SUSPICION (1941) B/W 99m dir: Alfred Hitchcock

w/Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, Auriol Lee, Reginald Sheffield, Leo G. Carroll

Hitchcock's intriguing work about emotional vulnerability was adapted by Samson Raphaelson from the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (pen name for A.G. Cox). Fontaine's the mousy wife who suspects hubby Grant plans to murder her.

From The Movie Guide: "SUSPICION is so grimly powerful that its Hollywood-style happy ending has infuriated audiences for years. Cary Grant plays penniless society wastrel Johnnie Aysgarth, who cynically romances Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine), the sheltered daughter of wealthy parents. Rapidly approaching old maidenhood, Lina escapes her oppressive home by marrying Johnnie, even though she's been warned that he's a fortune hunter and an incorrigible playboy. Apparently true to form, Johnnie becomes involved in an embezzlement scheme, which is complicated when his friend Beaky (Nigel Bruce, playing his usual lovable bumbler) dies in Paris under curious circumstances; Lina begins to suspect that Johnnie murdered him. Now Lina imagines that she's to be Johnnie's next victim and seems to find her suspicions confirmed in his every action. The tension mounts (and the humor of the film's first half subsides) as Lina becomes increasingly fearful, especially since she can find no convincing evidence that her charming husband is a killer. Soon, she's afraid to drink her nightly glass of milk, brought to her in bed by Johnnie in one of the director's most famous sequences (the milk glows ominously --- Hitchcock had a light bulb placed in the glass). But the milk isn't poisoned, and the climax occurs later, when the couple are driving along a rocky cliff high above the ocean.

"Based on Frances Iles' novel Before the Fact, in which the husband really is a murderer, SUSPICION's ending disappointed many, especially considering the slow, delicious building of Hitchcockian suspense that preceded it. With REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO, the film is one of Hitchcock's most trenchant critiques of spectatorship, as the frustrating passivity displayed by bookish fantasist Lina seems driven by a perverse desire to watch the narrative unfold. Joan Fontaine's Oscar was widely considered a compensation for the Oscar she didn't receive for the previous year's REBECCA."

Hitchcock had made wonderful use of Fontaine in his first American film, REBECCA, and thought her the best prospect for this role. Producer David O. Selznick, however, proceeded to test almost every actress in Hollywood for the part, perhaps trying to duplicate the publicity frenzy that accompanied his search for the right actress to play Scarlet O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. Hitchcock's selection of Grant as the "hero" was not entirely smooth, either. Hitchcock relates to Francois Truffaut (in Truffaut's book of interviews, Hitchcock) that producers objected to Grant playing a killer in the film:

"Well, I'm not too pleased with the way Suspicion ends. I had something else in mind. The scene I wanted, but it was never shot, was for Cary Grant to bring her a glass of milk that's been poisoned and Joan Fontaine has just finished a letter to her mother: 'Dear Mother, I'm desperately in love with him, but I don't want to live because he's a killer. Though I'd rather die, I think society should be protected from him.' Then, Cary Grant comes in with the fatal glass and she says, 'Will you mail this letter to Mother for me, dear?' She drinks the milk and dies. Fade out and fade in on one short shot: Cary Grant, whistling cheerfully, walks over to the mailbox and pops the letter in."

Although he's difficult to spot in the film, watch for Hitchcock's cameo appearance, as he mails a letter, slipping a bit of his droll humor into the drama. Incidentally, Hitchcock took much care in his presentation of the glass of milk that Grant carries upstairs to Fontaine: as he tell Truffaut, "I put a light in the milk ... right inside the glass because I wanted it to be luminous. Cary Grant's walking up the stairs and everyone's attention had to be focused on that glass."

From the Off Screen website (www.offscreen.com), this 2017 essay about the film by Douglas Buck:

"An early American film for Hitchcock, and his first of four with Cary Grant, in which he explores one of his favorite themes, the untrustworthy and insidious nature of married life, through the story of the extravagantly rich and beautiful, yet nebbish and uptight Lina (Joan Fontaine) who, despite the disapproval of her family, falls for charming playboy Johnnie (Cary Grant, who, whether as the put-upon nebbish bookworm harassed by Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby or as the lying cad in this film, remains so endearing I don’t know how anyone doesn’t fall for him) and marries him, only to slowly uncover a series of growing lies and betrayal (including gambling problems, massive debts and a destitute financial situation) that not only begin to strongly suggest her mom and dad might have been right about him, but that Johnnie, who she stubbornly remains smitten to, might be even more conniving than she cares to admit ... as well as dangerous.

"While the film sounds much more intense than it plays out, it remains effectively intriguing, with some nicely crafted tension that builds in unison with Lina’s paranoia as her trust evaporates at the slowly mounting evidence against Johnnie, allowing Hitch the opportunity to subvert the Grant persona nicely, having us (and Lina) closely studying that easy charm and those surface dimples to search for more nefarious and murderous intentions (to collect her life insurance) underneath. As far as being a film noir, however, the over-all worldview of the film isn’t really bleak enough (it’s the milieu of a romantic suspense tale, rather than one dripping with despair or angst) and, other than the famous and brilliantly conceived low-key, high-contrast lit scene that the film builds towards, with our ‘hero’ bringing the suddenly glowing suspect glass of ‘milk’ up the long dark stairway to the bedroom of our girl (with our identification point completely on her side, as he moves in darkness) waiting in terror, the overall lighting scheme of the film doesn’t really work to construct or reinforce a dark, paranoid perspective.

"While not one of his greatest efforts, it’s certainly worthwhile to watch for the scene mentioned above and for Hitchcock’s work in slowly building the unsettling perspective and growing paranoia of his female protagonist (director Daren Aronofsky might have paid a little attention to this film in doing his own way-overblown troubled female perspective in the shrieking over-the-top Mother! as he might have learned a few things about the effectiveness of a little subtlety). Grant is decidedly Grant in the role (with the nice addition of the single understated yet effectively realized moment of anger with her, telling her not to mingle in his affairs) and Joan Fontaine is engaging as the initially earnest hopeful waif learning the unfortunate emotional ropes of betrayal, but unfortunately, it’s the conclusion of the film that, in vying for an audience-friendly happy ending, ends up more than a bit confusing and unsatisfying.

"With the apparently significantly (and seemingly fascinatingly) darker novel the film is based on ending with our troubled heroine being correct in her assumptions, the film instead ends with Grant attempting to redeem himself. The problem is, even if the Fontaine character seems to blindly believe in him, it’s hard to take what his confession means, especially as it’s coming from someone we (and she) have witnessed over the previous hour and a half to be a full blown con man and liar. So while the film tries to sway (con?) us with a happy blast of romantic music and a seemingly hopeful reconciliation, it’s hard to know what that means --- which presented slightly differently (and more knowingly) could have added some wonderful depth and a sense of subversion to the proceedings, but, in this case, only ends up confused with Hitchcock’s intentions unclear at best, unbelievable at worst. And while Hitch stated afterwards that he preferred the much darker ending of the original novel but was pushed by studio execs to accept the sunnier alternative, there appears to be plenty of correspondence evidence that supports that he was in full agreement long before production began with the audience-friendly conclusion.

"One thing is for sure, if they had gone with that original ending (or even with one of the few earlier screenplay drafts that included some powerfully dark and tragic alternative endings), on that stark conclusion alone, the film would likely have shot like Johnnie’s car (with only Lina in it) full-throttle down the rocky cliffs and into the pantheon of the bleakest of classic noir."

Besides Joan Fontaine's Best Actress Oscar, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture and Score (Franz Waxman).