Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock’s Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers on a Train
Published by Running Press, 2025. 312 pages.
By Stephen Rebello

I don’t remember when I first watched Strangers on a Train, but the first time I saw clips of it (even though not knowing where it was from) was in the film Terror in the Aisles (1984), a compilation of scenes from different horror films, as well as some from the suspense sub-genre. For Strangers, it’s the scene at the carnival, where Robert Walker pops the kid’s balloon, and then strangles Laura Elliott. At the time, I didn’t even know it was a Hitchcock title. But when I finally got around to watching the entire film, it became one of my favorites of Hitchcock.

I was thrilled to see a book out on this film especially since it was written by Rebello, who had previously written about Hitchcock and the making of Psycho. Anytime I’ve read about a particular movie, or director, or anything in general about a film, I always come out of it learning something new as well as seeing the film a little different. Anytime you learn more about what exactly went into the making of one, from the casting, the set design, cinematography, it makes you see more but gives you more appreciation of it. But in the case of something from Hitchcock, it goes even further than that, when you come to understand what was going on in his mind during the making of one of his movies.