Why Strangers on a Train is a mas­ter­piece of sus­pense­ful storytelling

In the lat­est Oscar Isaac vehi­cle, Mojave, direc­tor William Mon­aghan recy­cles the famil­iar tale of one man’s seem­ing­ly chance encounter with a men­ac­ing stranger – a trope that was per­fect­ed more than six decades ago by Alfred Hitch­cock in his 1951 mas­ter­piece Strangers on a Train.

An arche­typ­al sto­ry that sees the pro­tag­o­nist pur­sued and tor­ment­ed until a final and vio­lent con­fronta­tion is reached, Strangers on a Train is a per­fect exam­ple of the three act struc­ture of set­up, con­flict and res­o­lu­tion. The plot con­cerns a meet­ing and intro­duc­to­ry con­ver­sa­tion, a dis­agree­ment over the per­ceived arrange­ment and a final con­fronta­tion. Hitch­cock treats the sto­ry as a three-stage dance of death between the pro­tag­o­nist, Guy (Far­ley Granger), and the antag­o­nis­tic, Bruno (Robert Walk­er).

While the train car­riage set­ting is a con­ve­nient meet­ing place for two strangers, it also allows Hitch­cock to incor­po­rate the recur­ring motif of criss­cross­ing train tracks, mir­ror­ing the paths of his two char­ac­ters. Unlike the dia­logue-heavy open­ing of Mojave, the care­ful­ly paced ear­ly scenes in Strangers on a Train present an omi­nous encounter that imme­di­ate­ly invests us in the sto­ry. From the out­set, Hitch­cock estab­lish­es how the hos­tile stranger preys on and then feeds off the per­son­al tragedy of Guy’s fail­ing mar­riage. A moral­i­ty tale is con­struct­ed in which the stranger attempts to lure the pro­tag­o­nist into cross­ing a moral line, Bruno’s mis­per­cep­tion of Guy’s agree­ment set­ting up a won­der­ful­ly twist­ed tale of coerc­ing and entrapment.

If the film is a dance of death, then the par­ty scene is a inte­gral move­ment in the sec­ond act (although the scene fea­tures no actu­al danc­ing). Here, Hitch­cock demon­strates the impor­tance of the two char­ac­ters’ prox­im­i­ty to one anoth­er, expand­ing on the premise of a dance to reveal its dual nature as a game also. It serves as a reminder to both the pro­tag­o­nist and the view­er – by now com­plete­ly immersed in this sus­pense­ful tale – that he’s liv­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly, with the sto­ry build­ing towards a dan­ger­ous showdown.

The fate­ful meet­ing on the train cul­mi­nates with a crash on a carousel. In order to thwart Bruno’s attempt to use the lighter to frame him by plant­i­ng it at the crime scene in the fair ground, Guy races to com­plete his ten­nis match. Hitch­cock inter­cuts between the sequences of the two men set­ting about their respec­tive tasks, adding a sense of games­man­ship to the dynam­ic. The self-aware nature of the dance-like par­ty scene is con­tin­ued when Bruno drops the lighter down a storm drain, delay­ing his devi­ous scheme. It’s a play­ful moment that adds even more sus­pense to this thrilling dra­ma. In the end, as fate excus­es Guy from being the one to mor­tal­ly wound Bruno – just as it seem­ing­ly brought the two men togeth­er – it’s Hitchcock’s bril­liant use of mis­chief and mis­di­rec­tion that makes Strangers on a Train one of his most mem­o­rable films.