Trains
In Hitchcock's films, trains are often used as a sexual euphemism. Extended sequences on trains feature in a number of Hitchcock films, including
- Number Seventeen
- Shadow of a Doubt
- The 39 Steps
- The Lady Vanishes
- Strangers on a Train
- North by Northwest
In The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, the limitations imposed by train travel on characters' movements enhances the suspense as the lead character is pursued for a crime he did not commit.
Hitchcock's most-extended train sequence is in The Lady Vanishes, where the inability to exit the train except at stations forces the two lead characters to accept that the lady for whom they are searching must still be aboard. The vertiginous excitement of moving around the outside of a moving train is exploited in Number Seventeen and The Lady Vanishes.
Read more about this topic: Themes And Plot Devices In The Films Of Alfred Hitchcock
Famous quotes containing the word trains:
“Conventions, at the present moment, are really menaced. The most striking sign of this is that people are now making unconventionality a social virtue, instead of an unsocial vice. The switches have been opened, and the laden trains must take their chance of a destination.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“Ever notice how these European trains always smell of eau de cologne and hard boiled eggs?”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm’s way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)