Bruno Antony: The Epitome of the Charming Psycho

Robert Walker (right) charms Farley Granger into a "crisscross" murder plot. Image courtesy of IMDb.

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Charm, as some pundit once put it, is something that people often develop to cover up things they don’t have. Like integrity, backbone, honesty, or some other quiet, boring attribute that doesn’t get much attention—until you need it from a friend or a loved one.

Charm is often found in horror, thrillers and murder mysteries; the charming psycho is a longtime staple of books and film. Even Pennywise the Dancing Clown from Stephen King's IT (the Tim Curry version from 1990) could be described as a charming psycho, at least some of the time. Ted Bundy, the 70s serial killer who charmed several dozen women to their doom, was a real life example of a charming pscyho.

For me, the epitome of the charming psycho in film is Bruno Antony from Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, brilliantly played by Robert Walker. Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, the plot of this film concerns two men who meet on a train: Bruno, a rich, idle playboy, and Guy (played by Farley Granger), a famous professional tennis player.

Bruno, an avid tennis fan who idolizes Guy, leads the conversation into personal matters and gets Guy to admit how much he hates his estranged wife, Miriam, who stands in the way of his engagement to Anne (Ruth Roman), a rich girl from a powerful family. Bruno, for his part, freely admits that he hates his wealthy dad, whom he blames for keeping him from doing “great things.”

As the two men part ways, Bruno proposes that they “swap” murders: Bruno will kill Miriam if Guy agrees to kill Bruno’s dad. Guy, thinking that it’s all a big joke, laughingly agrees.

“Sure, Bruno, whatever you say.”

Unfortunately, Bruno takes it very seriously indeed. He kills Miriam and then demands that Guy keeps his end of their “bargain.” And he won’t let go of Guy until he does it, launching a long, drawn-out nightmare that Guy barely escapes.

When we first meet Guy and Bruno, we only see their legs and feet, each walking separately toward the train platform. The camera focuses first on Bruno’s shoes, which are of an outlandish black-and-white “spectator” style (the type that today would be called “pimp” shoes), sauntering along without a care in the world. Then we see Guy’s shoes: plain dark Oxfords, striding forward purposefully, tennis rackets in tow.

In a few short minutes, we see the stark personality contrast between the two men: Guy is dutiful, conventional, ambitious. Bruno is “flamboyant,” carefree, jaunty. Such is the genius of Hitchcock’s storytelling ability, as he uses something as simple as two pairs of shoes to give the audience important information; a lesser film maker would have used reams of dialogue to convey the same characteristics.

Toe-Tappin' Murder

Slight digression: Much has been written about the gay subtexts of this film, so I won’t get into it here: this essay is about charm, not about coded homosexual themes in midcentury films. One thing that strikes me, however, is that, when we first see Guy and Bruno sitting down on the train, we’re still looking at their shoes, and they accidentally bump the toes of each other’s footwear. I wonder if this is a sly Hitchcockian reference to the “toe-tapping” signal of gay men looking for an anonymous hook-up in public restrooms? Did the toe-tapping culture even exist back then, and if so, was Hitchcock “tapped in” enough to know about it? It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew, given how prurient he was.

Getting back to Bruno, when we finally see more of the two men than their footwear, there are even more “clues” to Bruno’s personality. He is wearing a flamboyant tie printed over with images of a lobster, and a tie-tack that spells out his first name, which he considers “corny” but wears because it makes his mother “happy.” (Attention-getting clothes and domineering mothers were code for male homosexuality in the days when movies were ruled by the Hays morality code. )

Bruno strikes up a conversation with Guy, which Guy participates in somewhat reluctantly. Bruno is an affable chatterbox with an easy, million-dollar smile, who goes on and on about himself and his “great ideas” in a light-hearted manner. He is cunning and highly intelligent. He is also clearly a narcissist, with an overly inflated opinion of himself. He flatters Guy, telling him that Guy has done “great things” because of his tennis trophies.

Bruno wants to do “great things” too, but it’s obvious that he’s too lazy and scattered to do anything that takes hard work and concentration. For all that, Bruno is likable. Very, very likable. Likable enough that people will let him slide when he does something naughty. He’s the class clown, the jokester who always has a witty quip to delight listeners in any social situation. He’s the guy who ran the dance committee in high school but never did any of the real work; the guy who planned the “pranks” to play on teachers and nerds—pranks he manipulated other people into carrying out.

He easily insinuates himself into Guy’s life with practiced smoothness; he’s done it with others, a million times before. It’s only Bruno’s dear old dad who sees through him and says “no.” Why do we like Bruno so much, even though he’s a cruel murderer who strangles a woman to death, whom he doesn’t even know? We have a secret, not-so-nice admiration for people who can so effortlessly manipulate others to do their bidding, like Bruno or Rhoda Penmark.

Guy humors Bruno at first, telling him he has a “great plan,” and Bruno is pleased, because he has a huge mancrush on Guy. Guy, however, balks at murder, which sends Bruno into a spiral of rage. Thus Bruno’s crush not only rejects him, but he also refuses to do Bruno’s bidding—which is something that hardly ever happens to Bruno, except with his hated father. For the narcissist, denial of will is the worst fate of all.

Sidenote 1 - In real life, Walker was straight and Farley Granger was gay, the opposite of their respective characters in the film. Walker was the first husband of the beautiful actress Jennifer Jones (Portrait of Jennie), with whom he had two children.

Sidenote 2 - Walker’s son with Jones, Robert Jr., was a very active television actor in the late 60s and 70s. He’s probably most famous today for playing “Charlie X” in a first season episode of Star Trek: TOS. In the episode, Charlie X is a spoiled teen-age boy with murderous superpowers; Walker Jr. plays the character much like his father played Bruno. Walker Jr. also looked so much like his father that, as a kid with an imperfect sense of time, I used to think they were the same person.