Suspicion
Published September 1, 2023
Film info
- Title Suspicion
- Director Alfred Hitchcock
- Year 1941
- Run time 1hr 39m
- Genres Mystery, Romance, Thriller
- Tagline In his arms she felt safety... in his absence, haunting dread!
After escaping from her oppressive parents, the woman meets and marries a fortune hunter. At first, her happiness prevents her from reflecting on his character, but when events take a sinister twist, she fears that his intentions are murderous.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2:35 | “I hate to presume on our short acquaintance…” love how they talk. |
| 4:48 | The sound of the hunt always makes me think of Mary Poppins. |
| 12:41 | The music makes it sound SO dramatic. She’s just walking away from the phone. |
| 15:36 | This woman has zero chill. |
| 18:33 | “You mustn’t joke with me, I’m no good at joking, I don’t know how to do it.” |
| 29:05 | Ah, it’s all about the money. |
| 35:07 | Beaky as a nickname, weird. |
| 39:20 | Love the idea of having a mystery writer in the village. |
| 41:07 | He’s such a gaslighter! He said he loved the hat on the train and now he hates it. |
| 48:50 | “I am sure you will be explain things very smoothly to yourself and others.” Burn. |
| 51:26 | They spend a lot of time talking to portraits in this film. |
| 1:03:55 | I don’t think a hug is the appropriate response to ‘I thought you were a murderer but it turns out you’re not.’ |
| 1:10:24 | I’m still slightly bemused that the policeman couldn’t tell her he had died but handed her a newspaper to read it instead. |
| 1:15:20 | “I always think of my murderers as my heroes.” |
| 1:22:07 | Mining the ideas of a murder mystery writer is clever, but not in front of everyone. |
| 1:33:50 | I don’t know, I still don’t believe him. |
Thoughts
This is a weird movie, really, it doesn’t feel like it’s by Hitchcock at all. The real suspicion and drama takes a while to get going, after all the contrivances of older films - people meeting and falling in love after a week and getting married after not much more, etc, etc. Once the mystery elements and various twists started, I was intrigued but then the end felt like such a cop-out - it really looked like he was trying to throw her out of that car.
Apparently Hitchcock says he was forced to change the ending by the studio because they wanted to preserve the hero status and image of Cary Grant - why hire him as a killer then? Very odd. But I did like the two stars, and Joan Fontaine, who I’ve not heard of before, was really good.
Rating: 2 / 5