Crisscross! Crisscross!

Title: Strangers On A Train

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book and then seen its film adaption nearly simultaneously. As I was wrapping up Highsmith’s novel, I decided to give Hitchcock’s film a shot.

I’d done it once before with a Hitchcock adaption. Specifically, I read the novel, Hitchcock’s version, and Von Sant’s version of Psycho (posted here). One thing that I found interesting was how closely Hitchcock’s film hued to the novel. I was curious to see if it’d be the same here.

The film and the novel start off similarly. Two men bump into each on a train. Our protagonist is Guy Haines. In the novel he’s an up and coming soon to be famous architect. In the film, he’s a tennis player. On the train, he meets Bruno Antony. Antony is a dissolute, alcoholic, ne’er-do-well of wealthy parents.

They fall into conversation. We learn that Guy is on his way to meet his hopefully soon to be ex-wife, now pregnant by another man, to arrange a divorce so that he can marry his true love. We also learn that Bruno hates his stepfather (in the film it’s actually his father).

As the conversation progresses and the two men become drunker, Bruno confides that he has thought of the perfect way to commit murder. Two people accidentally meet on the train. They both want someone dead. The idea is that each would kill the other person’s victim while that person has an airtight alibi. They would never see each again. Since there is no way to connect the murderer to the victim, there would be no way to solve the crime.

Guy, not wishing to be impolite, kind of just laughs it off and leaves Bruno. A short while later, much to Guy’s shock and dismay, Bruno murders Guy’s wife. Now having done his part of the crime, Bruno begins to pressure Guy to kill his father. Despite the basic premise that there should be no connection between the two, Bruno increasingly inserts himself into Guy’s life to pressure him into the murder.

Will Guy bend to the pressure? Will Bruno through his carelessness expose them both? Will they both get away with murder?

Up to that point, everything is broadly consistent between the film and the novel. Beyond that, they take dramatically different turns.

In Highsmith’s novel, Guy is very high strung. Wanting to turn Bruno into the police but knowing that he’d probably get implicated himself, he dithers. Bruno pressures him to the point that he feels that he has no choice. One night, he sneaks into Bruno’s parents’ mansion and he kills the father. Now consumed by the guilt of the murder, he becomes even more high strung. Believing that there is now some inextricable bond between them, Bruno cannot leave Guy alone. A detective is on both of their scent. Bruno falls overboard a boat. Despite Guy nearly dying himself in his attempt to rescue him, Bruno dies. Even though the secret truly is now safe, Guy feels the compulsion to confess to the man who impregnated his wife. The man doesn’t even pretend to care. However, his confession is overheard by the detective. At the end of the novel, Guy is led away by the police, seemingly relieved to finally be free of his burden of guilt.

Nothing even close to that occurs in Hitchcock’s film. Bruno does pressure Guy to kill his father, but Guy doesn’t even give a hint of actually going through with it. His only concern is the scandal that might come out (his love is the daughter of a US senator) if Bruno is uncovered. Guy even unsuccessfully goes to Bruno’s father to warn him. Bruno, now convinced that Guy will never kill his dad, decides to implicate him in the murder of his wife by leaving evidence behind at the scene. Meeting at a carnival, the two violently struggle on a carousel that is spinning out of control. When the fight is over, Bruno is dead and the incriminating evidence is found on his body, thus clearing Guy. Guy can now return to his storybook life of tennis and imminent marriage to the senator’s daughter.

As you can see, the two unfold quite differently. Highsmith’s novel is much more of a psychological study exploring the alcoholic madness of Bruno and the agitated susceptibility of Guy. In fact, as Guy was experiencing all of his anguish, I couldn’t help but think of Raskilnokov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Raskilnokov and Guy are both high strung geniuses whose minds end up tormenting them. They both can only find relief in confessing their sins. The actual act of murder was used to bring out the psychological disorders of both men.

Hitchcock, on the other hand, was all about the plot. At about an hour and forty minutes, the film moves along briskly. Guy experiences no apparent internal conflict. Guy is presented purely as a victim in Bruno’s web. Bruno is your basic psychopath. While the novel ends with a quiet confession, the film ends with a very dramatic fight to the end on a runaway carousel.

There is a homoerotic component to both. Although much clearer in the novel, there remain traces of Bruno’s unrequited love of Guy in the film. From the novel, it is clear that Bruno is obsessed with Guy.

In the novel, Bruno has a neurotic relationship with his domineering, sexually promiscuous mother. You also see a trace of that in the film. As I just mentioned in my last post about The Manchurian Candidate, overbearing mothers and their impact upon their sons seems to be a well used trope during this time.

There is one scene in the film that I found to be unintentionally hilarious. At the carnival, the police still suspect that Guy is the killer. They spot him and give chase. He runs into a crowd getting onto the carousel. Without even a thought, a policeman pretty much just randomly shoots into the crowd full of people. His shot hits and kills the carny running the carousel, causing it to run amok. Firing his gun in this manner is just a reckless ridiculous act.

So, which did I prefer? I guess that I was in the mood for a straightforward thriller. I found myself more entertained by the film than the novel. There was just a little too much anguished, troubled navel gazing taking place in the novel for my liking.