User Reviews

The story of Lina "Monkey - face" Aysgard and her husband Johnny is from a novel by Francis Iles called BEFORE THE FACT. Hitchcock liked Iles' novels, which were unusual because the heroes were actually anti-heroes. Johnny is an upper class wastrel who is not unwilling to swindle or kill if it benefits himself. He is responsible, actually, for at least three deaths in the story. Interestingly enough, Hitch always wanted to do Iles' "Black Comedy" novel MALICE AFORETHOUGHT, as a film - possibly with Alex Guiness - wherein the anti-hero Dr. Bickley (based on Dr. Crippen and Major Herbert Armstrong) poisons his wife and several others in a charming little village in the English countryside. Unfortunately, Hitch never got to do MALICE AFORETHOUGHT (but it has been done on BBC television once or twice).

He had just pocketed the "Oscar" (for the only time in his career, by the way) for REBECCA - his first American film. Hitch apparently thought he could do anything. He was now to discover he could not do everything.

To begin with, Iles' novel ended with Johnny facing the loss of his wife (but in a curious switch - Lina willingly takes the poison he brings her, and actually destroys him emotionally because Johnny was secretly ashamed of this crime - he really loved Lina and she kills herself to help him out). If the Hays and Breen offices had any imagination they would have realized that the film would have been so far better and more moral if they had left the ending alone. Johnny would have been too cowardly to ever kill himself, and would have gone to his grave realizing what he threw away. It would have been a worse punishment than if Johnny had been hanged.

But the censors would have none of it. If Lina died Johnny must be punished. Hitch played around with changing the ending (he did this frequently in his adaptations of novels). He would have had Lina write a note to her mother, explaining that she knew Johnny was going to kill her, but she loved him and would let him. Johnny would poison her with her evening milk, and then (while happily whistling) post the letter to her mother (Dame May Witty).

Here he came acropper with another portion of the Hollywood scene: Cary Grant's agent and RKO Studio. Both were very image conscious, but that image was comic or dapper or likable - but not murderous. Grant himself would have enjoyed the change (ten years later he might have tried to do it with Hitch that way*). But in 1941 too many interested parties were opposed. As a result, Grant's part had to be rewritten.

(*A few years later, Grant appeared in MR. LUCKY, as a gambler who decides to commit a fraud regarding a war effort charity. He does use violence several times in the film, but he reforms against his partner in the fraud - though he violently kicks him in a fight - and ends up enlisting in the army. That and his role as Ernie in NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART were the two closest negative parts he had after SUSPICION, and neither is a total villain.)

Johnny remains a charming wastrel, who loves gambling, and who depends on others to pay for him. But he is struggling to try to go legitimate, and in his best scene in the film (when he is trying to get financing from Nigel Bruce for a building project) he shows a sense of reality that is just missing from most of the film. He turns on Joan Fontane, who thinks Grant is planning something crooked at the expense of his friend Bruce and begins "gumming up the works" of his business deal. Actually one sees there what the film might have been like, but it was a rare moment of real juice in the movie.

Grant does as well with the part as he can, as does Fontane (who won the Best Actress Oscar award). But it is a hollow victory in the film. Best are Nigel Bruce as Beaky Thwaite, Johnny's close, doomed friend (and in the novel his victim). Also in a brief role is Leo G. Carroll as Johnny's cousin and employer who is swindled by him. Carroll only has one brief scene, but is memorable as one of the few outsiders who calls Johnny's character correctly.

In later years, after he showed his box office success, Hitch would be able to make his central figures negative ones. As pointed out elsewhere on this thread, Joseph Cotton would be "Uncle Charlie" the murderer in SHADOW OF A DOUBT within two years. Later on he would do THE PARADINE CASE, where defendant Alida Valli was guilty, and STAGE FRIGHT, where suspect Richard Todd lies partially about the crime to the audience at the start.

I have one particular complaint. Johnny borrows a volume from the Notable British Trial series from a neighbor who is a mystery novelist. It is the trial of a 19th Century poisoner who once killed a victim by betting the victim that he could drink a bumper of brandy without stopping for breath. This (when Fontane hears of it) resembles the death of Bruce. This actually happened in the 1850s to a notorious poisoner who was a gambler. He was Dr. Palmer of Rugeley. And there is a volume of the Notable British Trial series about Palmer. But it was Dr. WILLIAM Palmer historically. In the movie the volume is clearly labeled THE TRIAL OF RICHARD PALMER. Somebody did not do their research properly

If it weren't for the Code which did not allow murderers to get away with it at the end, or the apparent miscasting of Cary Grant as the ambiguous husband, SUSPICION would rank higher as a subtle masterpiece of sheer, romantic suspense.

Over the years many critics have stated that Grant, in his first collaboration with director Alfred Hitchcock, doesn't quite convince much as a man who progressively seems to have ulterior motives with the people around him, most notably his wife. I personally believe that evil is best expressed under a facade of deadpan deceptiveness, such as the friendly neighbors in a similar thriller, ROSEMARY'S BABY. Of course, you might think: isn't this film completely different from SUSPICION? Not really. Strip away the Satanic plot and all you have is a growing sense of paranoia surrounding a similarly mousy wife who slowly realizes her husband and everyone around her is not what they seem. And we know how that film ended.

Grant is a perfect choice to play Johnnie Aysgard. He has the dark, handsome looks, that gleaming smile and loving charm and he literally sweeps spinster Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine, Oscar winner for this role) off her feet. His presence only vaguely suggests the menace hidden underneath and this is perfect for a convincing psychological, cerebral thriller. If Lon Chaney, for example, had played Aysgard, or Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, or even Basil Rathbone for that matter, it wouldn't be hard to yell at the screen and pinpoint the villain in the story. Grant, however, is so completely at home in his ambiguousness that even in the climactic scene where he drives Fontaine to her mother's home, we still can't quite decide what his intentions are even though every added piece of evidence leads to the mounting horror that he is about to kill her.

And his presence is the reason this movie works as an excellent psychological thriller even if the ending is a letdown. Using an actor like Grant misleads the public into being sucked into the lighthearted tone of the first third of the story. Introducing the most trivial of incidents surrounding his playboy-like character, which gradually lead to more sinister ones does the tone darken and before we know it we're in the middle of a tense drama of wills between husband and wife and staring at that ghostly glass of milk, wondering if to drink or nor to drink.

Lina McLaidlaw, dowdy and seemingly headed for spinsterhood, although played by the beautiful Joan Fontaine, gets teased and oddly pursued by charming Johnnie Aysgarth. He calls her monkey-face, yet is attracted to her. She feels a reciprocal attraction. Their attraction grows, and they elope one night because Lina knows her father does not approve of Johnnie.

The two go on a European honeymoon with Johnnie pulling out all of the stops and come home to a large household with servants. It is then, after the honeymoon that Lina discovers Johnnie has no money of his own. He simply borrows from all of his friends in a round robin fashion and even has designs on borrowing from her father! Since Lina's small allowance will never pay for all of this she insists that Johnnie go to work. He does so, getting a job from his cousin Captain Melbeck helping him manage his estates. But then things start to happen - Lina finds out that Johnnie has pawned the two chairs her parents gave her as a wedding present, and worst of all she finds out from Captain Melbeck that Johnnie was dismissed six weeks before when he was found to have embezzled two thousand pounds, although he will not prosecute if he returns the money. All of this time he has pretended to go to work every morning.

So she is definitely married to a liar and a thief who is lazy about everything but in covering up his sins to Lina. So Johnnie does not know she knows about the embezzlement and when asked about being fired he says that he and Melbeck just did not get along.

At this point Hitchcock begins toying with the viewers' expectations. We think we are watching the action unfold in the way typical of most Hollywood films, where the viewer follows what the camera captures and assumes that the story is being presented in a strictly objective way. But in Suspicion we are watching the action from Lina's point of view, in other words from a very subjective POV. And we assume that Lina is the more mature, stable character in the film. But we then begin to see just how unstable she is as she interprets every event to be an indication of Johnny's criminal nature as her suspicion grows to paranoia. And let me tell you, Grant's acting is top notch as he is loving and playful one minute, and menacing the next. Just the way he walks up a flight of stairs with a glass of milk is frightening. His demeanor completely cooperates with Lina's imagination.

I'll let you watch and see what is actually going on.

As I was watching this I noticed something else. This film could actually be "The Heiress" (1949) in a parallel universe. If Olivia De Havilland's Catherine HAD married Montgomery Clift's Morris, if Dr. Sloper had lived awhile longer than he had, if he had given his daughter a tiny inheritance instead of a large one as she was expecting, I can see the exact same scenario playing out in a different place and a different time. And oddly both sisters won Best Actress Oscars for their respective portrayals! Also oddly Cary Grant wasn't even nominated when the strength of "Suspicion" rests on him being whatever he needs to be in any given situation on the surface, but with you never really knowing how those wheels are turning in his head until the last.

Highly recommended.

Alfred Hitchcock always dismissed his work in Suspicion. There was too much interference from the front office at RKO Studios which demanded a happy ending here. They also demanded an ending in which Cary Grant is not exposed as a calculating murderer.

As it is Cary Grant is poaching on Tyrone Power territory, doing one of those hero/heel roles that Power specialized in over at 20th Century Fox. I would not be surprised if an offer was made to Mr. Zanuck at Fox for Ty's services. But after Marie Antoinette, Ty Power never did a film away from Fox until 1952's Mississippi Gambler.

Grant's Johnny Aysgarth is what could be now described by that antiquated word, wastrel. He doesn't work, lives off his parents and has a bad gambling habit. He meets, woos, and weds the very prim and proper Joan Fontaine, daughter of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Dame May Witty.

Hitchcock builds this up the way it was built in Night Must Fall for Robert Montgomery to be the murderer. In that film, though Montgomery got an Oscar nomination, the public repudiated the picture. No one wanted to see Montgomery as a murderer.

Seeing that you can't really blame RKO for interfering, but the film was ruined for posterity.

Joan Fontaine won for Best Actress in Suspicion as the wife who gradually comes to suspect Grant has plans to do her in. In many ways her character is similar to the one she played in Rebecca the withdrawn girl who the evil housekeeper wants to harm.

Rebecca was a much better film than Suspicion and it won for Alfred Hitchcock his only Best Picture Award from the Academy. Fontaine got her first really good notices for Rebecca and got overlooked at Oscar time.

As is a tradition in Academy voting, they made it up to her the following year with Suspicion. Fontaine's rivals that year for the Oscar were Bette Davis for The Little Foxes, Barbara Stanwyck for Ball of Fire, Greer Garson for Blossoms in the Dust and Fontaine's sister Olivia DeHavilland for Hold Back the Dawn.

In fact DeHavilland was the Las Vegas oddsmaker's favorite that year and Fontaine's win was one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history. The sisters had a history of feuding and this one really stoked the fires of resentment.

As for Alfred Hitchcock, he was able to cast against type a year later another popular leading man, Joseph Cotten, as a murderer in Shadow of a Doubt. I guess Cotten hadn't been around long enough to typecast at the time.

But you can't argue with success and who was Hitchcock to try.

In earlier comment I speculated on the difference between the ending of the film itself and the novel on which it is based, "Before the Fact", by Francis Iles. According to the eminent film historian David Shipman, the book was about a woman who gradually realises that her husband plans to murder her, but who is so much in love she does not mind. He quotes Hitchcock as saying the inappropriate ending of the film came about because the producers, R.K.O., would have refused to let Cary Grant be a murderer. See David Shipman, "The Story of Cinema" (1984) at p.582.

Suspicion is a decent, but forgettable, Hitchcock moment. The cast is excellent and do well with the subtle plot about a woman who suspects her new husband is only after her money and plotting to kill her for it. It is a decent romance/ comedy/ suspense, which starts slowly, and intentionally comically, and then slowly and methodically builds its husband-plots-to-murder-wife plot, but the rug is pulled out from underneath and we're expected to swallow the contrived happy ending forced upon Hitchcock by the studio. Film slowly builds for its 90 minutes run time, but it doesn't build to any big payoff.

The happy ending does keep the film from ending predictably, but it insults the actors and filmmakers involved, as well as its original source material ("Before the Fact" by Francis Iles) and the audience itself, by basically saying "We were only joking about him trying to kill his wife this entire time"

Carey Grant is a fine actor and does well here, but perhaps his casting in the lead was a mistake? If there had been some other, less known actor in the role, perhaps there would not have been as much pressure by the studio to have it end in such a convoluted, happy fashion?

Cary Grant is a very convincing manipulator in Suspicion. His superficial dapper, happy-go-lucky demeanor masks an evil personality. Like the best con-men, his character Johnny seems too good to be true.

That's why Joan Fontaine's Lina falls for him, and subsequently becomes suspicious of his motives. She is naive; but wises up quickly as John's schemes seem increasingly unrealistic and eventually dangerous. At first it's she who thinks that he's naive.

You can't blame her for falling in love with him, and then wondering if she really knows him. She doesn't. Despite his social graces, he's routinely dismissive and outright rude to her. The "Monkey-Face" nickname would be cute enough if it's used once or twice, but it's plain demeaning to call her that almost all the time.

I can see why others would've rather seen a Joseph Cotten-type play John. But, whether by design or not, I think Grant actually does a better job than a more naturally shifty-looking guy like Cotten. In order to be duped by John, Beaky (Nigel Bruce) and Lina have to be taken-in. Cotten could easily play a remorseless business partner, but hardly the Adonis (to Fontaine) that Grant can portray.

Unlike many reviewers, I don't mind the ending. For one thing, it's suitably ambiguous. Yes, Lina almost fell out of the speeding car, but in what sense is John 'saving' her? The fact that he's driving recklessly, and therefore he has total control over her, shows that he wants to scare her, literally giving her a brush with death.

His subsequent alibi for his whereabouts at the time of Beaky's death might be true. But why should she believe him? The police, at least initially, think he might've been the poisoner. His stories are too nonchalant, too easy to hold much water. In any case, it's hardly a happy ending. Lina buys his line; presumably, she's doomed to more of the same from John.

His 'concession' is not to divorce her. John is an evil person who thrives on tormenting his wife. He continually alarms her, then gets defensive when she calls him on it. Finally, she just gives up. His ultimate defensive stroke is an admission that he was going to kill himself. In other words, Lina's guilty of not letting him victimize her. In a different scenario, in which Lina has inherited the bulk of the family fortune, there's little doubt that John would've let her slip out the door of the car and plunge to her death.

By its nature as a psychological thriller, Suspicion is mostly dialogue, with not much plot. The sparing use of minor characters and settings helps to focus attention on John, Beaky, and Lina. All three of the main characters are engaging and believable. Worth spending some time watching and thinking about this one.

Just about everything works with "Suspicion", except of course the ending, not so much that it negates everything we've come to know about Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant), but in the way in which Lina (Joan Fontaine) simply takes it on faith that what Johnnie reveals is true. Johnnie the schemer, Johnnie the conniver, Johnnie the rogue; 'yes dear, I was going to kill myself because I can't pay back my debts'. Then they proceed to drive home to live happily ever after, except of course, nothing's changed. Johnnie still owes on his gambling debts and the embezzlement at Melbeck's, so how exactly is everything now hunky dory?

The explanation of course lies in the fact that Hitchcock's studio restrictions wouldn't allow him to portray Cary Grant as a murderer. It's too bad since having Grant play some of his scenes with an uncharacteristically dark edge revealed a side to his acting that wasn't often seen up till then. Contrast that with the sublime beauty of his new wife Lina (Joan Fontaine), and you had the makings of a real thriller, but the 'huh?' ending we actually get made it less than satisfying for this viewer. Especially after 'murder' in the scrabble tiles, 'Murder on the Footbridge' and murder in the milk glass.

Up until the ending though, I found the principals quite credible. Grant and Fontaine take their portrayals through convincing character arcs that build suspense along the way. I particularly enjoyed Nigel Bruce as Beaky; as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes franchise he's much too restrained. Here he's affably jovial and offhandedly self effacing, as in the scene where he makes himself stand in the corner; that almost took on the appearance of an ad lib and it worked wonderfully.

Over the past year I've seen a number of Hitchcock's early British films, and one can note the progress in his story telling style. Now with back to back viewings of "Strangers On A Train" and "Suspicion", it's apparent that not all of his American movies were an unqualified success. In a way that's O.K., since it prepared him for his later masterpieces, notably "North by Northwest" and "Psycho".

I didn't know what 'Suspicion' was about when I sat down to watch it, so it was a pleasant surprise to have this story unveiled before me.

It begins telling a story of love(or obsession if you will). It is one of the finest depictions I have seen of what being in love with someone you've only spent brief time with can do to you. Hitchcock depicts this all-to-common aspect of life beautifully.

The film then delves into the suspicion that forms in Lina's mind. All the time still paying attention to the initial love that gives strength to the movie. Hitchcock, doing what he does best, builds the suspense. Cary Grant plays this character very well, and I know from the beginning that something fishy is going on with him. I found myself sitting forward, wondering what exactly was going to happen. Was he going to kill Beaky? Was he responsible for her father's death? Would he indeed kill Lina? Thanks to Hitchcock, I didn't know, but I knew it very well could happen.

Then came the end. I honestly wish it ended with Grant throwing her out of the car, or at least attempting to. The movie built up too much to that point to settle for this ending. It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the film. However, the film was very enjoyable throughout that I don't mind it so much.