Suspicion: A Review

SUSPICION

Would you believe Cary Grant could be a murderer? Such is the case in Suspicion, the Alfred Hitchcock film which won Joan Fontaine the Best Actress Oscar. While a lesser Hitchcock film than what would come after, Suspicion is better than I had originally remembered.

British spinsterish Lina McLaidlaw (Fontaine) is not initially impressed with rakish but charming ne'er-do-well Johnnie Aysgarth (Grant). However, Johnnie slowly keeps pressing his charms to Lina. Her parents, General and Mrs. McLaidlaw (Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Dame May Whitty) express private concerns that Lina will end up an old maid. That is one of the prompts for her to pursue and pine for Johnnie.

Eventually, they elope and set up house in London. It is here that Lina finds that Johnnie has an aversion to work and the truth. He easily squanders whatever money comes his way, including hers. Johnnie even sells two antique chairs that are McLaidlaw family heirlooms that Lina loves. Johnnie has at least one friend: the dimwitted but kind-hearted Gordon "Beaky" Thwaite (Nigel Bruce). Beaky loves Johnnie, overlooking to quietly cheering on his duplicitous nature.

That duplicitous nature caused Johnnie's own cousin, Captain Melbeck (Leo G. Carroll) to fire him for embezzlement. Melbeck informs the unknowing Lina that he agreed not to press charges but had to terminate Johnnie's employment. Despite his repeated actions, Johnnie always manages to scrape by enough to keep things going. He also starts talking the naive Beaky into a real estate venture. Lina, however, begins to wonder if Johnnie would not shrink from murdering Beaky for the money. Could Johnnie also plan to murder Lina? Will Lina's Suspicion be proven true or fantasy? 

Suspicion is not held up as one of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's better films. However, it holds a very unique distinction in film history. It is the only Hitchcock film to have an Oscar-winning performance in it. Looking back, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was rather parsimonious with Hitchcock films overall. Some of his greatest films received few nominations. Psycho received only four nominations, North by Northwest just three and Vertigo a mere two nods. Almost all of those nominations were in technical categories, with Psycho the only one of those three to receive above-the-line recognition. Compare the nine combined nominations for Psycho, North by Northwest and Vertigo to Emilia Perez's near-record thirteen nods and you wonder if people should measure quality by Academy recognition. Yet, I digress.

Suspicion, I suspect, earned Joan Fontaine the Best Actress Oscar in part as consolation for having lost the year before for Rebecca. The roles are not dissimilar, but it unfair to say that Fontaine's win is based solely on her previous loss. I found her performance good as Lina. In the latter part of the film, Fontaine was not as dramatic or theatrical as she was in the first part. Her growing fear and/or paranoia was well-portrayed. Of particular note is in the film's climax when Johnnie brings in a glass of milk. Could that milk be poisoned? She also has a wonderful bit of silent acting when informed of Beaky's fate. Her face expresses that mix of shock, horror and genuine sadness for the "old bean". 

Joan Fontaine may have walked away with the Oscar. However, it is Cary Grant who stole the show. Suspicion is auspicious in that it is also the first of the four films that Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock would make together. In Suspicion, I think that Grant is slowly shifting from his purely lighthearted roles to show his great range. Suspicion does have a surprising amount of lightness to it. That, I confess, threw me off a bit. Grant in particular makes for a lot of light moments in Suspicion. There is when he is fixing Lina's hair. There is his pet name for her, Monkeyface. His interactions with Nigel Bruce's Beaky also might lead people to think that Suspicion was closer to a comedy than a drama.

However, late in the film, Cary Grant shows Johnnie's dark and menacing side. When Lina questions Johnnie's business ventures, he becomes quietly but firmly defensive and angry. As both of them walk up the stairs, the camera following them, we see how dangerous Cary Grant could be on screen. He isn't shouting or raging. His voice and line delivery, however, reveal how harsh Johnnie could be. Had he not been nominated that year for Penny Serenade, Cary Grant would have been a fine choice for a nomination for his turn in Suspicion. 

I have to also confess that I simply have never liked Nigel Bruce. I have never forgiven him for making Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Dr. John Watson into the ultimate boob. Bruce made Watson into a man so stupid that he could not find his way out of a room with all the windows and doors open. Here as Beaky, Bruce still makes the character into a bubble-brained dupe. To be fair, at least he was more tolerable here. The fantasy sequence of Beaky's potential demise though will probably have people laughing more than anything else. In smaller roles both Sir Cedric Harwicke and Dame May Whitty did well as Lina's disapproving or worried parents.

Franz Waxman's score received an Oscar nomination, one of the film's three including Best Picture. Waxman's score was lush and romantic. However, part of me thinks that is the problem. The climatic scene where Lina faces off against the glass of milk should be tense. Waxman's score, however, makes it sound far too romantic and not at all menacing. 

The screenplay adaptation of Francis Iles' Before the Fact was the work of three writers. Samson Ralphelson, Joan Harrison and Alfred Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville brought in some nice moments. The local police call on Mrs. Aysgarth to inquire about her husband's role with regards Beaky. They inform her that a French witness with some understanding of English has a name. The police ask Lina if she or Johnnie might know a "Mr. Albein or Holbein". It is clear that they mean "Old Bean", the nickname Beaky calls Johnnie. Other elements though go unremarked. Suspicion never clears up what exactly happened to Beaky. 

The pat ending where things are supposedly cleared up is not Mr. and/or Mrs. Hitchcock's fault. The Production Code nor RKO were about to have Cary Grant get away with murder. The mere suggestion that Cary Grant could be a murderer was already treading on dangerous waters. Would a different conclusion have made Suspicion better? I think so, but that is not what we have. Instead, we have a film that ties things up neatly, down to a relatively happy ending. 

I think better of Suspicion now than I did when I first saw it. The performances were good. At 99 minutes it does not overstay its welcome. I would put Suspicion on the lower end of both Alfred Hitchcock films and Best Actress Oscar-winning performances. That said, Suspicion is an acceptable thriller.  

DECISION: C+