Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (released in 1951) tells the story of two strangers who initially meet on a train headed to Washington D.C. One man, Bruno, is a charismatic and charming psychopath; the other, Guy, is a tennis player. Bruno suggests that the two each murder someone for each other, thinking that two people who hadn't ever met before couldn't be linked together by the police once they investigate the crime. Bruno actually commits the murder that he was supposed to, but Guy does not, much to Bruno's chagrin. Because Guy does not commit the murder he is supposed to, Bruno tracks him down and tries to make Guy kill.
At release, Strangers on a Train was neither financially successful nor critically very well-received. On a budget of $1,568,000, the film made back $2,932,000 at the box office, indicating that it essentially broke even. At release, Variety liked the film, saying "Performance-wise, the cast comes through strongly. Granger is excellent as the harassed young man innocently involved in murder. Roman's role as a nice, understanding girl is a switch for her, and she makes it warmly effective. Walker's role has extreme color, and he projects it deftly." The New York Times, however, did not particularly like the film, saying that "Mr. Hitchcock again is tossing a crazy murder story in the air and trying to con us into thinking that it will stand up without support. ... Perhaps there will be those in the audience who will likewise be terrified by the villain's darkly menacing warnings and by Mr. Hitchcock's sleekly melodramatic tricks. ... But, for all that, his basic premise of fear fired by menace is so thin and so utterly unconvincing that the story just does not stand." Still, Robert Burks was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Black and White Cinematography for his work on the film.
Since its release, though, the film has been looked at much more favorably. Critics and audiences alike now hold Hitchcock’s film in high regard. Acclaimed critic Roger Ebert, for example, called Strangers on a Train a "first-rate thriller" and said it was one of Hitchcock's five-best films.
