Among the many reasons to watch Alfred Hitchcock’s film is that few other directors of the period featured so many homosexual characters in major roles. Some would rightly say that it should be Hitchcock’s work, since most of his hilarious characters were also villains, but the flip side of that argument is that those characters were also the most likable. Consider how much more memorable the character of Martin Landau is than the character of James Mason in North-by-northwest. Landau’s character was probably an inspiration for the Smithers character on The Simpsons. Including many in the gay community, today’s depictions of “exposed” gay characters in so many movies and TV shows today is proof that homosexuals are finally entering the mainstream. I wish to meet today’s cheerleaders who were introduced specifically because of their homosexuality and thus represent a backward step. The charming characters in Alfred Hitchcock’s films were not written to introduce a multicultural element, nor do they exist to provide easy access to characterization and jokes. In fact, none of the gay characters in Hitchcock’s films are explicitly presented as homosexual. And this makes all the difference. For you see men first and second cheerful.
In addition to the subservient and slightly perverse character played by Martin Landau in Northwest, the most openly gay characters in Hitchcock’s canon are Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, Norman Bates in Psycho and, my favorite Hitchcock character of all time, Bruno in Stranger on the Train. Of course, there are many others, and you could probably make an argument that such great-time characters as Uncle Charlie are hilarious in the shadow of a doubt. So it is clear that Hitchcock was psychologically homophobic of the greatest kind; each of their characters is not only hilarious, but psychotic. But, as I said, they are also the most interesting in their movies.
Mrs. Danvers was established as a lesbian a long time ago and was probably pretty obvious or came out in most of the movies with Rebecca. Much like the Landau character, Mrs. Danvers is a little too committed to her boss Rebecca. There is certainly much more to the lesbian element in the novel and clearly Hitchcock took a step back from making it into a film in 1940, but there is no question that Mrs. Danvers’ love for Rebecca goes deeper than is openly discussed. . It is also clear from the beauty of Rebecca’s talents that the men were delighted with her. Never for a moment does he think that it was Mrs. Danvers Smithers who, lost in love, plunged into the waters.
Norman Butes is a bit tougher to argue with for some. Those who doubt that Norman Bates intended homosexuality to be the point of view of his behavior in female showers. But it does matter what Norman Bates does after watching poor Marion Crane naked. That parricidal attack of thrusting the knife into his sweet white flesh again and again is not a psychological reaction that a heterosexual person would have. If Norman Bates were heterosexual in that situation, you can believe that Marion Crane’s body would have disappeared without his seed in it. It was not an injustice; it was all the poisoned self-hatred that Norman Bates expressed in the motel bathroom.
As famous as Norman Bates is and as popular as Norman Bates is, I contend that he is far from the greatest character, let alone the greatest character, to appear in an Alfred Hitchcock film. That honor must simply go to Bruno in Strangers on a Train, brought to life by Robert Walker in his far and away greatest role. Strangers on a Train is a Robert Walker show; Farley Granger is certainly good in his own way as a typical Hitchcock character who finds himself caught in a web of deceit not of his own party, but without question it is without the titanic Walker – that I do not have an Oscar. One of the all-time great Academy Awards-Award-winners on the Train would be a terrific little thriller, but it’s nowhere near a masterpiece.
You know the story. If you haven’t seen Strangers on Train, then you’ve seen Momma on Train or one of her dozens of other incarnations. Two strangers meet and discuss a completed murder. One suggests that the perfect scenario of murder would be two unrelated people agreeing to be the object of another’s misery. The result seems to be police brutality: murder without reason. Robert Walker plays a wealthy gadabout when he meets terrific tennis shoes star Farley Granger on the train. It’s a theoretical argument for Granger who only wants to drive Walker. But Walker’s Bruno leaves the train assuming the agreement is set. And therein lies the rub of this well-crafted suspension.
He is, as usual, none other than the homosexual Bruno. If it was made today, the film would have taken great care to show Bruno’s lustful hunger in the Granger character. This is the difference between movies made today and in the past. Despite the objectionable sophistication of all modern films where anything goes and there is no censorship, this is when the limitations imposed on film are forced to be more creative. How much more artificial is the fact that the audience does not touch the head of Bruno’s sexuality. It does two things: The first is that Bruno’s hilarity is not the driving force behind his personality. The second is that the audience is forced to work and think. Subtlety is a lost art in cinema today. Having said all that, today’s audiences are much more disturbed by difficult films than they used to be. Witness the almost universal criticism of Syrian, a film that can hardly be described as difficult-in comparison to a film made by Godard or Bunuel, for example-but it has only enough subtlety that people had in the matter. to connect the dots.
Film representations of homosexuals have undoubtedly become richer and more elaborate in recent decades. But I wonder if that’s a good thing. The ability to portray glamorous sex scenes and gay culture so unambiguously did not make homosexuality more mainstream and accepted. How many people would willingly avoid guests on the Train if they knew they were going to enter what was a scene of explicit homosexual sex? Now consider how many people over the decades have watched Aliens on a Train, or Rebecca, or Psycho, not to be here
