SOURCE: "A Train Running on Two Sets of Tracks: Highsmith's and Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train," in It's a Print: Detective Fiction from Page to Screen, edited by William Reynolds and Elizabeth A. Tremblay, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1994, pp. 103-13.

In the following essay, Mahoney provides a comparative study of Highsmith's novel Strangers on a Train and Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation of the work, concluding that "the two works are substantially different in focus and direction."

Highsmith's Strangers on a Train provides a psychological analysis of Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno and their intertwined relationship. Hitchcock transforms the material into a thriller, focusing on action, suspense, and surprise. In the novel, the personalities of the characters, Highsmith's stylistic techniques, and the plot structure emphasize the similarities between Haines and Bruno; in the film, however, the visual links between the two are confused by the transformation...