Strangers on a Train: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Bruno:''' It's so simple, too. A couple of fellows meet accidentally, like you and me. No connection between them at all. Never saw each other before. Each of them has somebody he'd like to get rid of, but he can't murder the person he wants to get rid of. He'll get caught. So they swap murders.<br />

'''Guy:''' Swap murders?<br />

'''Bruno:''' Each fellow does the other fellow's murder. Then there is nothing to connect them. The one who had the motive isn't there. Each fellow murders a total stranger. Like you do my murder and I do yours.<br />

'''Guy:''' We're coming into my station.<br />

'''Bruno:''' For example, your wife, my father. Criss-cross.|''[[Strangers On a Train (Film)|Strangers Onon a Train]]''}}

A 1951 [[Alfred Hitchcock]] thriller starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker. Guy Haines (Granger), an amateur tennis star, meets the eccentric Bruno Antony (Walker)on a train. Bruno has read about Guy's romantic troubles in the paper, and suggests that he might want to...[[Murder Is the Best Solution|dispose of his wife]], the unfaithful Mrs. Miriam Joyce Haines (Kasey Rogers under the alias "Laura Elliot"), so he can marry Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), the daughter of a U.S. Senator. Bruno tells Guy of his own unhappiness with his father, and outlines his plot for the perfect murder: [[Strangers Onon a Train Plot Murder|two strangers who both have someone they want dead "exchange murders"]]. Guy laughs the whole thing off and gets off the train but, as he learns a few days later, Bruno wasn't joking.

The movie was based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (of ''[[Ripliad]]'' fame) and had a screenplay originally written by [[Raymond Chandler]] (before he was fired and replaced). The book and the movie are the [[Trope Namer]], [[Trope Maker]], and [[Trope Codifier]] for [[Strangers Onon a Train Plot Murder]], although there's a lot more to the story than [[All There Is to Know About "The Crying Game"|just that one trope]]. The 1987 comedy ''[[Throw Momma Fromfrom the Train]]'' is part parody, part remake and part homage of this film.

* [[Absent -Minded Professor]]: Collins, the drunken mathematician on the train. It's his forgetfulness that kills Guy's alibi.

* [[Hey, ItsIt's That Guy!|Hey, It's That Lady]]: Bruno's mother is [[Bewitched (TV)|Aunt Clara]].

** And that's Hitch's daughter Patricia, well before ''[[Psycho (Film)|Psycho]]''.

* [[I Just Shot Marvin in Thethe Face]]: The cops at the end shoot at Guy (when he's running into a crowd of children, no less) instead of just chasing after him. Nobody seems to care that one of the shots hits and kills the merry-go-round attendant.

* [[My God, You Are Serious]]: Guy's reaction when he learns about Bruno {{spoiler|killing his wife}}.

* [[Strangers Onon a Train Plot Murder]]: [[Trope Namer]]