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IMDbPro

Strangers on a Train

  • 19511951
  • PGPG
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
7.9/10
135K
YOUR RATING
Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
Theatrical Trailer from Warner Bros. Pictures
Play trailer2:23
1 Video
99+ Photos
CrimeDramaFilm-Noir
A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with his theory that two strangers can get away with murder.A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with his theory that two strangers can get away with murder.A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with his theory that two strangers can get away with murder.
IMDb RATING
7.9/10
135K
YOUR RATING
    • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers
    • Raymond Chandler(screen play)
    • Czenzi Ormonde(screen play)
    • Whitfield Cook(adaptation)
  • Stars
    • Farley Granger
    • Robert Walker
    • Ruth Roman
    • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers
    • Raymond Chandler(screen play)
    • Czenzi Ormonde(screen play)
    • Whitfield Cook(adaptation)
  • Stars
    • Farley Granger
    • Robert Walker
    • Ruth Roman
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 379User reviews
    • 133Critic reviews
    • 88Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar

    Videos1

    Strangers on a Train
    Trailer 2:23
    Watch Strangers on a Train

    Photos145

    Leo G. Carroll, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Kasey Rogers and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Leo G. Carroll, Farley Granger, Patricia Hitchcock, and Ruth Roman in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Alfred Hitchcock and Farley Granger in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Ruth Roman and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Farley Granger and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)
    Leo G. Carroll, Farley Granger, Patricia Hitchcock, and Ruth Roman in Strangers on a Train (1951)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Farley Granger
    Farley Granger
    • Guy Haines
    Robert Walker
    Robert Walker
    • Bruno Antony
    Ruth Roman
    Ruth Roman
    • Anne Morton
    Leo G. Carroll
    Leo G. Carroll
    • Sen. Morton
    Patricia Hitchcock
    Patricia Hitchcock
    • Barbara Morton
    Kasey Rogers
    Kasey Rogers
    • Miriam Joyce Haines
    • (as Laura Elliott)
    Marion Lorne
    Marion Lorne
    • Mrs. Antony
    Jonathan Hale
    Jonathan Hale
    • Mr. Antony
    Howard St. John
    Howard St. John
    • Police Capt. Turley
    John Brown
    • Prof. Collins
    Norma Varden
    Norma Varden
    • Mrs. Cunningham
    Robert Gist
    Robert Gist
    • Det. Leslie Hennessey
    Joel Allen
    • Policeman
    • (uncredited)
    Murray Alper
    Murray Alper
    • Boatman
    • (uncredited)
    Monya Andre
    • Dowager
    • (uncredited)
    Benjie Bancroft
    • Police Officer
    • (uncredited)
    Harry Baum
    • Tennis Match Spectator
    • (uncredited)
    Brooks Benedict
    Brooks Benedict
    • Tennis Umpire
    • (uncredited)
      • Alfred Hitchcock
    • Writers
      • Raymond Chandler(screen play)
      • Czenzi Ormonde(screen play)
      • Whitfield Cook(adaptation)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The final scene of the so-called "American" version of this movie had Barbara and Anne Morton waiting for Guy to call on the telephone. Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted the phone in the foreground to dominate the shot, emphasizing the importance of the call, but the limited depth-of-field of contemporary movie camera lenses made it difficult to get both phone and women in focus. So Hitchcock had an oversized phone constructed and placed in the foreground. Anne reaches for the big phone, but actually answers a regular one. Hitchcock explained that "I did that on one take, by moving in on Anne so that the big phone went out of the frame as she reached for it. Then a grip put a normal-sized phone on the table, where she picked it up."
    • Goofs
      When Bruno drops the lighter down the sewer, he tells the bystanders, he needs help retrieving his cigarette CASE. Perhaps Bruno thought it would sound more important if he said he'd dropped a case rather than a mere lighter.
    • Quotes

      Senator Morton: Dreadful. Dreadful business. Poor unfortunate girl.

      Barbara Morton: She was a tramp.

      Senator Morton: She was a human being. Let me remind you that even the most unworthy of us has a right to life and the pursuit of happiness.

      Barbara Morton: From what I hear she pursued it in all directions.

    • Alternate versions
      There are several differences in the British version of the film, including:
      • The first encounter between Bruno and Guy on the train is longer, and features a more obvious homoerotic flirtation by Bruno;
      • In the scene where Guy sneaks out of his apartment to go to Bruno's house, a shot of him opening a drawer to get the map Bruno sketched is added;
      • The very last scene in the US version, which involves a clergyman, was deleted.
    • Connections
      Edited into My Son John (1952)
    • Soundtracks
      The Band Played On
      (1895) (uncredited)

      Music by Chas. B. Ward

      Lyrics by John F. Palmer

      Sung by Kasey Rogers, Tommy Farrell, Roland Morris and Robert Walker while riding the merry-go-round

      Played often throughout the picture

    User reviews379

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    10/10
    Magnificent absurdist fantasy.
    One would have expected Hitchcock's return to major studio filmmaking to err on the side of chastened caution. Surely few expected his most riotous, unrestrained film, a gleeful melange of vicious black comedy, exciting suspense, mocking manipulation, and astonishing flights of fancy. But that is precisely what they got: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN.

    What is remarkable is how much Bruno's transgression disrupts the world of the film. Much has been made of the masterly crosscutting motif, but its immediate effect is to completely obstruct the straight line of progress Guy is making of his life, and hence the society he represents or is eager to join. Guy is the archetypal American, the working-class boy made good, moving in influential circles, athletic, successful, handsome. Bruno is his destructive opposite, gay, decadent, 'European' (he lives off his father, in a Big House, and just lounges about dreaming of murder). Bruno's life is one of repetition, circularity, whereas Guy moves straight ahead. It is Bruno's achievement to move Guy into his realm (represented by the merry-go-round) and force HIM to transgress (break the law, hope for murder (Bruno's)).

    Bruno is quite literally fighting patriarchy. All the authority figures in the film are criticised - Bruno's father, a man whose brutality we get a glimpse of, but the true horror of which is constantly alluded to in the film (especially in Aunt Clara's paintings - that incredibly intense negative energy must come from somewhere); Anna's incredibly Machiavellian, self-serving father; the insensitive judge who thinks nothing of lunching after an execution; the tennis commentator whose smugly authorative comments are always mistaken. Far from being the mother-hater of legend, Hitch, as Robin Wood perceived, is deeply hostile to fathers and patriarchy.

    Bruno's transgression turns the world topsy-turvy. This is Hitch's most surreal film. Whenever Guy is in his plot, he is filmed straight, with conventionally romantic music. But whenever Bruno intrudes, the atmosphere becomes carnivalesque, bizarre, much more fun. This is Hitch's first truly American film, revelling in the primitive detritus of Americana. Grown men puncture little boys' balloons, or try to throw them off merry-go-rounds. Distinguished professors of mathematics sing about goats on trains. Elderly society matrons are strangled at elegant soirees. Washington is filmed like a series of spare lines in a vast desert under a huge sky, like a haunting Dali painting. There is one of the greatest, and funniest, scenes in all cinema when we see a motionless, smiling Bruno in a sea of turning heads at a tennis match, an image worthy of Magritte. Just look at any scene with Bruno in it, and watch it derail into the bizarre.

    Phalluses abound in the most ridiculous permutations - check all those balloons (Hitch had obviously just seen THE THIRD MAN) - as well as in more staid environs: Washington will never look the same again. STRANGERS is also, VERTIGO notwithstanding, Hitch's most overtly sexual film - as well as the phalluses, there is the sustained homoeroticism, the remarkable play with 'riding' horses; the gobsmacking fellatio joke when Hitch's daughter spills powder over the policeman.

    And yet Hitch doesn't stint on good old suspense. In the very proper endeavour to show what a great artist he was, critics tend to overlook what made him famous in the first place. Much has been made of Bruno as a prototype of Norman Bates, and Hitch plays merry havoc on audience identification, willing Bruno into murder. There is a hilariously painful sequence where Bruno loses the lighter with which he intends to frame Guy down a drain. The gasps of tension and sighs of relief on the part of the audience I was a part of in support of an insane murderer is inherently funny, slightly disturbing, and highly revealing about our true reactions to conformity and success. And Hitch milks it with callous glee - listen to the mocking music and exagerrated compositions, and kick yourself for taking it all so seriously.

    STRANGERS is one of Hitch's five best films, and therefore one of the greatest things in cinema. The dialogue is so strange and brilliant, I can't believe it wasn't written by Chandler. Patricia Hitchcock is a wonderful imp, standing in for her cheeky father as she taunts Guy. The fairground finale is a remarkable, dizzying fusion of exciting, tense set-piece, black comedy and symbolic site. If Bruno's final words condemn him to hell (according to the Catholic precepts Hitch is supposed to embody: compare with a similar ending in THE KILLERS), we applaud his integrity, infinitely preferable to Guy's debased serving of self.
    helpful•197
    61
    • alice liddell
    • Sep 29, 1999

    FAQ7

    • Did Hitchcock intend for Bruno to be attracted to Guy?
    • What is 'Strangers on a Train' about?
    • Is 'Strangers on a Train' based on a book?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • June 30, 1951 (United States)
      • United States
      • English
      • French
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • Rowland V. Lee Ranch - Fallbrook Avenue, Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Warner Bros.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • 1 hour 41 minutes
      • Black and White

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