Essay Ally

Bruno Must Die: Abnormal Sexuality in Strangers on a Train

Classic Hollywood Cinema of the fifties provides an endless stream of cardboard characters. These movies seldom deviate from the model of what is seen as appropriately gendered roles; clean-shaven men in suits, and attractive subservient women in modest skirts and blouses. Even Alfred Hitchcock, seen as an innovator in horror films, seldom strays from these archetypes. But one of his classics, Strangers on a Train, goes a step further to endorse these stereotypes and creates two deviant characters that are punished for their abnormal sexuality.

Strangers on a Train is a classic Hollywood thriller in its linear plot, conflict, heroism, and happy conclusion. But even with a pleasant ending for the hero, Guy Haines (Farley Granger), and his girlfriend, Anne Morton (Ruth Roman), two violent deaths take place. In order to reconcile these plot devices, Hitchcock makes the dying characters unlikable and worthy of murder/death. Miriam Joyce Haines (Kasey Rogers) and Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) are atypical of the fifties and show undesirable traits for men and women of their era. Accordingly, they must die.

Bruno comes up with the scheme for the criss-cross murder of his father and Guy’s wife and tries to rope Guy into his plan. But while the murder plot is interesting, the subplot interaction of Bruno with his mother is more important for understanding why Bruno must die. In one scene Bruno is seen sitting in a flamboyantly patterned silk bathrobe getting a manicure from his mother. When his mother says to him “I hope you haven’t been doing anything foolish,” he buries his head in her hand in a move so sensual it causes some audience members to stir in discomfort. We recognize now why Bruno wishes his father dead; he suffers quite obviously from an oedipal conflict. While Freud recognizes this conflict to exist in all men, Bruno lacks the self-control to contain his desires. His added feminine mannerisms, hand-gestures, colorful bathrobes, and manicures, make him an aberration that must be dealt with in the harshest of manners. The audience is led to despise him out of disgust for his unnatural ways and celebrate his death at the end of the movie.

A more subtly deviant and less likable character exists in Miriam. Before her murder there is one scene which explains to the audience why Miriam deserves death. Her husband visits her at work to discuss the divorce she has been requesting for the past year. The audience learns she is pregnant with another man’s baby. They must despise her immediately for being promiscuous. As she is studied, all negative stereotypes of her gender are observed; she is fickle, greedy, and manipulative. Miriam states that she no longer wants a divorce; she says with a slight grin “woman’s privilege to change her mind.” She asks for money and then prepares to manipulate Guy with her pregnancy, playing up the sympathy she knows she will receive for being a mother. Her undesirable female qualities are matched by a physical nature too masculine to be appreciated. She has a low voice, pulled back hair, a loose blouse, slouching posture, and crossed arms. She averts her eyes not in an act of submission, but in an act of rebellion. Her thick glasses and far-off gaze do not let the audience penetrate her vision in an act of dominance. She plays the role of a typical man from her era and gives Guy the ultimatums. Because of her negative feminine traits and her plethora of masculine ones, Miriam receives no sympathy for her murder.

Hitchcock, a master of murder, is also a master at manipulating his audience by playing on their own pre-conceived notions of gender. He uses these simple stereotypes to make characters good or bad in the eyes of the audience. More disturbingly, Hitchcock shows the potential for danger to those who attempt to defy social convention.