Better In Your Head?--STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

 

Spoiler Alert: a warm jump off a cold pier awaits.

THE BOOK-Written by Patricia Highsmith, released 1950

THE MOVIE-Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Raymond Chandler, Whitfield Cook & Crenzi Ormonde, released 1951

THE STORY-An impromptu meeting between love-tossed architect Guy Haines and unmoored castle-chaser Charles Anthony Bruno leads to a fraught exchange of anxieties, and an idea so distinctly diabolical it cannot be taken seriously: trade murders like young boys of the era traded ballcards. 

MIND THE GAP-What a set-up! What, then, of the take-down?

The murders themselves are unsettling and unimpressive. What lingers is how each homicide is justified inside a mind determined to free itself of exhausting expectations. Taking a stranger's life can be viewed as a kindness through a fractured lens.

Patricia Highsmith's debut novel features the flaws typical of a rookie scribe: too long, too infatuated with its best idea. Still, her descriptions of the writhing compulsions that frazzle the soul are top-notch, and the thrill of immersion too potent for confusion.

Film rights sold for $7500, thanks to Hitchcock deliberately keeping his name out of negotiations. The master, somehow, thought even less of writers than he did of actors.

Hitchcock cast actors whose physical vibes told the character's story. Robert Walker's Bruno is a charm-belt of questionable elasticity. Farley Granger is similarly softened as Guy, a handsome husk. The homosexual subtext is unmissable in the novel, although it's hard to fathom Bruno loving a man besides himself. He presents himself to Guy as a partner, a teammate. He is, in truth, an avaricious ham hungry for an audience. Intriguing as the baser lusts are, the text massages muscles far knottier than sexual identity--good and evil, obsession bred from depression, and peculiar concepts of justice. Perhaps Hitch felt he'd blown his bubble with Rope three years prior....

Raymond Chandler's name appears in the final credits at the behest of Warner Bros., mindful of crucial cachet. None of the mystery maven's work made the final screenplay, however, thanks to repeated conflicts with Hitchcock. Part of Chandler's beef concerned the big man's insistence on the amazing shot at the expense of the story. But the visuals, Ray, the visuals! My oh my, The Master had an eye. There is legitimately no way greater the death of Guy's wife Miriam could have been filmed. 

Viewers who wonder why there's no safety lever on the merry-go-round would do better to wonder why Guy just didn't call Bruno's bluff and call the cops.

I could argue any black-and-white adaptation is down a strike when the novel contains descriptions like "offensively orange."

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Alfred Hitchcock had forty films on his resume by the time he began shooting Strangers On A Train; Patricia Highsmith, again, was just starting out as a writer. So it stands to reason the old boy held the book in no higher regard than absolutely necessary. Given that he told Crenzi Ormonde to forget about the book when she first came onto the project, perhaps it's more accurate to say he held it in no regard whatsoever. Telling a tale of man's unerring knack for self-destruction interested the maestro little. As such, he makes a huge change--Guy does not honor his end of the bargain.

That single alteration tips the scales. Never mind career changes or name changes, the film changed the man into a Nice Guy, literally. Book Guy Haines is a murderer, a slave to his writhing compulsions, and even if the novel is overlong by 80-ish pages, Highsmith's psychological insights indicate an incipient titan. Ultimately I prefer her version, although Hitch's ending is superior, since it relies not on coincidence but on the threat of catastrophe. Had it adhered closer to the original story structure and character, I may have preferred the film.