Suspicion

Starring: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, Leo G. Carroll
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: Approved
Genre: Film Noir, Mystery, Thriller
1941

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A wealthy woman (Joan Fontaine) marries a carefree, charismatic man (Cary Grant) but soon begins to suspect him capable of the worst kind of crime.

Review:

Tim: I'm a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock and he and Cary Grant made for a terrific partnership. I had high hopes for Suspicion and while I enjoyed the movie, it felt like it wasn't quite up to the level of what these two were capable of. Their final film together, North by Northwest was a great movie. This film, their first together, isn't quite as good. The frustrating thing to me is that as effective as Suspicion is, there was definitely the potential for this film to be significantly better than it ended up.

The movie takes some time to get to its central premise- namely, the suspicion that Cary Grant's character could be a murderer. This is what the entire film builds towards and we don't get our answer (obviously) until the very end. The script does a good job of establishing a myriad of flaws that Grant's character has. As the film progresses, you do start to wonder what he's capable of doing. I will say that I felt like the film went a bit too far in this area. As the movie progressed, I wasn't all that concerned with Grant being a murderer- I was fairly horrified by his character even without that. I didn't like his character at all, nor his treatment of his wife. Some of this was probably fueled by different relationship dynamics in the 1940s, but it's troubling all the same. The movie gives us so many reasons to dislike Grant's character, possibly being a murderer felt unnecessary- he's a lowlife gaslighter and his wife desperately needed to leave. I got caught up in that dynamic, so the big question of the movie felt less important. I will say that I think this movie's effectiveness was severely limited by the time period in which it was made. The studio's views of the stories they could tell and how they thought about actors definitely limited how powerful this film could be. I felt like the movie played it safe, especially towards the end.

I like Cary Grant, although I rarely love him. I felt like he was solid here, but a bit unremarkable. He played the role well, but he forgot to make the character likeable. Sure, he's full of charisma, but Grant's performance lets us see right through that. This character needed to be someone you liked and sincerely hoped wasn't capable of murder. Grant plays him too far to one side, where I disliked his character far more than I should have. This limits the effectiveness of his work.

Joan Fontaine, on the other hand, gives a superb performance. I really, really appreciated the effort she put forth here. Her character undergoes a huge transformation in this film- in the beginning, she's a shy, reserved individual (except when she's on a horse). She falls in love, grows in confidence. Eventually, she starts to suspect her knight in shining armor may not be as wonderful as she imagined. She still loves him, though, and sticks with him through hard times. Finally, the suspicions grow as she contemplates his capability to commit murder and she can barely hold it together. That is a wide range of different emotions Fontaine displays and she does so admirably. She was by far the most interesting, entertaining aspect of the film. Fontaine won the film's only Academy Award, for Best Actress (the movie was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture). She's the highlight of the film.

I know that many people enjoy Suspicion and it has a fairly strong reputation. However, I believe it's clearly middle tier Hitchcock (I've seen 17 of his films now and 11 of them are obviously better than this one). I was a bit surprised it was nominated for Best Picture. It's a good movie, absolutely, but it felt like Hitchcock wasn't able to deliver the knockout punch here. It's a movie that has some good themes, some interesting ideas, but the limitations of the studio system prevented the film from achieving its full potential. So, yes, Suspicion is good, but it could have been much better.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: North by Northwest, Notorious, To Catch a Thief