1 win
&
3 nominations
Director Cameo: [Alfred Hitchcock] early in the film boarding a train carrying a double bass fiddle as Guy gets off the train (see also his cameo in The Paradine Case (1947)).
Alfred Hitchcock bought the rights to the original novel anonymously to keep the price down, and got them for just $7,500.
Raymond Chandler is credited as the main author of the script, but it was almost completely written by Czenzi Ormonde who was credited as second author.
The stunt where the man crawled under the carousel was not done with trick photography. Alfred Hitchcock claimed that this was the most dangerous stunt ever performed under his direction, and would never allow it to be done again.
Raymond Chandler's version of the script ended with Bruno Antony being arrested and institutionalized, with the final image being the villain writhing in a straight jacket.
In the scene where Bruno searches for the cigarette lighter in the drain, Alfred Hitchcock personally selected the items of rubbish that lie on the floor.
The American version ends with Guy Haines and Anne Morton in the train back to Washington being interrupted by a minister who asks Guy if he is the famous tennis star. The British version omits this scene.
Alfred Hitchcock originally wanted William Holden to play the part of Guy Haines.
Raymond Chandler seems to have gone out of his way to behave disagreeably to Alfred Hitchcock. When Hitchcock arrived at Chandler's home for a story meeting, Chandler hollered from his window, "Look at the fat bastard trying to get out of his car!"
The train station scenes in Metcalf were filmed at the former New Haven Railroad station, Danbury, Connecticut, which is today the home of the Danbury Railroad Museum.
This was the last full feature for Robert Walker who died eight months after filming finished from an allergic reaction to a drug.
The character of Bruno was named after Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the convicted kidnapper/killer of the Lindbergh baby.
When the movie was released in Germany in 1952, about five minutes were removed which were considered too brutal or sadistic. Later the scenes were re-added for TV, but they are subtitled, while the rest of the movie is dubbed.
As Guy leaves the last match, part of a quotation clearly including the words "two impostors" is visible on the beam above his head. It is from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If." The line reads "If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same..."
Film debut of Marion Lorne.
[first lines]
Bruno Anthony:
I beg your pardon, but aren't you Guy Haines?
Barbara Morton:
I still think it would be wonderful to have a man love you so much he'd kill for you.
Bruno Anthony:
How do you do, sir? I, uh, I'd like to talk with you sometime, sir, and tell you about my idea for harnassing the life force. It'll make atomic power look like a horse and buggy. I'm already developing my faculty for seeing _millions_ of miles. And Senator, can you imagine being able to smell a flower... on the planet Mars? I'd like to, uh, have lunch with you someday soon, Sir, and tell you more about it.
Senator Morton:
Poor unfortunate girl.
Barbara Morton:
She was a tramp.
Senator Morton:
She was a human being. Let me remind you that even the most unworthy of us has a right to life and the pursuit of happiness.
Barbara Morton:
From what I hear she pursued it in all directions.
Bruno Anthony:
Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you, Mr. Haines. It might disturb Mother.
Bruno:
My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer.
Barbara Morton:
Oh, Daddy doesn't mind a little scandal. He's a senator.
Bruno Anthony:
I have a theory that you should do everything before you die.
Guy Haines:
I may be old-fashioned, but I thought murder was against the law.
Bruno Anthony:
Everyone has somebody that they want to put out of the way. Oh now, surely Madam, you're not going to tell me that there hasn't been a time that you didn't want to dispose of someone. Your husband, for instance.
Senator Morton:
You had no trouble, of course, with the police once they verified your alibi?
Guy Haines:
When an alibi is full of bourbon, sir, it can't stand up.
Guy Haines:
It's pretty late to start flirting with a discarded husband.
Senator Morton:
I'll have him called up immediately.
Barbara Morton:
Obstructing the wheels of justice, Daddy?
Guy Haines:
Doesn't that bloodhound ever relax? He sticks so close he's beginning to grow on me... like a fungus.
Bruno:
I have the perfect weapon right here: these.two. hands.
Bruno Anthony:
Criss-cross.
Bruno Anthony:
When's the wedding?
Guy Haines:
The what?
Bruno Anthony:
The wedding. It's in the papers.
Guy Haines:
Well it shouldn't be. Not unless they legalised bigamy overnight.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs: There are two tennis balls on the court when Guy is warming up, but they are gone when the game starts.
Continuity: When Guy is on the train returning to Metcalf (after the tennis match) you can see over his shoulder that the sun has almost completely set - but the next scene shows Bruno (in line to go back to the island) looking up to see the full sun in the sky.
Continuity: When Guy is in Bruno's house, the beam of the flashlight is not consistent between the shot of Guy looking at the map, and the upward shot of Guy looking around to get his bearings.
Continuity: When Miriam's glasses drop to the ground as Bruno strangles her, they land softly on the grass and don't break. However after the struggle, when he reaches down to pick them up they are seen to be cracked in one of the lenses.
Continuity: During the initial conversation on the train, Bruno's cigarette vanishes from his mouth mid-sentence.
Continuity: Tennis match played before the end of the movie is clearly put together from 2 different games - you can see those are different tennis courts and also stadiums.
Continuity: When Bruno is kicking Guy on the merry-go-round, he is not holding the cigarette lighter, but when he dies, he has it in his hand.
Continuity: In Bruno's house, the dog on the top of the stairs has stiff ears. That one which licks the Guy's hand in close-up, differently, has flexible ears.
Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After he leaves, the "cigarette lighter" falls in the drain, Bruno twice says to the people who draw near him that his "cigarette case" fell in the drain.
Continuity: As Bruno approaches the fairground, following Miriam, the position of his hands changes between shots, from clasped behind his back, to lighting a cigarette.
Crew or equipment visible: A crew member is reflected in the car door when the two detectives get out of the car at the station they have chased Guy to.
Continuity: The hand that grasps the cigarette lighter in the drain has shorter fingernails than Bruno's hand, as is evident when Bruno's hand is opened in the final fairground scene.
Errors in geography: When Bruno takes a taxi from the Anthony house in Arlington, Virginia, to travel to Union Station in Washington, the taxi crosses a bridge over the Potomac River, which separates Virginia and Washington, D.C. The taxi is crossing the bridge in the wrong direction, because the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument (located in D.C.) are shown through the rear window of the taxi.
Version of
Once You Kiss a Stranger... (1969)
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
Remade as
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
- This film was a comedic remake of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train.
Strange Curves (1988)
Once You Meet a Stranger (1996) (TV)
Strangers on a Train (2008)
Referenced in
The Last House on the Left (1972)
Blood Simple. (1984)
- cigarette lighter left/placed at crime scene
The McGuffin (1986)
Innerspace (1987)
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
Rorret (1988)
- The amusement park strangulation and carousel scenes are remade.
Bad Influence (1990)
The Crush (1993)
Accidental Meeting (1994) (TV)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
The Net (1995)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Appartement, L' (1996)
- In both flicks a man drops an item (lighter vs key) into a drain where it rests on a projection. Both man struggle hard to fish it out while the sequence cuts back and forth to another sub-plot.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
"Law & Order: Disappeared (#8.19)" (1998)
- A character mentions the film by name, and a rented videotape of the film appears in the episode
The Revengers' Comedies (1998)
"Liten film, En" (1999) (mini)
Harry un ami qui veut du bien (2000)
The Believer (2001)
'Topaz': An Appreciation by Film Critic/Historian Leonard Maltin (2001) (V)
- mentioned once
AFI's 100 Years, 100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies (2001) (TV)
Jurassic Park III (2001)
- The Tea Leoni character mentions taking a trip to the moon, similar to how Bruno does in Strangers on a Train
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
"Bulle von Tölz, Der: Mörder unter sich (#1.34)" (2002)
- video cassette
Soch (2002)
Chalo Ishq Ladaaye (2002)
"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: A Night at the Movies (#3.19)" (2003)
- Grissom and Willows discuss the plot of Strangers on a Train
"Law & Order: C.O.D. (#14.24)" (2004)
- A character in this episode (Arthur Branch) mentions the film
Hitchcock and 'Stage Fright' (2004) (V)
- mentioned once
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
- The scene where Polly's camera falls into a draining grate is nearly shot-for-shot remade from the scene where Bruno Antony drops a lighter under a drainage grate.
Ti piace Hitchcock? (2005)
- movie is mentioned several times and plot elements are similar
"Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Bedfellows (#6.5)" (2006)
- DVD box shown.
Featured in
Terror in the Aisles (1984)
Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
Innocent Blood (1992)
Hitchcock: Shadow of a Genius (1999) (TV)
Liberty Heights (1999)
AFI's 100 Years, 100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies (2001) (TV)
'Strangers on a Train': A Hitchcock Classic (2004) (V)
- clips shown
Strangers on a Train: The Victim's P.O.V. (2004) (V)
- This is a documentary documenting co-star Kasey Rogers' experiences filming "Strangers on a Train"
The Hitchcocks on Hitch (2004) (V)
- extracts from Hitchcock's movie are featured
Spoofed in
Stealing Harvard (2002)
- When they break into the house
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
- As Gromit is held down over wing of the plane by the other dog, it is very similar to the carousel fight at the finale of "Stranger on a Train"