Suspicion
It’s hard to imagine Alfred Hitchcock as anything but a legendary filmmaker. The Master of Suspense, he is called. But at some point, in the start of his career in the ’20s and ’30s, he wasn’t quite the Master he is regarded today. Talented? Absolutely, but hardly one of the great directors of all-time. He was headed in that direction, though, with movies like “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “The 39 Steps,” and “The Lady Vanishes” under his belt in the UK. After “Vanishes,” he came to America, and Hollywood, and directed a Best Picture Oscar winner in “Rebecca.” After that, the legend practically wrote itself.
His next film after “Rebecca” was “Suspicion,” and not only was it his second with his “Rebecca” star, Joan Fontaine, but more importantly, it was his first was Cary Grant. The collaborated with each other three more times on established classics (“Notorious,” “To Catch a Thief,” and most importantly, “North By Northwest”), but “Suspicion” is a unique one because it casts Grant in a less-than-heroic light. The charm is there, to be sure, and it had to be for this role, but there’s something behind it that makes us, and Joan Fontaine’s Lina McLaidlaw, who falls for Grant’s Johnnie Aysgarth almost immediately, begins to sense it, and isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
The film is based on a book called Before the Fact, and if it’s anywhere close to the movie Hitchcock made, I understand completely where the appeal was for Hitchcock. And for Grant, as well. One of the most charismatic stars of all-time, Hitch plays off of that marvelously in their first film together. He essentially casts Grant as the villain, and it’s a role that suits the actor well, and that ambiguity is exciting to see from Grant, and something he would return to in one of his best later films, Stanley Donan’s Hitchcockian “Charade.” At least someone was paying attention to “Suspicion” at the time.
Well, other people did, as well. Fontaine won an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as Lina, the suspicious wife who isn’t quite sure what to make of her reckless, unpredictable husband. Personally, I think it was a way of retroactively honoring her for “Rebecca” the year before, but watching it again, she’s far from undeserving for “Suspicion.” Even with Grant as the star, this isn’t a fun thriller from Hitch like those he would become best known for later in his career. This is more of a psychological mystery, and Hitchcock knows exactly which buttons to push to keep us on the edge of our seats, and Fountain follows the director every step of the way. In both of her films with Hitchcock, she plays a woman who is vulnerable to psychological torment, but grows strong in her convictions when the flawed men she loves reveal themselves in the most emotionally intimate of ways. It makes for great drama, and Fontaine plays it to maximum effect in both films. Watching it for the first time in years, I forgot just how good she was in “Suspicion” in hitting those notes. Maybe she deserved the Oscar more for that film, which is upper 2nd-tier Hitchcock fare, after all.
