MovieChat Forums > Strangers on a Train (1951) Discussion > The gay connection.

The gay connection.

posted 3 years ago by Rolltide (964)
2 replies | jump to latest

I think it is very obvious that Bruno Antony was a gay man. Also deeply mentally ill and an obvious sociopath. The film was made in a time when being gay was considered a mental illness by the so called experts.

Remember that Rope was also a Hitchcock film and the murderers in it were a gay couple. Farley Granger was one of them and in real life he was gay.

I'm not a politically correct person at all and am irked by people who are. It just seems to me Bruno's sexuality was not important. He was a deeply disturbed individual who has no qualms or issues about killing another person. He is also a layabout loser. Did Hitch depict him as effeminate to emphasize his lack of normalness?

[–] liscarkat (16530) a year ago

Bruno is definitely a psychopath, but whether or not he's gay is neither "very obvious" nor relevant to the story.

[–] roger1 (2277) a year ago

A matter of admitted reality about the two leads of Strangers on a Train:

Robert Walker, a straight man, was playing gay.
Farley Granger, a gay man, was playing straight.

Acting!

I've always opined that Hitchcock "slipped gay characters into his movies" because the Hays Code forbade having gay characters, so he just snuck 'em in. The two killers in Rope. Bruno in Strangers on a Train. Martin Landau in North by Northwest.

There has been political anger expressed that gays were so often villains in Old Hollywood -- "the other." And yet with Hitchcock, I'm not so sure he didn't slip some gay HEROES in there, too. His grouchy men who didn't much like the women who desired them.

The movie "Hitchcock" (2012) about the making of Psycho, has a rather obvious in-joke when Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) interviews the closeted gay Anthony Perkins(James D'Arcy) for the role of Norman Bates:

Hitchcock: Tony, have you seen any of my films?
Perkins: Yes.. I particularly like Rope and Strangers on a Train.

Wink, wink. Nudge nudge.

I would also like to note that while Walker plays "stage gay circa 1951" in certain ways as Bruno, he actually has more of a FEY, nutty, otherworldly persona and he proves quite the "macho man" in easily seducing Granger's slutty estranged wife at the fairgrounds -- he's a MAN and she is surrounded by BOYS. Two moments there: (1) Bruno slams the "test your strength" hammer and rings the bell easily(he's STRONG, she likes that, its why he's beating Guy on the carousel at the end) and (2) a provocative sexual shot of Bruno standing with his legs spread giving Miriam a definite "lets do it" look.

So Bruno's sexuality really moves out in all directions.