Customer Reviews

Suspicion

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I received this DVD within a few days. If you are a Hitchcock fan then this is a great way to add to you collection. It's much cheaper to buy all four together. I knew these movies already but wanted them in my collection. I have already watched all four and love them.

One needs to be a fan of classic movies to enjoy older films in this genre but if you are a Montgomery Clift fan, you will enjoy "I Confess". I love Quebec City, so the choice of location is an interesting bonus for me. Montgomery Clift is very believable as a priest and the romantic background that sets the plot in motion is well-played by both Clift and his leading lady, Anne Baxter. The very well-known stars in each of the other pictures remind me of how large a presence Alfred Hitchcock was in the movies back then. TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Hitchcock Thrillers (Suspicion / Strangers on a Train / The Wrong Man / I Confess)

Suspicion has all of the qualities of a great film, and then some. It's romantic, mysterious, and with much suspence throughout the whole film. Cary Grant is charming and debonior in the role, and Joan Fontaine is shy and beautiful. It's a very entertaining and intriguing film, entirely believable. It's amazing and suprising in how it ends. It's a film well worth seeing anytime.

Suspicion is a great film, as are most Alfred Hitchcock films. It features two talented classic stars, Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, and is very suspenseful and chilling. Although this film could have been much better had the ending been different, it is still quite good as it is, especially because of Grant's amazing (but much ignored) performance as Johnny.

Essentially, Suspicion is the story of a bookish, shy English girl (Joan Fontaine) who falls in love with a charming but irresponsible man named Johnny (Cary Grant). As the film progresses, the audience begins to suspect Johnny of more than simply gambling and being irresponsible, which raises the question - are the suspicions justified or is "Monkey Face" (what Johnny calls his wife) just being paranoid?

The film progresses, building to a seemingly unforgettable conclusion - but then suddenly, and very unconvincingly, Johnny is vindicated! In my opinion, this ending, while still making Suspicion a great film and enjoyable to watch, really detracts from the overall effect. I feel that Hitchcock's original ending, in which Johnny gives his wife the poisoned milk, she drinks it, but writes a letter beforehand saying that she knew he was going to murder her, would have been far more effective. Sadly, however, because of Grant's matinee-idol appeal, the studio did not allow Hitchcock to cast him as a murderer (they feared it would hurt his popularity).

Anyhow, even though it is frustrating that Grant was so constrained by the studios and by his own persona, Suspicion is still a good film as it is, and is totally worth seeing!

First off let me warn you that the colourised version of this movie is SO BAD. If you buy it make sure you get the black and white version. The colourised one looks like someone... a five year old child... took paint and slapped it all over the film. It's awful.

Second of all let me warn you that this is NOT one of the best Hitchcock films. I find it really aggravating at moments, because Cary Grant's character drives me looney with his incessant fibbing and calling Lina "monkeyface". I did like the hairdo he gave her. Overall his acting is annoying here. In his other three Hitchcock films - Notorious, North by Northwest, and To Catch a Thief - he was much better. Joan Fontaine is basically the same character as she played in Rebecca, except that here it is rather tiring to watch her simper and swoon and be all sentimental over her man... In Rebecca I felt the role called for all that naive schoolgirl stuff. Here it isn't right. Ingrid Bergman could have done wonders for this movie...

I can say some positive things too, however. The costumes were lovely - what I could see of them under the sloppy colourisation. The story itself was quite good as well, except of course the controversial ending... which personally I felt was just one last lie from Cary and that he did kill her after they got home. Far too abrupt, whatever it was supposed to mean. The guy who played Beaky was one of the best characters - at least I didn't feel like he was acting. The murder mystery writer lady was good in her part, and her mortician brother was as well.

It would have been nice to have a bit more development with the characters. In most every other Hitchcock film, you know what they think and how they feel... here I was never sure.

...

Taken as a flat 40's thriller, this ranks pretty well. Next to Hitchcock's other works, it's pretty mundane. There is good dialog, Fontaine's growing suspicion that her husband might be a murderer can be interesting at times, and Grant makes it watchable in really one of his best performances (if he'd been lousy in it, it would not have been watchable). I think Fontaine's Oscar was partially for Rebecca, the film she lost for the year before, because she is pretty unremarkable in this. But she had little to work with either. I wouldn't recommend avoiding this, but just go in without the expectation that Hitchcock was involved, and you won't be disappointed.

man a lot of people I guess haven't seen this film. well, this is one of the greatest by Hitchcock and I bought it before even seeing it because none of the movie stores had it. it's a great flim with a romantice chilling thrill! everyone who likes old films should see this one. And I mean ONLY people who are big fans of old classic films because some who AREN'T big fans of old films won't like this film...because it's got that ussual airy fairy feeling with the loud emotional music and stuff! It's a great film!

"Suspicion" is one more classic Alfred Hitchcock film. Like many, it too is filmed in murky but beautiful black and white. The key character is Cary Grant, who worked with the great director so often. Grant plays the role of a lying, scheming, swindling, cheating and thoroughly unlikable fellow. He marries a young but wealthy ingenue, Joan Fontaine. He is patently and without remorse after her inheritance. Fontaine quickly realizes the type of jerk she has married. She even starts to suspect that Grant is out to kill her! The plot further thickens when Grant's buddy, actor Nigel Bruce, dies suddenly on a business trip with Grant. We wait for one of those English detectives that Hitchcock casts so well to haul Grant off to jail. And then? Then there is that famous car ride that ends the movie so abruptly and has given other reviewers fits. It is all too true that "Suspicion" ends quickly with no clear-cut resolution. We are left with no clue if the couple divorced, lived happily ever after or if Grant finally got tossed in a British cooler. The abrupt and unresolved ending is similar to "Notorious". This reviewer has no problems with murky endings. Why not appreciate them "as is"? Some interesting sidebars: 1)"Suspicion" was filmed with an entirely British cast on a Hollywood lot, nowhere close to the English seashore.2) Grant was said to be furious at the Director because Hitchcock allegedly was very patient with Fontaine but hassled him during production. 3) Ms Fontaine won a 1941
Best Actress Oscar for her role, making her the ONLY actor/actress to be so recognized for a Hithcock film. The recommendation from this reviewer is to enjoy "Suspicion" for what it is-an above average suspense film with perhaps a hole or two in it. Viewers should ignore the fact that Grant and Hitchcock have done better work elsewhere. They might also ignore the fact that RKO Pictures changed the "original" ending. That scarcely makes Hollywood history. Why not just calm down and watch the movie? "Suspicion" should stand alone on its' own merits.

There are no directors better than Alfred Hitchcock in setting a mood of menace or a string of clues that point to some truly climactic ending. In SUSPICION, Hitchcock presents a view of good guy Cary Crant as a leering, lying, cad who may be guilty of even worse criminal behavior.

Grant is Johnnie, who opens as the Cary Grant his fans have always known: suave, handsome, dashing. Joan Fontaine is Lina, a rather bookish frump who nevertheless catches Johnnie's eye. Early on, Johnnie's interest in Lina is at least partly based on her family fortune. When the audience sees Grant going against type by playing the caddish Johnnie, they can see that behind the smiling eyes and suave grin lay a twist that no one would have believed. Director Hitchcock slowly builds up the character of Johnnie by innuendo. At each step of the way, Lina hears and sees the implied charges, but she always tries to find a rational answer that does not point toward what the audience sees as the inevitable truth. Nigel Bruce as Beaky, a childhood chum of Johnnie's, supplies the same innocent charm that he displayed earlier as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series. Here as Beaky, Bruce reinforces the twin nature of Johnnie: that is one must accept his negative side if one is to as readily accept his positive. With each revelation, first from Beaky, then from Johnnie's employer (Leo G. Carroll), the mounting evidence accrues to convince Lina that her husband is guilty of a series of crimes ranging from theft, to deception, to murder. The famous scene in which Johnnie brings Lina a glass of glowing milk indelibly etches in the audience's collective mind the conviction that Johnnie is indeed the creep that he appears to be.

Unfortunately, Hitchcock could not allow the reputation of Cary Grant to be tarnished by ending the movie on the affirmation of a guilt that he had spent the better part of two hours so carefully constructing. The turn about of the closing scene leaves the viewer gasping in disbelief. Even if that viewer accepts the glib explanation of Johnnie of his true motivation, then this acceptance still leaves him as the same cad he was at the start of the film. Still, Joan Fontaine as Lina managed to snare an Oscar for best actress. SUSPICION is the kind of quality film that except for the last minute manages to engage the viewer in a race against time during which one woman must balance her feelings against mounting suspicions against a man whose charm is source both of her love and her deepest fears.

Turner Classics/RKO Pictures:

It's been 6 long years since the advent of the DVD format and you have still not released this classic on DVD. PLEASE DO SO ASAP.

I purchased most of your classic titles on laserdisc, and I and many of my friends are anxiously awaiting them on DVD. What is the hold-up? These classics deserve to be seen by film lovers and all students of film in the current best possible viewing format:

CARY GRANT CLASSICS AWAITING DVD RELEASE:
TOPPER (1937)
IN NAME ONLY (1939)
GUNGA DIN (1939)
SUSPICION (1941)
MR. LUCKY (1943)
THE BACHELOR AND THE BOBBY-SOXER (1947)
MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948)