Hitchcock is known for some of the finest, though generally overrated, suspense movies, and his craft is very evident here in 'Strangers on a Train.' Robert Walker, 32, created a superb character, Bruno, which is responsible for most of the tension in this movie. In real life Walker was to die in 1951, the same year this movie was released. The story captured my attention and about 80 minutes into its 101 minute run time I was eager for a classic Hitchcock ending. It never came. Instead we see the police doing something very strange, something that would never really happen, simply to set up a spectacular ending that did not do justice to the main story.
SPOILERS are imbedded in all the remaining comments so the wise reader will quit now. Guy is a tennis player, on a train to Forest Hills, NY with a stop to see his estranged wife, to finalize divorce papers. Bruno 'accidentally' meets him, we figure later it was no accident, Bruno needed his father killed and proposed a 'criss-cross', Guy would kill the old man, Bruno would kill Guy's wife, both would have alibis, both could get on with their lives after their respective nemeses were gone, Bruno would have his inherited wealth, Guy would be free to marry the politician's daughter. But Guy is an honest man and, even after his wife changes her mind about the divorce, just to keep him from marrying his girlfriend, he wants no part of the 'deal.' But Bruno kills the wife anyway, at 28 minutes into the movie, strangles her on an island in an amusement park, brings her glasses to Guy, tells him about it, threatens to say both plotted the murder if Guy went to the police, then gradually inserts himself into every facet of Guy's life, and expecting Guy 'to carry out the other half of the criss-cross.'
After winning a tennis match, Guy jumps into a waiting taxi, goes to the train station, goes back to the town with the amusement park, thinking Bruno was going to plant the cigarette lighter there to implicate Guy, police are alerted and follow, at dark near the merry-go-round Guy and Bruno are both recognized, and this is where EVERYTHING FALLS APART. A cop yells 'stop' then fires one shot into the crowd of parents and kids, killing the merry-go-round operator, so he can slump onto the controller, it speeds up greatly, kids and parents are crying, an old man crawls under and eventually stops it, so violently that it tears itself apart, Guy is OK but Bruno is badly injured, and as he dies his hand opens to show the lighter, and Guy is off the hook. A completely disingenuous ending attached to an otherwise fine exercise in movie-making.
SPOILERS are imbedded in all the remaining comments so the wise reader will quit now. Guy is a tennis player, on a train to Forest Hills, NY with a stop to see his estranged wife, to finalize divorce papers. Bruno 'accidentally' meets him, we figure later it was no accident, Bruno needed his father killed and proposed a 'criss-cross', Guy would kill the old man, Bruno would kill Guy's wife, both would have alibis, both could get on with their lives after their respective nemeses were gone, Bruno would have his inherited wealth, Guy would be free to marry the politician's daughter. But Guy is an honest man and, even after his wife changes her mind about the divorce, just to keep him from marrying his girlfriend, he wants no part of the 'deal.' But Bruno kills the wife anyway, at 28 minutes into the movie, strangles her on an island in an amusement park, brings her glasses to Guy, tells him about it, threatens to say both plotted the murder if Guy went to the police, then gradually inserts himself into every facet of Guy's life, and expecting Guy 'to carry out the other half of the criss-cross.'
After winning a tennis match, Guy jumps into a waiting taxi, goes to the train station, goes back to the town with the amusement park, thinking Bruno was going to plant the cigarette lighter there to implicate Guy, police are alerted and follow, at dark near the merry-go-round Guy and Bruno are both recognized, and this is where EVERYTHING FALLS APART. A cop yells 'stop' then fires one shot into the crowd of parents and kids, killing the merry-go-round operator, so he can slump onto the controller, it speeds up greatly, kids and parents are crying, an old man crawls under and eventually stops it, so violently that it tears itself apart, Guy is OK but Bruno is badly injured, and as he dies his hand opens to show the lighter, and Guy is off the hook. A completely disingenuous ending attached to an otherwise fine exercise in movie-making.