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Strangers on a Train is plainly visible early on in the low angle on the swing ride, carnivals are made of such dizzy-sinister spirals. The sideshow pugilist (Carl Brisson) is nicknamed "One Round" for his victories over paying challengers, he meets his match as the Australian heavyweight champion (Ian Hunter) drops by and steps up, from the box office his fiancée (Lillian Hall-Davis) watches the spectacle through a rectangular flap in the tent. The form is a romantic triangle inside a quizzical circle, the perpetual instability of relationships—Alfred Hitchcock gives it a Germanic veneer and a striking welter of symbols, broad and subtle. Superimposed images state thought, funhouse mirrors give visions warped by drink and jealousy. Rolls of tickets, tell-tale bracelets and baubles, the record player at the soiree, the prizefighter's arena, a certain recurring shape. At the wedding a little joke for Tod Browning (conjoined twins arguing over which side to sit on), flappers in one party and stagnant champagne in the other (plus an early appearance by the Rope set). "I'd be training for a divorce if I left her there!" Hitchcock photographs the climactic bout from a high vantage point for a geometric snapshot of the bloodlusting audience outside the ropes, then up close for the visual jolt of pale torsos slamming against a dark background. Bergman in Sawdust and Tinsel borrows the rapid dolly into the wife's face right before the punch, the hero's mouth mauled by an uppercut is not lost on De Palma (The Black Dahlia). The camera's eye is literally knocked out, the heroine switches sides, lives are saved or destroyed, just another day at the fair. With Forrester Harvey, Harry Terry, and Gordon Harker. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |