Strangers on a Train (1951) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Along the main branches of the cinema

Strangers on a Train (1951) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock 

Along the main branches of the cinema “psycho” family tree one finds Hannibal Lecter, Frank Booth, and Norman Bates, as well as Robert Mitchum’s insane preacher in Night of the Hunter. Outer branches hold Robin Williams’ stalker in One Hour Photo and Terry O'Quinn’s “dad from hell” in The Stepfather. 
Nearby are Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and by Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female (both descendants of Jessica Walter in Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me). Branches extend in numerous directions at considerable length, yet at the base of this tree—right down to the roots—is Bruno Antony, the monstrously determined stalker and murderer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. 

During a long train ride, a famous tennis player (Farley Granger) meets socialite and dandy Bruno (Robert Walker, in the role of a lifetime). Their conversation over drinks reveals that Granger has a wife who won’t divorce him, and that Walker has a wealthy father whom he despises. Walker, mounting an unctuous, pushy charm offensive, humorously suggests that they “exchange murders.” Since neither man has any connection with their swapped targets, the murders should constitute perfect crimes for which no motive or suspect exists. 

Granger is merely amused by the joke, mainly because he understands that eccentric characters propose these kinds of silly things after too many drinks. What he does not understand is that Bruno’s tortured psyche long ago zoomed past “eccentric” and cruised straight on to psychotic. Put another way, Granger doesn’t know that Walker plans to hold up his end of the proposed bargain. 

It’s a brilliant setup for suspense (based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, who also penned The Talented Mr. Ripley), and, not surprisingly, Hitchcock finds ways to make the arrangement more agonizing as the story progresses. 

Much of the tension derives from a series of events that reveal the true character of Bruno, an affected, somewhat effeminate playboy whom everyone regards as mildly annoying but totally harmless. A stunning, ten-minute sequence, sans dialogue, at an amusement park (not to be confused with this picture’s wild conclusion at that park) confirms everything about Bruno, but it also serves as a flawless example of pure visual story telling. 

Better still, with a single image reflected in a pair of eyeglasses, Hitchcock signals to the world in 1951 the primary subtext of his next films: the human gaze. With that one shot he would establish himself as a founder of the cinema of obsession.