Bruce Lee Movie:

Editorial Review:
Repeated viewings can't dispel the shock of the final scene in this classic 1941 romantic mystery--a brief but disorienting confrontation that suddenly inverts the heroine's mounting conviction that she's married a murderer, forcing us to reconsider virtually every scene and line of dialogue that's preceded it. It's a masterful coup de grace for director Alfred Hitchcock, who has built a puzzle around the corrosive power of suspicion, threaded with deft ambiguities that toy with dramatic conventions and character archetypes in nearly every frame.

As embodied by Joan Fontaine, who nabbed an Oscar in this second outing with the director, Lina McLaidlaw is a buttoned-up, bookish heiress whose prim exterior conceals longings for a more engaged emotional life. Her solution materializes in the darkly handsome Johnnie Aysgarth, a gambler, womanizer, and spendthrift who flirts, then pursues, and soon marries her. As Aysgarth, Cary Grant is both irresistible and sinister, capable of deceit and petty theft, as well as grander designs on his bride's impending fortune. Lina's passion for Johnnie is clouded by each new revelation about his apparent dishonesty, from clandestine gambling to real estate development schemes; more troubling are clues implicating him in the death of his best friend, and the prospect that Johnnie may be slowly poisoning Lina herself. By the time we see him ascending a darkened staircase with a suspicious glass of milk, an image made all the more indelible through the spectral glow the director captures in the glass, the evidence seems damning indeed.

In fact, even as Hitchcock stacks the deck against Johnnie, and takes full advantage of Grant's skill at conveying such menace, the director also dots his landscape with visual clues to Lina's own neurotic (and erotic) obsessions. The final scene forces us to reevaluate her behavior while leaving enough of a cloud over Johnnie to rob him, and us, of a complete exoneration. It's a wicked, unsettling payoff to a brilliantly executed thriller. --Sam Sutherland

Suspicion [Region 2] Reviews:
Cary is really mean to Joan Fontaine - a jerk
2009-08-30 - I love both of these actors, but this plot wasn't my cup of tea. He takes her precious chairs to sell for gambling money, and has schemes to make a futune quick and easy.He calls her "Monkey face" which is appalling too! I love Joan Fontaine and just felt sad for her in this movie. The ending was unfulfilling too. Plus my copy had stop and starts that interrupted the dvd many times, irritation!

Another Hitchcock masterpiece!!
2009-08-12 - Suspicion is one of my favorite movies and I recently read Before the Fact, the Frances Iles novel that it's based on. I was surprised at how closely the movie tracked the book with the most notable exception of the ending, which of course was dictated by the studio. Lina was such a sympathetic character and beautifully portrayed by the lovely and talented Joan Fontaine. She is so aware, of both her faults and Johnnie's, that it's almost painful to watch. At times I wanted to shake her--she is drawn to Johnnie like an addict to their drug and unable to resist his charm. Unlike some others, I think Cary Grant was perfectly cast as the charming, handsome ne'er-do-well. We all know (or should know) that ugliness may reside in some of the most attractive packages and how weak, lonely people are preyed upon (Lonely Hearts Murderers, etc).

For those who haven't read it, I highly recommend reading the book, it's also fantastic.

Amazing film
2009-07-21 - Joan Fontaine and Carey Grant play two characters that need each other for different reasons. Grant's character, Johnnie Aysgarth, is looking for financial security through his liason with wealthy women. He plays upon Fontaine's character, Lina's feminine insecurities--she is not beautiful and is growing into spinsterhood--to ring her into his orbit. While secure women would find Johnnie's quirks troublesome--he calls her "monkey face" and brags about his scores of romantic conquests on their first date--she falls for his charms and marries him against the wishes of her upper-class parents who disapprove of Johnnie's horse-betting and other unsettling lifestyle habits.

Suspicion is a strange story about star-crossed lovers that nevertheless seem to suit each other on some level. The ending is ambiguous, and in a sense, more fulfilling because of it.

Suspicion is a wonderful film, one of Hitchcock's most interesting, because the characters so at odds with each other, with one taking advantage of the other, destroying that person's trust, yet seem to keep going in spite of it. One wonders at Lina's refusal to leave Johnnie at every, deceitful turn, yet also begin to see that there might be something besides money that Johnnie is hoping to get out that marriage. Fascinating film!

Twisted love
2009-02-16 - Suspenseful and fun. Grant and Fontaine are newlyweds in this film but is love or murder on their minds? A Hitchcock class-"macguffin" and all.

5 for Grant
2009-02-09 - If you look past the dated camera work, sets, all that, you have a great movie. 9 out of 10 Grant movies should automatically get 5 stars