Suspicion (DVD)

Plenty of suspenseful scenes in an early Hitchcock romance drama.Alfred Hitchcock's suspense thriller Suspicion (1941) is equally as compelling as a romance drama, though not as masterfully directed as his later works. Suspicion takes Francis Iles' novel Before the Fact and turns into a gripping piece of suspense filmmaking. The first half unfortunately meanders in establishing a realistic romance, but Fontaine finds your attention and keeps it forever.Joan Fontaine is ravishing as a new wife, who suspects her husband is a fraud and a murderer. She captivates you with her sad eyes and sullen looks, while Fontaine delivers a fantastic performance. She entrances you with an empathetic display of how betrayed her character feels. Her chemistry with Cary Grant is enjoyable, but you always feels like she's uncomfortable.Cary Grant is eating up the scenery in an usually villainous role for him. Grant is handsome and charming for a roguish fellow that takes advantage of men and women around him for his own monetary gain. Grant plays up the romance with Fontaine beautifully as he is obscured by shadowy intent. His character is selfish and spiteful, but also friendly and amiable enough that you still like him a little. Suspicion is certainly a complex role for Cary Grant and Hitchcock helps him rise to the challenge.Alfred Hitchcock's direction is neat, yet unremarkable for the first half of Suspicion. Once our heroes are married, the way Hitchcock's follows Fontaine's face is brilliant and revealing. I love how Hitchcock can tell you everything with a single shot. His reveals of letters, gifts, tracks, and eyes unfold the story for you to appreciate.I adore Nigel Bruce as the bumbling friend that just gets taken advantage of as much as he leeches off the hospitality of his acquaintances. Bruce's entire career is playing a delightful chum that is simple, yet also likable. Nigel Bruce portrays this character perfectly whether he's in a Sherlock Holmes film as Dr. Watson with Basil Rathbone or here in Suspicion as Beaky.Lastly, I must mention Franz Waxman's score for Suspicion. It is dreamy and airy with a light atmosphere that stops whenever something dark is supposed to happen. Waxman's style is pleasant and his romance themes are mesmerizing.In all, Suspicion is safely in the upper middle of Hitchcock's filmography for me. It is not as neatly engrossing, nor as quickly paced as his other masterpieces. I would liken Suspicion to Notorious or Rebecca, but perhaps not as great as those films.

Supposedly an adaptation of the mystery novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles, Suspicion is anything but faithful to its source material. Many liberties were taken to make the character Johnnie (Cary Grant) less loathsome. But to do so meant changing a murder mystery into a mere cautionary tale about the dangers of suspicion, suspecting someone of something that your feverish mind had provided all along. It also betrays a certain level of mistrust in one’s spouse. That she thought him capable of murder. At worse, in this version, Johnnie was just a sneaky opportunist, a reprobate, and a lousy gambler. Somewhere along the way they left out the numerous affairs, an illegitimate son, and the murder(s). Instead of excitement Hitchcock delivered hysteria and suspicion.Still, it is an interesting movie. But the film was not a box office success at the time of its release in 1942. It’s notable for Joan Fontaine winning a Best Actress Oscar, the only actor to win an Oscar in a Hitchcock film.

In the process of upgrading my DVD titles of Alfred Hitchcock films to the Blu-ray format. The new disc contains a much nicer transfer with the same Extras that were on the DVD release. The 4 out 5 stars represents the film itself (which is weakened slightly my not keeping Grant as the villain as Hitch and Grant wanted it do). The Blu-ray transfer is a nice upgrade from the DVD.

Spoilers!! I always give Hitchcock good reviews. The way he presents the story is remarkable. I watched this with my 18 year old daughter. I had seen it before. What aggravated me seeing it this time was the story itself. There are so many red flags as to Grant's character being a straight up dirtbag it's not even funny. Of course as a dad I'm telling my daughter not to fall for guys like that. Fontaine's character is just lapping it up. Disgusting. What hit me like a ton of bricks is when I first saw the movie, at the end I thought that maybe Grant's character was not as bad as all that. After all he didn't let her fall out of the car right? This time when we saw the movie, and Grant puts his arm around Fontaine and gives her the silky smooth explanation, my daughter said "Did you see that? He did it again!!" At that point I realized that there was no evidence that he wasn't a scuzzbag at all. He merely didn't dispatch her at that moment. As they drove off I couldn't help but think that will lie in wait for another opportunity. Chilling.

The second film of Hitchcock during his time in the United States won the Oscar he won for best actress in Joan Fontaine's interpretation shows the story of a marriage between a rich and a shy heiress, Lina, who is conquered by a sympathetic Johnnie, a gambler, "good-for-nothing" character, player, looking for a good fortune.Lina falls in love, he is attentive and friendly, conqueror and phony with her and through a series of lies about his work, begins to suspect that besides all, Johnny is a potential murderer who is developing a plan to kill he. A generated suspense as only Hitchcock knows is develop by a series of misunderstandings helping to that suspicion.Cary Grant,a great actor who has acted in many of Hitchcocks films, (Hitchcock said in public interview that Grant due to his roles could not play a role of murderer) complements greatly the role of Fontaine (sister Olivia Havilland, both Oscar winners).The scenery (in this case even quite English) and photograph of the environments where the couple lives, Jane's parents, hunting on horseback, her drive along the cliffs ... perfect .are showing the necessary details when required and indicating the perfection of the director not leave any out. With the usual dose of humor and entertaining and funny dialogue.A good thriller that tells the story of a marriage in which two of the traditional issues that are based on their plots are incorporated: money, murder and addiction, as suggested by Jeanine Basinger in his excellent course on this genre.

Nowhere near Hitchcock’s best, or worst, this is still a very engaging film, from 1941, following Rebecca, which also starred Joan Fontaine.She won an Oscar for her role in this as a shy, trusting, bookish young woman who falls for worldly, feckless, and possibly homicidal Cary Grant, unsettling in a part that adroitly exploits the actor’s ability to look darkly dangerous or moodily thrratening. That Grant never won an acting Oscar is the most unforgivable of the many crimes of the Academy.This is less obviously suspenseful than, say, Notorious {a far subtler film} or Rear Window but it has its moments, one of them prime Hitch, involving a luminously white glass of possibly poisoned milk.The supporting cast is excellent, with Nigel Bruce as the lovably tactless ‘Beaky’, Grant’s best friend, much more bearable here than as Dr Watson.The ending is very different from the original novel’s darker denouement, and has long been a bone of contention, for its abruptness as much as its unlikeliness. But it just about works.Not top-rank Hitch, but still a good one, and essential for fans of the amazing Mr Grant.

This is a review for the bluray and not the dvd.First of all the bluray will definitely play on UK Region B blu Ray players. It is not locked to region AMuch has been made about the ending of suspicion and how it was changed.This does not detract from a magnificent hitchcock movie and sees him really progressing with his inimitable style.Cary Grant is never less than good.Suspicion is excellent.Blu-ray picture is top notch.

I really enjoyed this film. It was good to see Cary Grant cast in a different sort of role. I really wasn't sure about him all the way through the film and the plot kept me guessing through to the very end. Frankly, it's hard to imagine not liking him in any role, but the story was intriguing and the supporting cast excellent. I found Joan Fontaine a bit melodramatic, but I suppose that's the style of acting back in those days. Would recommend.

A young woman meets a man on a train, falls in love, and marries him all too quickly. Not really having time to get to know him enough, she gets the wrong end of the stick on most things he does. However; the woman (Joan Fontaine) is not entirely to blame, since the man (Cary Grant) is untruthful with almost everything he tells her - and a string of 'coincidental' events do not help matters, and can only point in one direction... Eventually, the untruths lead to something more 'sinister' - but everything comes clear in the end.Though everybody raved about him, I was never a big fan of Cary Grant - either his acting ability - or his looks, though he's pretty good in this. I purchased this because it was a 'Hitchcock' movie - coupled with the fact that it also starred Joan Fontaine whose films were always pretty good.Lots of suspense in this!N.B. DVD includes both original Black and White and Colour versions.

I saw this film many many years ago and was very tickled by what the Americans thought of our coast road from Brighton to Southampton to take the ship to America.