Skip to main content

Movies - Strangers on a Train (1951)


My Views

  • Farley Granger is not a good actor
  • Log
    • 2025-Apr-18
    • 2022-Feb-23

Plot

Amateur tennis star Guy Haines wants to divorce his promiscuous wife, Miriam, so he can marry Anne Morton, the daughter of a US Senator. On a train, wealthy smooth-talking psychopath Bruno Antony recognizes Haines and reveals his idea for a murder scheme: two strangers meet and "swap murders"—Bruno suggests he kill Miriam and Guy kill Bruno's hated father. Each will murder a stranger, with no apparent motive, so neither will be suspected. Guy humors Bruno by pretending to find his idea amusing but is so eager to get away from Bruno that he leaves behind his engraved cigarette lighter.

Guy meets Miriam, who is pregnant by someone else, at her workplace in Metcalf, their hometown. Guy gives her the money she demanded to pay for a divorce lawyer, but Miriam tells him she is no longer interested in a divorce, and threatens to claim that he is the father if he pursues a divorce. That evening Bruno follows Miriam to an amusement park and strangles her while Guy is on the train to Washington, D.C. When Guy arrives home Bruno informs him Miriam is dead and insists that he must now honor their deal.

Guy goes to the Mortons' home, where Anne's father informs Guy that his wife has been murdered. Anne's sister, Barbara, says that the police will think that Guy is the murderer since he has a motive. The police question Guy but cannot confirm his alibi: a professor Guy met on the train was so drunk that he cannot remember their encounter. The police assign an escort to watch him.

Bruno follows Guy around Washington, introduces himself to Anne, and appears at a party at Senator Morton's house. To amuse another guest, Bruno playfully demonstrates how to strangle a woman. His gaze falls upon Barbara, whose appearance resembles Miriam's. This triggers a flashback: Bruno compulsively squeezes the woman's neck, and other guests intervene to stop him from strangling her to death. Barbara tells Anne that Bruno was looking at her while strangling the other woman, and Anne realizes Barbara's resemblance to Miriam. Her suspicions aroused, Anne confronts Guy, who tells her the truth about Bruno's scheme.

Bruno sends Guy a package containing a pistol, a house key, and a map showing the location of his father's bedroom. Guy creeps into Bruno's father's room to warn him of his son's murderous intentions but instead finds Bruno there waiting for him. Guy tries to persuade Bruno to seek psychiatric help, but Bruno threatens to punish Guy for breaking their deal.

Anne visits Bruno's home and tries to explain to his befuddled and besotted mother that her son is a murderer. Bruno mentions Guy's missing cigarette lighter to Anne and claims that Guy asked him to search the murder site for it. Guy infers that Bruno intends to plant it at the scene of the murder and incriminate him. After winning a tennis match helped by Barbara, Guy evades the police escort and heads for the amusement park to stop Bruno.

When Bruno arrives at the amusement park, a carnival worker recognizes him from the night of the murder; he informs the police, who think he has recognized Guy. After Guy arrives, he and Bruno fight on the park's carousel. Believing that Guy is trying to escape, a police officer shoots at him but instead kills the carousel operator, causing the carousel to spin out of control. A carnival worker crawls underneath it and applies the brakes too abruptly, causing the carousel to spin off its support, trapping the mortally injured Bruno underneath. The worker who called the police tells them that Bruno, not Guy, is the one he remembers seeing the night of the murder. As Bruno dies, his fingers unclench to reveal Guy's lighter in his hand. Realizing that Guy is not the murderer, the police ask him to come to the station to tie up loose ends.

Some time later, another stranger on a train attempts to strike up conversation with Guy in the same way as Bruno did. Guy and Anne abruptly hurry away from him.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Movie - The Wizard of Oz (1939)

  My views Plot In rural  Kansas ,  Dorothy Gale  lives on a farm owned by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, and wishes she could be somewhere else. Dorothy's neighbor, Almira Gulch, who had been bitten by Dorothy's dog, Toto, obtains a sheriff's order authorizing her to seize Toto. Toto escapes and returns to Dorothy, who runs away to protect him. Professor Marvel, a charlatan fortune-teller, convinces Dorothy that Em is heartbroken, which prompts Dorothy to return home. She returns just as a  tornado  approaches the farm. Unable to get into the locked storm cellar, Dorothy takes cover in the farmhouse and is knocked unconscious. She seemingly awakens to find the house moving through the air, with her and Toto still inside it. The house comes down in an unknown land, and Dorothy is greeted by a good witch named  Glinda , who floats down in a bubble and explains that Dorothy has landed in Munchkinland in the  Land of Oz , and that the Munchkins are cel...

Movie - Bastille Day | The Take (2016)

  My views Plot On the eve of  Bastille Day  in  Paris , American drifter and  pickpocket  Michael Mason steals a woman's handbag, not knowing that it contains  explosives . After taking the cash from the bag, he discards it, caught unwittingly on  CCTV  as he does so. The bag then detonates and kills four people. Upon being captured by  CIA  agent Sean Briar, who is being reprimanded for irresponsible conduct on the job, Mason protests that he is not a  terrorist  and tells Briar that the bag contained a cellphone owned by a woman named Zoé. The bomb was set up by a group of  corrupt policemen , all of them members in the  French special police RAPID unit  led by Rafi Bertrand, who intend to pull a robbery at the  Bank of France . Zoé was told to plant the bomb at the office of the  French Nationalist Party  (as part of a diversion for the heist), but after seeing the night cleaning crew arri...

Movie - The Gorge (2025)

  My views For 80 years everything was ok ... until they sent a woman For sure is DTV ... really bad Inside the gorge is clearly designed and written by a gamer Plot Two elite  snipers  receive identical missions: travel to an undisclosed location and guard the West and East sides of a deep gorge for one year without any contact with the outside world nor their counterpart on the opposite side. Levi Kane, a former  U.S. Marine  and current  private contractor  accepts the offer to guard the West tower. Drasa, a  Lithuanian  covert operative frequently employed by the  Kremlin , agrees to guard the East side. Upon arriving, Levi relieves his predecessor, J.D., a  British   Royal Marine  of duty and asks for specifics about the mission. J.D. explains that in addition to the towers on the East and West, there are automated turret defenses to the North and South, a powerful signal ‘ cloak ,’ and  explosives on the walls ...