of the disturbing episode.
The scene is particularly disturbing because Bruno displays characteristics we often associate with compulsive killers. For Bruno, murder is not merely an act—it is a fascinating topic of conversation, something he seems almost compelled to discuss with others. Even more disturbing is the way his playful demonstration seems to transform into something else entirely. Bruno appears to become psychologically detached from the party around him, mentally returning to the murder he committed.
The moment is reminiscent of descriptions sometimes given by people who encountered real-life killers such as Ted Bundy. Accounts from people who knew Bundy have sometimes described moments when his demeanor seemed to change dramatically, as though another side of his personality had suddenly emerged. Whether intentional or not, the scene feels remarkably modern in its portrayal of a killer whose fascination with murder appears to extend far beyond the act itself.
TF’s Notes — The idea of two strangers agreeing to eliminate each other’s problems is a brilliant premise. Patricia Highsmith created the story in her 1950 novel, Strangers on a Train. Raymond Chandler, one of the great names in noir fiction, worked on the screenplay adaptation of Highsmith’s novel. One measure of a great premise is how often other writers find new ways to reinvent it, and the basic idea behind Strangers on a Train has been echoed in movies and television for decades.
I recently watched a rerun of Modern Family titled “Strangers on a Treadmill,” in which two characters agree to criticize each other’s spouses so the criticism will be easier to accept. It is a much lighter variation on the idea, but it also shows just how memorable the basic premise of Strangers on a Train remains decades after Hitchcock’s film was released.