![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Isn't it located in the Washington DC area? is the tournament famous?
Could anyone illuminate Chandler's role in this picture? The Raymond Chandler article says, rather tantalizingly: "Chandler also collaborated, somewhat disastrously, on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951)." But this article makes no mention of the disaster, nor does the Chandler article. Any takers? 69.113.93.125 03:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Isn't the title of the parodic film 'Snakes on a Plane' a mockery, in part, of this film's title? -- boiled_elephant 14:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so. Snakes on a Plane was just a basic working title that described the plot. Since it wasn't meant to be the real title, it probably wouldn't have been a parody of anything Dancemotron 20:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Image:Strangers on a train.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 04:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the Allmovie external link because it does not add anything to the article that would not exist if this article was a Featured Article. A film article ideally has a plot summary, a sampling of reviews, list of cast members, production credits, and a list of awards, if they were received. Other basic details also exist. Is Allmovie only being added because of the metadata available there? Erik ( talk) 14:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
(oudent) Yes... N... not RS. My bad... But sorry.. I suppose we're getting off-topic by dissecting my perhaps poor example.
It was commendable that you determined a way in Strangers on a Train to include Allmovie as a citation, thus ensuring readers could click the reflink and visit it themselves for further, non-included information on the film. Before I go through the 100+ others that were cleaned up, was this done for each as well? Were you able to find ways in all 100+ to include Allmovie as a citation, so that readers might then have the option for themselves to click off-site for more information from that RS? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 19:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
A "Story by" credit on a film is a strictly defined credit, per the WGA. Highsmith's byline on the novel is not the same as an official "story by" credit, so I removed it from the infobox. — HarringtonSmith ( talk) 03:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Harrington, if you want to research the film further (specifically finding print publications), I recommend using WorldCat.org's results and to explore the books in each year. WorldCat is nice because it lists the table of contents for a book, so for example, one can see that this 2006 book discusses Strangers on a Train. Keep up the good work on the article! Erik ( talk | contribs) 20:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Many references to this movie say convex, not concave. Convex would seem more likely for the wide-angle effect achieved and would have been much easier for Hitchcock to procure, since large concave mirrors are often used for seeing around corners and as rear-view mirrors on vehicles. ("Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.") The two words are often confused. Is there any authoritative description that describes the mirror's actual shape, that is, bulging or sunken in the middle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.53.195.38 ( talk) 19:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Was Strangers On a Train originally shot in 3-D, or were the filmmakers at least considering the idea? The entire carousel scene seems loaded with the type of imagery intended to make the most of the 3-D effect (Robert Walker kicking at the camera, the old man crawling under the spinning carousel, and so on.) It was released just before the golden era of 3-D began, so I'd imagine the idea might have been on the drawing board. -- RevWaldo ( talk) 03:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Is this the primary meaning? PatGallacher ( talk) 15:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I changed the heading "Alternate versions" to "Alternative versions". For people who think the two words mean the same thing, this shouldn't matter. And I don't think those who recognise the difference will complain. Machiajelly ( talk) 19:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
The plot summary was 950 words long. I have cut it down to about 750. Invertzoo ( talk) 19:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I think over-simplifying Hitchcock plots can leave out his noted suspense in climactic scenes (e.g. the entry for North By North West on Wikipedia is similar - where it is initially unclear if Martin Landau will assist or hinder as he slowly walks towards Cary Grant who dangles off Mount Rushmore - that isn't mentioned).
e.g. the carousel does not simply crash when the dead fairground worker falls onto the controls and it begins to whirl faster. This is what happens;
The (initial) fairground worker indeed falls onto the carousel control (a large lever) when shot dead by the police in error, and it causes the carousel to speed up. The police then attempt to jump onto it, to arrest the hero, but are all instantly thrown off by the resulting centrifugal force, and so are now helpless.
A second (elderly) fairground worker arrives, and says that he knows how to stop the out of control carousel (by crawling under the small gap between it and the ground to reach the control in the centre that way) - and he sets off. However (the Hitchcock suspense genre) he is elderly, so crawls very slowly.
Meanwhile, as the carousel spins out of control, the passengers scream etc (except a small boy who by contrast enjoys the quicker ride). Also, the hero and villain are now fighting on the carousel, with the villain trying to force the hero off the speeding ride.
The camera cuts between the fight and the slowly crawling fairground worker (who even pauses at one point to mop his brow with a hankerchief - surely Hitchcock trying to frustrate the audience with suspense further).
The small boy (misunderstanding the situation again) then becomes involved in the fight between the two men, seeing it as a way to increase his enjoyment further - his intervention unwittingly assists the villain (it distracts the hero and then forces him to move the child to a safer location on the ride) and as a result the hero's position on the ride seems to become unrecoverable as the villain begins to stamp on his gripping hands to make him let go and be thrown off at high speed.
Would everyone be happy if I nominated this article for GA status? -MagicatthemovieS
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Strangers on a Train (film). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
(1) The production company is listed as Transatlantic Pictures, but neither the Wiki article nor the IMDB entry list this picture.
(2) The section about the script contains
== Peter NYC ( talk) 04:20, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
This is a stunning and memorable bit of filmmaking, but the "double printing technique" is standard Matte (filmmaking), not even as technically challenging as in " Bringing up Baby", where in the end they had to hand paint Baby's leash on film because it could not be lined up with Cary Grant's hand. == Peter NYC ( talk) 06:19, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
A short story version appearred in one of Hitchcock's anthologies. Drsruli ( talk) 18:59, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
From McGilligan we get the claim that ""Highsmith's Bruno is a physically repugnant alcoholic... but in [Whitfield Cook's] hands, the film's Bruno became a dandy, a mama's boy who speaks French, and who professes ignorance of women." Besides my disagreement with McGilligan's "physically repugnant" on the novel's talk page, there's also the fact that novel Bruno is definitely a mama's boy, might well be a bit of a dandy, and whether he speaks French doesn't arise (although as he's supposed to be a Harvard dropout, I figure there's a solid chance he would have taken French in high school). He definitely doesn't profess ignorance of women in the novel, but given everything McGilligan gets wrong here, I don't know what to do with this statement other than to just cut it. Dingsuntil ( talk) 10:27, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
I've also decided to take out the claim from McGilligan that Cook "...softened Bruno from a coarse alcoholic into a dapper, charming mama's boy — a much more Hitchcockian villain." Film Bruno was a drunk, although maybe a bit less than Novel Bruno. Novel Bruno wasn't coarse, was charming, and IMO was actually a very Hitchcockian villain. I think McGilligan just isn't an RS for any claims about the novel, except indirectly. For example, he says (IMO believably) that Cook added way more homosexual subtext into the story than was present before. It's just that he doesn't realize that there wasn't any basis for saying there was any homosexual subtext in the novel to begin with (I don't think he really cares about the novel; he was writing a Hitchcock biography so it's not a big consideration). Thus we can use him as a source for the claim that Cook added a brand-new homosexual subtext to the story. Dingsuntil ( talk) 03:00, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
There are a lot of issues with it. I don't feel up to just fixing them all myself, so I'll just point them out and maybe somebody else will make good use of the info.
The bit "Robert L. Carringer has written of a political subtext to the film.[13] Treatment writer Cook used Guy to make the film "a parable quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America."[13]" is a kind of awkward way of saying that this is Carringer's point, and indeed McGilligan does attribute the phrase "quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America" (but not "a parable") to "in the words of film scholar Robert L. Carringer" except that those are not actually Carringer's words in the paper McGilligan refers to ( https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2001.116.2.370). The article also says "Carringer has argued that the film was crucially shaped by the Congressional inquiries" which is sourced to McGilligan and while McGilligan does say this, Carringer does not argue this in the paper. Carringer attributes this claim to Robert J. Corber in the "Hitchcock's Washington: Spectatorship, Ideology, and the 'Homosexual Menace'in Strangers on a Train", and Carringer's paper mainly argues that Corber actually went too far in many places with respect to how much the film was or could have been shaped by the inquiries. So when McGilligan talks about the relevance of the cold war probe into homosexuals and the senate-commissioned study, and says that Carringer said the film was shaped by "these Cold War events" he is attributing to Carringer the claims that were actually made by Corber and which Carringer attempted to refute. For example Carringer points out that most of this stuff was actually in secret executive sessions, and that at best Hitchcock might have seen some vague press reports to the effect that the senate is holding some kind of hearing about homos in the civil service or something, we're not really sure. Thus for Corbin to say that the senate study was an influence on the film was in Carringer's opinion "chimerical" (I assume he just misspelled "fucking stupid").
In any case I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that McGilligan is not a reliable source for ANYTHING, not just for the specifics of the original novel, and since the entire political subtext section (and half of the rest of the article) is sourced to him, I think it needs to be fixed. Or maybe just deleted entirely. I mean it could just all be "chimerical" as they say in the academic film criticism business. Dingsuntil ( talk) 07:23, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Isn't it located in the Washington DC area? is the tournament famous?
Could anyone illuminate Chandler's role in this picture? The Raymond Chandler article says, rather tantalizingly: "Chandler also collaborated, somewhat disastrously, on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951)." But this article makes no mention of the disaster, nor does the Chandler article. Any takers? 69.113.93.125 03:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Isn't the title of the parodic film 'Snakes on a Plane' a mockery, in part, of this film's title? -- boiled_elephant 14:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so. Snakes on a Plane was just a basic working title that described the plot. Since it wasn't meant to be the real title, it probably wouldn't have been a parody of anything Dancemotron 20:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Image:Strangers on a train.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 04:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the Allmovie external link because it does not add anything to the article that would not exist if this article was a Featured Article. A film article ideally has a plot summary, a sampling of reviews, list of cast members, production credits, and a list of awards, if they were received. Other basic details also exist. Is Allmovie only being added because of the metadata available there? Erik ( talk) 14:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
(oudent) Yes... N... not RS. My bad... But sorry.. I suppose we're getting off-topic by dissecting my perhaps poor example.
It was commendable that you determined a way in Strangers on a Train to include Allmovie as a citation, thus ensuring readers could click the reflink and visit it themselves for further, non-included information on the film. Before I go through the 100+ others that were cleaned up, was this done for each as well? Were you able to find ways in all 100+ to include Allmovie as a citation, so that readers might then have the option for themselves to click off-site for more information from that RS? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 19:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
A "Story by" credit on a film is a strictly defined credit, per the WGA. Highsmith's byline on the novel is not the same as an official "story by" credit, so I removed it from the infobox. — HarringtonSmith ( talk) 03:32, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Harrington, if you want to research the film further (specifically finding print publications), I recommend using WorldCat.org's results and to explore the books in each year. WorldCat is nice because it lists the table of contents for a book, so for example, one can see that this 2006 book discusses Strangers on a Train. Keep up the good work on the article! Erik ( talk | contribs) 20:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
Many references to this movie say convex, not concave. Convex would seem more likely for the wide-angle effect achieved and would have been much easier for Hitchcock to procure, since large concave mirrors are often used for seeing around corners and as rear-view mirrors on vehicles. ("Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.") The two words are often confused. Is there any authoritative description that describes the mirror's actual shape, that is, bulging or sunken in the middle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.53.195.38 ( talk) 19:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Was Strangers On a Train originally shot in 3-D, or were the filmmakers at least considering the idea? The entire carousel scene seems loaded with the type of imagery intended to make the most of the 3-D effect (Robert Walker kicking at the camera, the old man crawling under the spinning carousel, and so on.) It was released just before the golden era of 3-D began, so I'd imagine the idea might have been on the drawing board. -- RevWaldo ( talk) 03:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Is this the primary meaning? PatGallacher ( talk) 15:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
I changed the heading "Alternate versions" to "Alternative versions". For people who think the two words mean the same thing, this shouldn't matter. And I don't think those who recognise the difference will complain. Machiajelly ( talk) 19:19, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
The plot summary was 950 words long. I have cut it down to about 750. Invertzoo ( talk) 19:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
I think over-simplifying Hitchcock plots can leave out his noted suspense in climactic scenes (e.g. the entry for North By North West on Wikipedia is similar - where it is initially unclear if Martin Landau will assist or hinder as he slowly walks towards Cary Grant who dangles off Mount Rushmore - that isn't mentioned).
e.g. the carousel does not simply crash when the dead fairground worker falls onto the controls and it begins to whirl faster. This is what happens;
The (initial) fairground worker indeed falls onto the carousel control (a large lever) when shot dead by the police in error, and it causes the carousel to speed up. The police then attempt to jump onto it, to arrest the hero, but are all instantly thrown off by the resulting centrifugal force, and so are now helpless.
A second (elderly) fairground worker arrives, and says that he knows how to stop the out of control carousel (by crawling under the small gap between it and the ground to reach the control in the centre that way) - and he sets off. However (the Hitchcock suspense genre) he is elderly, so crawls very slowly.
Meanwhile, as the carousel spins out of control, the passengers scream etc (except a small boy who by contrast enjoys the quicker ride). Also, the hero and villain are now fighting on the carousel, with the villain trying to force the hero off the speeding ride.
The camera cuts between the fight and the slowly crawling fairground worker (who even pauses at one point to mop his brow with a hankerchief - surely Hitchcock trying to frustrate the audience with suspense further).
The small boy (misunderstanding the situation again) then becomes involved in the fight between the two men, seeing it as a way to increase his enjoyment further - his intervention unwittingly assists the villain (it distracts the hero and then forces him to move the child to a safer location on the ride) and as a result the hero's position on the ride seems to become unrecoverable as the villain begins to stamp on his gripping hands to make him let go and be thrown off at high speed.
Would everyone be happy if I nominated this article for GA status? -MagicatthemovieS
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Strangers on a Train (film). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
(1) The production company is listed as Transatlantic Pictures, but neither the Wiki article nor the IMDB entry list this picture.
(2) The section about the script contains
== Peter NYC ( talk) 04:20, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
This is a stunning and memorable bit of filmmaking, but the "double printing technique" is standard Matte (filmmaking), not even as technically challenging as in " Bringing up Baby", where in the end they had to hand paint Baby's leash on film because it could not be lined up with Cary Grant's hand. == Peter NYC ( talk) 06:19, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
A short story version appearred in one of Hitchcock's anthologies. Drsruli ( talk) 18:59, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
From McGilligan we get the claim that ""Highsmith's Bruno is a physically repugnant alcoholic... but in [Whitfield Cook's] hands, the film's Bruno became a dandy, a mama's boy who speaks French, and who professes ignorance of women." Besides my disagreement with McGilligan's "physically repugnant" on the novel's talk page, there's also the fact that novel Bruno is definitely a mama's boy, might well be a bit of a dandy, and whether he speaks French doesn't arise (although as he's supposed to be a Harvard dropout, I figure there's a solid chance he would have taken French in high school). He definitely doesn't profess ignorance of women in the novel, but given everything McGilligan gets wrong here, I don't know what to do with this statement other than to just cut it. Dingsuntil ( talk) 10:27, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
I've also decided to take out the claim from McGilligan that Cook "...softened Bruno from a coarse alcoholic into a dapper, charming mama's boy — a much more Hitchcockian villain." Film Bruno was a drunk, although maybe a bit less than Novel Bruno. Novel Bruno wasn't coarse, was charming, and IMO was actually a very Hitchcockian villain. I think McGilligan just isn't an RS for any claims about the novel, except indirectly. For example, he says (IMO believably) that Cook added way more homosexual subtext into the story than was present before. It's just that he doesn't realize that there wasn't any basis for saying there was any homosexual subtext in the novel to begin with (I don't think he really cares about the novel; he was writing a Hitchcock biography so it's not a big consideration). Thus we can use him as a source for the claim that Cook added a brand-new homosexual subtext to the story. Dingsuntil ( talk) 03:00, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
There are a lot of issues with it. I don't feel up to just fixing them all myself, so I'll just point them out and maybe somebody else will make good use of the info.
The bit "Robert L. Carringer has written of a political subtext to the film.[13] Treatment writer Cook used Guy to make the film "a parable quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America."[13]" is a kind of awkward way of saying that this is Carringer's point, and indeed McGilligan does attribute the phrase "quietly defiant of the Cold War hysteria sweeping America" (but not "a parable") to "in the words of film scholar Robert L. Carringer" except that those are not actually Carringer's words in the paper McGilligan refers to ( https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2001.116.2.370). The article also says "Carringer has argued that the film was crucially shaped by the Congressional inquiries" which is sourced to McGilligan and while McGilligan does say this, Carringer does not argue this in the paper. Carringer attributes this claim to Robert J. Corber in the "Hitchcock's Washington: Spectatorship, Ideology, and the 'Homosexual Menace'in Strangers on a Train", and Carringer's paper mainly argues that Corber actually went too far in many places with respect to how much the film was or could have been shaped by the inquiries. So when McGilligan talks about the relevance of the cold war probe into homosexuals and the senate-commissioned study, and says that Carringer said the film was shaped by "these Cold War events" he is attributing to Carringer the claims that were actually made by Corber and which Carringer attempted to refute. For example Carringer points out that most of this stuff was actually in secret executive sessions, and that at best Hitchcock might have seen some vague press reports to the effect that the senate is holding some kind of hearing about homos in the civil service or something, we're not really sure. Thus for Corbin to say that the senate study was an influence on the film was in Carringer's opinion "chimerical" (I assume he just misspelled "fucking stupid").
In any case I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that McGilligan is not a reliable source for ANYTHING, not just for the specifics of the original novel, and since the entire political subtext section (and half of the rest of the article) is sourced to him, I think it needs to be fixed. Or maybe just deleted entirely. I mean it could just all be "chimerical" as they say in the academic film criticism business. Dingsuntil ( talk) 07:23, 2 June 2022 (UTC)