"Suspicion" marks the first of four memorable collaborations between Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, and the second and final one with Joan Fontaine in a performance that earned her the Oscar for Best Actress, the only acting Oscar in a Hitchcock film. And it's quite deserved as Fontaine's facial expressions never fall in melodramatic caricature and powerfully capture the psychological premise of the title.And what a premise! How can a woman live with a husband who might be a killer, who might kill her? The film is an immersion into one character's fearful psyche, an arm-wrestling battle between doubt and love translated to the screen into bits of genius genius... until the ending causes the whole edifice patiently built up to collapse in the most infuriatingly anti-climactic way.But the film wasn't flawless to begin with. If "Rebecca" could quickly set the tone with the haunting shadows of Manderley, the dreamy voice-over and stay relatively faithful to its Gothic spirit, the first act of "Suspicion" feels more rushed out as if it was impatient to get to the point by using the most artificial tricks to make Grant and Fontaine's character fall in love. It started well with a conversation in the dark revealing that we're in a tunnel, hence in a train. Cary Grant is Johnnie Aysgarth, a smooth-talking playboy travelling in first class without money, and whose rude manners and obnoxiousness with the ticket inspector shouldn't please the type of woman his travelling companion is. Now everyone describes Lina as dowdy but there's no way a face as delicate and beautiful as Fontaine's could earn her the nickname of 'monkey face', even from Cary Grant, and even with the glasses, I couldn't buy it.Fontaine does a great job at looking shy or reserved like in "Rebecca", but "Suspicion" insists so much on her dullness it undermines its credibility. Olivia de Havilland was as beautiful as her sister but her Oscar-winning performance in "The Heiress" was the perfect embodiment of the shy spinster that falls in love with the first opportunistic wolf-in-sheep-disguise. In "Suspicion", we only take it at face value when Lina overhears a conversation between her parents (Cedric Hardwicke and May Whitty) about her desperate case and then literally throws herself in Johnnie's arms. End of first act.There's something interesting in Lina's character though in the way she only seems to exist for Johnnie, in a good mood, the "Blue Danube" is played like a leitmotif, a reference to the magical waltz that sealed their union much to her parents' reluctance. She's literally diluted herself in that love as a gratitude that's quite true to life. Indeed, there's always one person in a couple that drags the other, one making more concessions, one more forgiving, no matter which side you take, the romantic balance will be either positive or negative, never neutral. Truffaut lauded the film for its consistency, the fact that it stayed focused on Lina's mind and the evolution of her husband's perception and yes, the film's quite good at it. At first, Johnnie strikes as a little boy, whose reliance on Lina's money is so casually admitted that there couldn't be any greed or malice behind it. Then he turns out to be a greedy opportunist, selling two valuable chairs Lina's father gave as a honeymoon gift. As the film progresses, his persona gets more intriguing. For each suspicious action, there's an element that lowers the guard. One of his friends Beaky (Nigel Bruce) has a slip of tongue, revealing a few lies of his buddy, but he minimizes it with humor. Johnnie is a compulsive liar in the best case. But Johnnie's behavior can also reveal darker sides like the effective moment when he abruptly tells Lina not to interfere with his business and later, when he asks a famous writer many questions about the undetectable poisons. This is one of my favorite trademarks from Hitchcock, the casual discussion about the perfect crime, which you know will always pay off and Grant's acting is delightfully ambivalent. Then the 'suspicion' culminates with the classic 'glass of milk' moment, where he climbs up the stair with a white glowing figure emerging from the dark. A simple practical effect (a light bulb in a glass of milk) and Hitchcock plunged us into Lina's mind, will she drink it or not? At that point, "Suspicion" had the makings of a great film, because Grant played his part perfectly, he could be what he was suspected to be... or not.Then came the ending. While Hitchcock wanted Johnnie to be the killer, and Lina to drink the glass of milk after incriminating him with a posthumous letter he would send to his mother-in-law, he was vetoed by the studios... because Cary Grant could never be cast as a murderer. It's for reasons like this that I cherish actors like Bogart, Cagney or Brando who could fit in any roles. I'm pretty sure Grant wouldn't have minded being a bad guy, he resented Hitchcock for having favored Fontaine all through the film and not getting an Academy nod, but if his role was closer to Charles Boyer in "Gaslight", things might have been different. He should have blamed it on studio politics rather than Hitchcock, the harm is done.And the problem with Hitchcock movies is that they always benefit from a second viewing... as long as they ask for a second viewing, once you finish "Suspicion", everything is so perfectly wrapped up that you don't feel the urge to watch it again. Hitchcock knew it was only his second movie and had to make compromises, his pragmatism would pay off later as he would benefit from more creative freedom, once his reputation firmly established in Hollywood.Still, all it needed to be a masterpiece was just one final shot on a smiling Grant, an enigmatic grin just to conclude on ambiguous note, that would have fit a film with such a title.

On the surface, "Suspicion" looks like a film that would be a perfect fit for Hitchcock's directorial touch. It contains two star leads, great opportunities for tremendous acting, and even more possibilities for intense drama/suspense. Unfortunately, Hitch fails to cull all those aspects together in this case, instead producing a middling film with a conclusion that will have you wondering if it was all worth it.For a basic plot summary, "Suspicion" sees debonair gentleman Johnnie (Cary Grant) marry the rather practical Lina (Joan Fontaine). After the fabulous courtship, however, Lina discovers that Johnnie is nowhere near what he seemed at first, and that he may even have some murderous intentions in order to get himself out of debt.The trouble with "Suspicion" is twofold:First, none of the character development ends up leading anywhere. I won't give any major spoilers here, but suffice it to say that in the end, you will be severely disappointed with how the characters turn out. In typical "40's cinema" fashion, emotions turn on a dime with no rhyme or reason and are explained away with a single sentence at the end.Secondly, the "suspense" promised us only comes near the very end of the film, and then is quickly ruined by (again) the cop-out ending. The rest of the run-time is filled with scenes that should be building up the two lead characters, but instead amount to waffling back and forth between "Lina loves Johnnie" and "Lina suspects Johnnie".Put simply, "Suspicion" may have thrilled film fans during its time, but it certainly does not hold up well today. I'll give it 2.5 stars because the acting is quite fine throughout, but other than that there just isn't much to get excited about here.

first, it is a real interesting film. because, in many scenes it seems be an experiment to mix different pieces from different genres. it is, in same measure, a dark comedy, a thriller, mystery and quiz. the occasion to discover a different Cary Grant, exploring his art for romantic comedy in admirable manner and occasion for Joan Fontain to guide the viewer on the web of innocence, rumors, fear and need to know the truth. the end is a compromise. brutal, uncomfortable but, maybe, part of experiment, solution to escape from the predictability or the scissor of censors. a strange film because it contains the lines who define Hitchcock universe but, in same measure, seems profound different. and, finally, this is far to be a bad thing.

A rich wallflower (Joan Fontaine) falls in love with a charming playboy (Cary Grant). Despite his reputation, she marries him. Before long she becomes suspicious of his motives for marrying her and soon realizes her life may be in danger. Enjoyable Hitchcock thriller with notorious studio-imposed ending that is not in sync with the rest of the film. Even with a more fitting ending, however, I don't think this would be considered one of the great director's best. It's a good one, for sure. Grant, Fontaine, and the supporting players are all excellent. Hitch's direction is terrific, as well. But the story just isn't all that special and the whole thing is predictable, at least until the out-of-left-field ending that most fans don't even like.