Review of Suspicion (1941) by Veronique K — 31 Jan 2008

"suspicion" is hitchcock's second collaboration with joan fountain after the breath-takingly enthreal "rebecca"...also an ideal showcast for cary grant to demonstrate his acting scale of enabling to emit a blurred sense of sinisterness which differentiates his usual comic touch.

Fountain is a spinister-alike uptight debutante who is secretly smotheringly passationate. with her emotions sealed under her nerdy frigid appearance until she meets playboy cary grant who is capable of nothing except womanizing, gambling and squandering. she gallopes to his bosom to repel against her parents' predication of her foredoomed celibate for life. after their sudden marriage, she discovers all his vices, and there's some perilous duplicity in him coated with his attentive thoughtfulness. her doubts toward him stack up after she finds out his over-enthusaism of studying murder cases as well as his eagerness to obtain the chemical formula of the un-tracable poison. how shall fountain do to survive over this sweetly handsome devil?

The scene of grant delivering a glass of milk to fountain is particularly creepy since it shimmers with omnious gleam in the dark that is resulted from hitchcock's whimiscal invention of setting a shining light bulb in the milk to constrast the background dimness, with a worrisome fountain lying upon the bedside frowning. what an atmostpheric scene.

The original story of "suspicion" actually encloses with the husband successfully disposes of the wife over the cliff road then acquires her insurance policy. but rko company demands hitchcock to alter the ending due to grant's romantic debonair image which populates in most flicks they invest upon him. so "suspicion" has two versions of endings, of course, ultimately hitchcock chooses to play it safe, and also it sorta fits into the moral sequence he often lectures in his flick, the trustful cord of marrital harmony, but usually hitchcock would bare you the betraying condemnation instead of ideal blossoming.