MovieChat Forums > Strangers on a Train (1951) Discussion > You would convict Guy wouldn't you?

You would convict Guy wouldn't you?


Forget forensic evidence. the lack of fingerprints, the lack of a murder weapon. No DNA of course back then and no witnesses who saw you do it.

The simple circumstantial facts cannot be ignored if you are on that jury.

1. Motive. His estranged wife is pregnant and will not give him a divorce.
2. Witnesses. Many people were there at Mariam's work place seeing the couple fighting. Guy gets very angry and physical with her.
3. The very next day Miriam is murdered.
4. More motive. You find out about Guy's love for Ann Morton a senator's daughter and his desire to segway from tennis to a political career.

Too much there for any jury to acquit. If he brings up Bruno it helps him not at all.

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It's all circumstantial, with nothing forensic, no witnesses to the crime, and no confession or incriminating statement from Guy. Millions of people are estranged from exes, and have public arguments with girlfriends, spouses, and exes all the time. It's a pretty weak case. I would not vote guilty if I were on a jury.

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Yes, and while Guy had the motive, his character saved him from fulfilling the quid pro quo Bruno offered him, and on a proverbial silver platter. He fought Bruno, he fought murder. There surely must have been a few fragments of evidence favorable to Guy, more than a mere cigarette lighter. Suspicions of people who knew him well enough to understand that he had been, of late, under great stress, a moral stress unrelated to anything he had actually done; more like a dark shadow he was running away from; and it was not a figment of his imagination.

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To me, a central irony about Strangers on a Train is that the supposedly "foolproof" murder plot -- "You kill my victim, and I'll kill yours" -- only WORKS if the one WITH the motive has an airtight alibi at the time.

For instance, if Guy had REALLY agreed to the murder plan, he would make sure to be at the home of Ruth Roman and her Senator father in front of witnesses when Bruno did the killing. Or maybe he would make sure he was in California when his wife was killed near DC.

But Bruno didn't TELL Guy when he was going to kill Miriam...he just went off and killed her and THEN told Guy. So Guy became the IMMEDIATE suspect and...in the soup.

Which begs this question: maybe Bruno figured on implicating Guy in the killing of Miriam ALL ALONG. Pop his little idea "on the train" (figure Bruno knew that Guy would be on the train, maybe had been stalking him) go ahead with the murder, make sure that Guy is fingered for it...proceed.)

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Yes, and while Guy had the motive, his character saved him from fulfilling the quid pro quo Bruno offered him, and on a proverbial silver platter. He fought Bruno, he fought murder. There surely must have been a few fragments of evidence favorable to Guy, more than a mere cigarette lighter. Suspicions of people who knew him well enough to understand that he had been, of late, under great stress, a moral stress unrelated to anything he had actually done; more like a dark shadow he was running away from; and it was not a figment of his imagination.

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Though Hitchcock often used "the wrong man" plot, he often had to keep things moving fast so as not to expose the "plot holes" that might exonerate his hero. Guy Haines here, Cary Grant in North by Northwest(who is actually WITNESSED with his hand on the knife in the back of a man he did NOT kill.)

But who knows? Hitchcock gave a pretty accurate account of the wrongful arrest and trial of a REAL man(Manny Ballestrero, played by Henry Fonda) in The Wrong Man, and captured the "everyday horror" of incarceration and the cost of trial to prove innocence. (And Ballestrero was only accused of being an ARMED robber.)

And this one: Hitchcock made a movie called Frenzy(1972), in which a "wrong man" is convicted and incarcerated for the sex stranglings of the right man. The real case was based on the wrong man who was HANGED for the killings of a London killer named John Christie. In real life, the wrong man not only got convicted, he got killed. (England ended the death penalty thereafter.) And the right man -- John Christie -- WAS eventually found out.

So in movie terms, maybe Guy Haines could have beaten the wrap.

But in real life, a few guys did NOT.

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