Suspicion (1941)

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4)

Murderous Mates

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Suspicion on DVD

Cary Grant stars as a suave playboy who swoops into shy Joan Fontaine's life. They marry and Fontaine begins to suspect that her new husband is a murderer and that she may be his next target. Grant was arguably Hitchcock's greatest leading man, harboring a hint of darkness under his slick, charming facade, but his implicit star power kept him from actually being the murderer. (The fans would never stand for it.) Hitchcock later complained about this conundrum in the famous "Hitchcock/Truffaut" book. Nevertheless, the director does some wonderful things with the picture up until the ludicrous ending. Still you can't help feeling a vague disappointment with the whole enterprise. Joan Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance, but many historians (myself included) feel that it was a makeup for her loss the previous year in the extraordinary Rebecca.

DVD Details: Warner Home Video has released Suspicion on DVD for the first time, and it includes a theatrical trailer and a short "making-of" featurette. (Peter Bogdanovich and other Hitchcock experts participate.) In September of 2004, Warner released 8 new Hitchcock DVDs, including Suspicion, Foreign Correspondent, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Stage Fright, Strangers on a Train, I Confess, Dial M for Murder and The Wrong Man.

Starring: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel, Auriol Lee, Reginald Sheffield, Leo G. Carroll
Written by: Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison, Alma Reville, based on a novel by Anthony Berkeley
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 99 minutes
Date: September 7, 2004