Suspicion

Director: Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock

Overview

Wealthy, sheltered Joan Fontaine is swept off her feet by charming ne'er-do-well Cary Grant. Though warned that Grant is little more than a fortune-hunter, Fontaine marries him anyway. She remains loyal to her irresponsible husband as he plows his way from one disreputable business scheme to another. Gradually, Fontaine comes to the conclusion that Grant intends to do away with her in order to collect her inheritance...a suspicion confirmed when Grant's likeable business partner Nigel Bruce dies under mysterious circumstances. To his dying day, Hitchcock insisted that he wanted to retain the novelist Francis Iles' original ending, but that the RKO executives intervened. Fontaine won an Academy Award for her work.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/12/2016
UPC:	0888574373863
Original Release:	1941
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Sound:	[DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Time:	1:39:00
Sales rank:	20,175

Special Features

Making-of documentary before the fact: Suspicious Hitchcock; Theatrical trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Cary Grant	Johnnie Aysgarth
Joan Fontaine	Lina McLaidlaw
Cedric Hardwicke	Gen. McLaidlaw
Nigel Bruce	Beaky Thwaite
May Whitty	Mrs. McLaidlaw
Isabel Jeans	Mrs. Newsham
Heather Angel	Ethel the Maid
Reginald Sheffield	Reggie Wetherby
Faith Brook	Alice Barham
Leonard Carey	Jenner, the Butler
Clyde Cook	Photographer
Alec Craig	Hogart Club Bit
Vernon P. Downing	Benson
Rex Evans	Mr. Bailey
Edward Fielding	Antique Shop Proprietor
Gavin Gordon	Bertram Sedbusk
Kenneth Hunter	Sir Gerald
Aubrey Mather	Mr. Webster
Clara Reid	Mrs. Craddock
Isobel Sedbusk	Auriol Lee
Reggie Wetherby	Reginald Sheffield
Constance Worth	Mrs. Fitzpatrick
Maureen Roden-Ryan	Winnie, Maid
Pax Walker	Phoebe, the Maid
Dorothy Lloyd	Miss Wetherby
Leo G. Carroll	Capt. Melbeck
Billy Bevan	Ticket Taker
Ben Webster	Registrar
Lumsden Hare	Inspector Hodgson
Hilda Plowright	Postmistress
Gertrude W. Hoffman	Mrs. Wetherby

Technical Credits

Joan Harrison

Samson Raphaelson

Alma Reville

Alfred Hitchcock	Director,Producer
Carroll Clark	Art Director
Willaim Hamilton	Editor
Joan Harrison	Screenwriter
Van Nest Polglase	Art Director
Samson Raphaelson	Screenwriter
Alma Reville	Screenwriter
Darrell Silvera	Set Decoration/Design
Dewey Starkey	Asst. Director
Edward Stevenson	Costumes/Costume Designer
Harry Stradling	Cinematographer
John E. Tribby	Sound/Sound Designer
Vernon Walker	Special Effects
Franz Waxman	Score Composer

Editorial Reviews

Joan Fontaine gives a splendid, Oscar-winning performance in Suspicion, but this 1941 Alfred Hitchcock film falls apart during its much-debated ending. Based on the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (pseudonym of Anthony Berkeley) and adapted for the screen by Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison (Hitchcock's assistant), and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife), Suspicion stars Fontaine as a spinsterish young woman who revolts against her parents by marrying a spendthrift playboy (played perfectly by Cary Grant). As Grant leads their marriage and his own gambling debts into a crisis situation, Fontaine begins to suspect that her beloved husband might be capable of murder -- perhaps even her own. The suspense builds perfectly around the two characters in typical Hitchcock style before running aground in the stunted finish. The final act went through numerous script changes between the director, the writers, and RKO Pictures -- which refused to let Grant be cast as a killer. The result is a hasty conclusion written just prior to shooting that fails to satisfy. Hitchcock's preferred ending had Grant killing Fontaine with poisoned milk, but not before she has him post a letter that implicates him in the crime. Ironically, Hitchcock faced the same studio interference with Ivor Novello's character in 1926's The Lodger, a fight he also lost. The director's cameo has him mailing a letter at the post office about midway through the film.

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