Strangers on a Train 1951

     This film is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995).  Guy Haines is a tennis pro traveling on a train from Washington DC.  He meets Bruno Anthony and Bruno starts talking about a plan for the two of them.  Bruno will kill Guy’s wife who wants a divorce and is having a baby by someone else.  Guy would like to be free to marry the daughter of a US. Senator.  Bruno hates his father and he wants Guy to kill him.  If they swap the murders, they will be able to get away with them because they don’t have a motive and they will have an alibi?  Guy doesn’t think Bruno really is serious about this plan until his wife Miriam is found dead at an amusement park?  The police put a 24-hour guard on Guy and Bruno is expecting Guy to kill his father?

     I didn’t know this was a Hitchcock movie until I finished viewing and it is not widely known.  There is a lot of tension in the final scenes between Guy and Bruno.  Hitchcock usually uses blond actresses in leading roles but Ruth Roman was under contract to the studio.  Hitchcock had a fear that he would be accused of a crime he didn’t commit and this theme is in many of his films.  There were two versions of this film, an American version and another for the British.  I thought it was interesting, it has good character development and suspense.  3 ½* (I liked this movie)

101 min, Crime directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Kasey Rogers, Marion Lorne, Jonathan Hale, Howard St. John, John Brown.

Note:  Imdb 8.1 out of 10, 98% critic 92% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 4*, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 335 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed at the Jefferson Memorial, Union Station, Washington DC; Penn Station New York, West Side Tennis Club, New York; Danbury Railroad Station, Connecticut; Canoga Park, Rowland V. Lee Ranch, Los Angeles, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, California.  Changes were made from the novel, Bruno Antony was named Charles Anthony Bruno, Guy Haines was an architect and not a tennis player, Anne Morton was named Anne Faulkner.  Granger was also in another Hitchcock film, Rope of 1948.