Strangers on a Train When

Strangers on a Train

When writers create a story or movie script, they don't start off with an underlying "theme" in mind. After the first writing, as they read it over, a theme -- or the kernel of a theme -- emerges, that is, something the writer (or director) wants to say about the human condition via the story. At that point the writer goes back and finds all the places in the story where words or images can be inserted to strengthen the theme and send the message without actually saying it.

Because the theme is not stated openly, it is up to the reader or viewer to look for the clues that have been added. In Strangers on a Train, clues to the theme can be found in Alfred Hitchcock's frequent use of double images. The double images, strategically placed, signify the duality and polarities present in human life -- good and evil, calm and chaos, law-abiders and criminals, faithful and faithless, to name a few. Whenever a double image is shown in the film, it signals that the viewer is about to see an enactment of opposites in the characters of the story, which are not necessarily visible physically, but often indicative of the character's internal qualities. In this essay we will explore the meaning of the double images on three levels: as symbols and foreshadows, as representations of the protagonist's inner thoughts and feelings, and as dream metaphors.

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train is a thriller about two men who meet on the train. Their feet coming from taxicabs are the first set of doubles shown in the film. Guy Hanes wears conservative black, polished shoes, which signify that Guy is all one kind of person -- decent and law-abiding. Bruno Antony wears "spectator" shoes -- that is, black and white -- also highly polished -- but Bruno's shoes have a "flashy" quality, signifying instability, and the two colors signal a character that is not all good. Guy is a well-known tennis player, and Bruno is a rich playboy who does not work. As the two men lunch together, he suggests that he and Guy "exchange" murders and explains, "My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer."

Talking about his father, Bruno says, "I get so sore at him sometimes, I want to kill him!" Guy wants to get rid of his wife Miriam so he can marry Ann Morton, while Bruno wants to get rid of his father. Bruno thinks they will never be caught because they have no connection the police can trace to one another or to the victims.

Guy has a matched set of suitcases with him and matched tennis rackets, Bruno has nothing, implying that Guy has something in his character that Bruno is missing. We learn shortly, as Bruno points out, that Guy "does something" but Bruno does no work. Bruno refuses to work because his father is rich. He claims that his father hates him. He got kicked out of school for drinking and gambling. Thus, Guy's suitcases and tennis rackets signify that he has work, relationships, and responsibilities while Bruno does not.

When Bruno suggests that they each have someone to get rid of -- he his father and Guy his wife -- and that they should "exchange murders," Guy doesn't take him seriously. He thinks Bruno is eccentric. As Guy gets off the train, he laughingly says he agrees with everything Bruno suggests. Guy leaves his unique cigarette lighter behind on the train, possibly because he is so anxious to escape from the odd, obnoxious, and overbearing Bruno. The lighter has embossed "double" tennis rackets crossing each other and the inscription "A to G." The image suggests that doubles are a metaphor for double-crossing. Miriam double-crosses Guy, for example, when she takes his money and refuses to go through with the divorce, saddling him with a child that is not his and threatening to make a scandal. Bruno keeps the unique lighter and murders Miriam, then demands that Guy return the favor by murdering his (Bruno's) father. From Bruno's point-of-view, Guy double-crosses him when he refuses to kill.

The film is full of riveting scenes and interesting characters with lots of suspense at the end. Double images appear frequently. The opening scene, for example, shows identical pairs of railroad tracks that imply the different paths people can take in life. Bruno orders double scotch-and-sodas on the train, and Hitchcock in his cameo appearance carries a double bass viol -- a shape that doubles his own body shape. The characters have doubles too. Guy's double is Bruno -- like an alter ego -- the dark side of the good man. Miriam has two doubles -- Babs, young and innocent and Ann, the faithful, good woman. The two detectives look like twins from a distance. They are dressed exactly alike, but one is friendly while the other is cynical.

In the train when Bruno suggests that each of them should commit a murder for the other, Hitchcock uses pairs of shadows to emphasize good and evil. Guy's face is shown in plain light, but Bruno's face has slats of light -- in pairs at times -- crossing his face with dark shadows. Wood slats on the wall behind Bruno also signify that something is wrong with him, that he is evil and sick. The message is further strengthened by the fact he is wearing a striped suit. Guy's, of course, is plain and solid, good wool.

Similarly, Miriam (the wife that Guy has learned to hate) is shown with many slatted wood pairs behind her like thin bars, signifying that she is a bad woman -- greedy, manipulative, conniving, malicious, and unfaithful (Babs, Ann's younger sister, tells us Miriam is a "tramp"). In contrast, Ann -- the senator's daughter whom Guy is in love with -- is a good woman and is shown against plain backgrounds in full light without shadows or slats or vertical bars of light. Miriam, on the other hand, goes to a "sordid" place at night with two men -- another double -- but we never really see who the two men are. We know by their behavior in the Tunnel of Love, however, that they are out for what they can get and that they don't treat Miriam in a respectful manner. Obviously, they know she is a "loose" woman, in today's language a slut.

As Bruno follows her into the park a child says "Bang-bang" (an audible double) to him and points a toy gun at him. Bruno responds by purposely exploding the child's balloon with his lighted cigar. it's a sign of the violence to come and a comment on Bruno's character. We also see double dark shadows shaped like daggers aimed at Miriam's boat. The murderer is following her in an identical boat (another double), of course.

When Bruno kills Miriam, we see the murder happen in a devastating double reflection on both lenses of her glasses. This is the most compelling double image in the film. After Bruno murders Miriam, he leaves the park and as though the murder he just committed had no ethical dimension whatever, he kindly helps a blind man to cross the street. The two men form a double as they walk together, arms linked; one man is innocent, knows nothing, and literally sees no evil while the other man (Bruno) is guilty, has just committed a malicious murder, and has embraced the essence of evil. In a sense Bruno is blinder than the blind man because he has lost his ability to see and experience what is good in the world. He is morally blind.

Afterwards, when Bruno comes to see Guy at his house and informs him that he has murdered Miriam, Hitchcock shows us a pair of identical wrought iron gate posts in the yard that frame Bruno as he talks about the crime. As the conversation progresses, the bars are there between the two men, like a barrier between them similar to prison bars and a jailhouse door. The viewer sees two bars framing Bruno's face, as though he was in jail already, which strengthens the idea that he is a criminal and needs to be contained. Guy, meanwhile, receives the news that his wife is dead with double feelings. On one hand he is relieved because now he is free, but on the other hand he is terrified that he will be blamed. After this, Bruno stalks Guy, insisting that Guy fulfill his end of the bargain and kill his father.

Hitchcock also uses images of both hands of the two men to show differences in their characters. For example, in an early scene after Bruno's doting mother manicures his fingernails, we see Bruno's hands being flexed suggestively as though he were making them ready to strangle someone. Late in the film, in contrast, we see Guy's two hands when he checks his watch for the time. There is a row of bright, round brass buttons on each of his identical sleeves. In contrast to vertical slats and bars that signify guilt, round signifies innocence in this film (as in the double, round collars that Babs wears), plus, Hitchcock uses light to make Guy's wrist buttons shine brightly. We know by this that Guy's hands are good. They are not the hands of a murderer. He is the innocent man, wrongfully accused and working to clear himself.

At a party at Senator Morton's house, during a discussion about murder, Bruno coaxes Mrs. Cunningham, an older woman, to allow him to put his hands around her throat. She is foolishly flattered by his attention and actually lets him. Ann's younger sister Babs happens to come near and when Bruno sees her, we see Babs through Bruno's eyes. She wears glasses like Miriam did (double lenses) and in the lenses of her glasses two flames appear -- the flame of the cigarette lighter, doubled. It is the second most powerful of all the doubles in the film. Bruno nearly kills Mrs. Cunningham; she is frightened out of her wits. We know that Bruno is truly psychopathic and that he is re-experiencing strangling Miriam (having a flash-back) as he looks at Babs and the double flames in her glasses. The scene also suggests he enjoyed killing Miriam. Babs looks something like Miriam did and represents Miriam's double. But Babs is only about 16 years old and innocent. This double image also makes the viewer afraid for Babs' safety! We see that Bruno is very capable of killing again, and something violent is definitely going to happen soon.

The doubles often come in the form of stripes and bars. There are bars, for example, on the billboard entering the amusement park, dark pillars at the tennis courts, stripes on the awning behind the game, woodwork in Bruno's house and in the senator's, spokes in the banister on the stairway at Bruno's, the stairs on the map Bruno drew, and double banks of narrow window panes in silhouette. During the night scene at Bruno's house, when Guy goes to talk to Bruno's father, viewers are bombarded with images of stripes and bars. This implies there is something prison-like about Bruno's home -- his father concerned but his mother in denial -- that the whole atmosphere of the home has produced a criminal. Guy and Ann wear stripes, too, but theirs are cheerful -- Ann's tucked dress, for example, Guy's striped tie, striped pajamas, and striped tennis sweaters. Cheerful stripes signify their law-abiding natures. Bruno's stripes are always dark and shadowy signifying his criminal character.

Once he finally realizes that Guy is not going to keep his end of the bargain (and kill Bruno's father for him), Bruno goes back to the amusement park. He intends to leave Guy's cigarette lighter there and "frame" him for the murder of Miriam. When Guy enters the amusement park to interrupt Bruno's plan to plant evidence at the crime scene, we know there will be a confrontation between the two men because we see two young children with their mother in the middle, each child carrying a helium balloon. Because balloons are the playthings of children, and in the image they are flying high (like hope), we can interpret the message that good will triumph over evil in the final confrontation, and Guy's innocence will soon be revealed. The balloons also represent Guy's hope that he will prevail.

Earlier, Bruno accidentally dropped Guy's lighter down a sewer grating at the park. Three men come and cheer him on as he makes efforts to get it out. As Bruno reaches down the drain to retrieve it, we see in several suspenseful shots the lighter lying there with Bruno's hand trying to reach it -- and also a rectangle, similar in size and shape to the lighter itself, in the left foreground at an angle. Unlike the shining double-image balloons, however, this double (dwelling in the storm drain), is rather murky and weak in color -- perhaps signifying that evil is really weak and cannot ultimately prevail.

Another disturbing double image is the horses' feet on the merry-go-round coming down over and over again as Bruno and Guy struggle with each other in the wild out-of-control merry-go-round scene. In the struggle between good and evil, the horses' feet seem more evil than good as Bruno tries to kill Guy. That Guy is good and that this is a struggle between good and evil is also strengthened when Guy stops defending himself against Bruno and saves a child whom Bruno knocked off the horse and placed in danger of falling into the machinery of the merry-go-round. The chaos of the whirling merry-go-round and the people screaming in terror and pain echoes the depth of the life-and-death struggle between Guy and Bruno. When the merry-go-round finally stops, Bruno is crushed under the machinery. As he lies dying, unrepentant and still a liar, his head is momentarily shown between double vertical slats or bars, (boards on the floor of the merry-go-round?) one on each side very close like prison bars, signifying that justice has come and crime has been brought under control.