Book Review: “Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock's Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece - Strangers on a Train”

Title: Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock's Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece - Strangers on a Train

By Stephen Rebello

Publisher: Running Press

ISBN: 978-0-7624-8639-7 (hardcover)

Stephen Rebello’s Criss-Cross is a carefully researched and engagingly written telling of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 thriller, Strangers on a Train, chronicling its production against the backdrop of a politically paranoid Hollywood. Coming off a string of critical and commercial flops in the late 1940s, the film represented a gamble for Hitchcock, who adapted Patricia Highsmith's dark, complex debut novel. Rebello frames Strangers on a Train as the comeback vehicle that inaugurated the director's “Golden Decade,” which would eventually include classics like Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, and Psycho. The book details how this project, initially deemed “unsavory” by critics, was rife with conflict, feuds, and creative compromises, yet ultimately yielded a masterful and enduring suspense film.

A central strength of Criss-Cross lies in its deep dive into the chaotic and often adversarial screenwriting process. Rebello reveals the surprising tension between the notoriously meticulous Hitchcock and the celebrated hardboiled novelist Raymond Chandler, who was brought in to draft the script. Though Chandler is credited on the final film—largely due to studio executive Jack Warner’s insistence on a promotable name—Rebello details how Hitchcock ultimately utilized very little of his work. The author credits a collaborative team, including multiple female writers like Czenzi Ormonde and Whitfield Cook, with rescuing the film and helping the director navigate the necessary narrative shifts from Highsmith’s novel. This insight highlights the messy, collaborative reality of feature filmmaking and reframes the traditional understanding of the script's genesis.

Farley Granger and Robert Walker

Beyond the technical and creative battles, Rebello skillfully explores the social and cultural subversiveness embedded within the film. He illuminates the repressive atmosphere of the McCarthy era, characterized by anti-communist suspicion and intense censorship from the Breen office, which forced Hitchcock to cleverly disguise or downplay racy themes and sexual innuendo..

Finally, the book provides ringside accounts of casting and on-set drama, notably focusing on the brilliant yet troubled performance of Robert Walker as the psychotic Bruno Anthony. Rebello’s research, drawn from interviews and extensive archival material including Hitchcock’s storyboards, offers fascinating tidbits, such as how the heavy “bottle glasses” worn by Guy Haines’s wife rendered the actress practically blind. More than just a collection of anecdotes, Criss-Cross provides a definitive, authoritative look at the filmmaking process, from adapting a difficult novel to designing a character’s psychology through costume (like Bruno's garish lobster necktie). For any cinema aficionado and Hitchcock fan, Criss-Cross is a compelling read that confirms Strangers on a Train’s status as a timeless classic thriller.