Suspicision (1941)

I shutter a bit to put the words ‘Hitchcock’ and ‘misfire’ in the same sentence, but I’m afraid this is how I feel about Suspicion. Adapted, ultimately loosely from Francis Lles’ 1932 novel ‘Before the Fact‘, the film concerns Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) an English women from established stock who, partly out of fear of becoming a spinster, marries dashing cad Johnnie Aysgarth (appropriately played by Cary Grant). Throughout the film Johnnie, though sometimes a doting husband, proceeds to act irresponsibly and endangers both the families economic situation and good name. Lina begins to suspect him of plotting, and later carrying out a murder, and then comes to suspect he intends to have her bumped off as well. Now the acting’s good in this movie (though I don’t know if Fontaine deserved an Oscar for this, she really got it as a kind of apology for not winning the previous year for the far superior Rebecca), but I was kind of board by the central dynamic of the film, in fact the whole awkward/respectable girl and the handsome cad that may just be after her for her money thing is done much better in Joan’s sister Olivia de Havilland’s later Oscar winning portrayal of The Heiress. The thing that really upset me about the film however was the ending, a total cop-out that seemingly contradicts all that came before it. While I realize this neuterd or ‘safe’ ending was mandated by the production code of the time, it just seemed such a blatant and unsatisfying cheat that I could not forgive this film. In short, a mediocrity, but a rare one from a man who usually earns his title of ‘master of suspense’. Not Recommended.