© William Ahearn 2007
Patricia Highsmith doesn’t write cozies, those bloodless murder
mysteries that are solved by clever and nosey spinsters. She’s noted
these days as the creator of the serial killer Tom Ripley – as in The
Talented Mr Ripley – and she attracted attention with her first
novel, the down and dirty Strangers on a Train.
One day while browsing in East Village Books I came across
the novel and decided to read it as I’d been seeing tons of Hitchcock
films and “Strangers on a Train” had been one of my favorites.
The film is the story of Guy, a professional tennis player who wants a divorce
from his manipulative and estranged wife to marry the daughter of a US senator.
On a train heading to his hometown to confront his wife he meets Bruno, the
sociopathic son of a wealthy family. After a few drinks and some discussion,
Bruno proposes a deal. It’s a simple plan: crisscross. Bruno will murder
Guy’s wife and free Guy to marry the senator’s daughter if Guy
will kill Bruno’s father so he can inherit his father’s wealth.
Since neither has a motive to kill their respective victims, the police will
never connect them to the crimes.
Bruno kills the wife at an amusement park and begins hounding
Guy to kill Bruno’s father. Guy seems to have an alibi yet the police
are suspicious of his involvement in the killing of his wife. Bruno has an
inscribed cigarette lighter belonging to Guy and his plan is to plant it at
the murder scene to frame Guy if Guy doesn’t kill Bruno’s father.
Once again, Hitchcock has the innocent man on the run trying to clear
his name. Bruno is caught and Guy is cleared right after the famous scene
with the out of control merry-go-round. Although Raymond Chandler gets the
screen credit as writer, the truth seems to be that Hitchcock tossed his script
and had Czenzi Ormonde and Ben Hecht rewrite it.
It’s a fun Hitchcock movie but it doesn’t get close to the book.
It has always amazed me that the so-called master of suspense trivializes
and almost eviscerates the innate suspense of his sources.
In Strangers on a Train, Guy isn’t a tennis pro,
he’s an architect, and he does kill Bruno’s father. Shoots him
dead in his bed. (In the book, his name is Charles Anthony Bruno and in the
film, Bruno Anthony.) Bruno’s wealthy father has a private detective
on the payroll and it is that detective, Gerard, who begins the investigation
that will unravel the case. Bruno dies in a boating accident – Guy,
bizarrely, tries to save Bruno’s life at the risk of his own –
and Guy is later tricked by Gerard and caught.
Since both bad guys either die or are caught, the film of the entire
book would have met the constraints of the Hays Production Code then in effect.
And that code wasn’t as didactic as it is sometimes made out to be.
In Fritz Lang’s “Scarlet Street,” Christopher Cross (Edward
G. Robinson) gets away with murder and another man, Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea),
serves the sentence. Since Johnny Prince is a dirt bag, he deserves to go
to prison and since Christopher Cross becomes an insane homeless man living
in a park, at least some perverse justice is served. At least that is the
logic that seems to be offered. It’s very similar to the poetic justice
of “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” where Frank is sentenced
to die for a murder that wasn’t a murder. Since he got away with a real
murder, this somehow makes sense. It doesn’t to me or to any cheap suit
defense attorney but that’s Hollywood.
The story in Strangers on a Train would have made a much
more suspenseful movie. Why Hitchcock had to turn the book into another man-proving-his-innocence
film is beyond me. He had made similar films before and he would continue
beating this scenario to death for another twenty or so years. There is talk
of a remake of “Strangers on a Train” being kicked about and if
the writers go back to the source material and work from there, it could be
more than just another unnecessary remake.
Film theorists try to construct a doppelganger of Guy and Bruno that
was conscious on the part of Alfred Hitchcock. (The other film that they also
suggest this theory for is “Shadow of a Doubt.”) In fact, what
Patricia Highsmith was playing with is central to cinema noir or
roman noir. Bruno – with his vague and ambiguous sexuality
and his effeminate traits – is the amoral or sociopath femme
fatale who leads the weak hero to his demise. In a sense, it’s
classic James M. Cain as in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” or
“Double Indemnity.” Or numerous cinema noir classics such as “Detour,”
“Gun Crazy,” or “Scarlet Street.”
Having said all that, “Strangers on a Train”
is one of my favorite Hitchcock films. But I wished he had filmed the damn
book.