My second Hitchcock movie! This is the first collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant.

This is 1941's Suspicion (7.5 stars), starring Cary Grant (of course), Joan Fontaine, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty. It's about a shy, wealthy young woman (Fontaine) who gets swept off her feet by a charming playboy (Grant). Soon after their marriage, he starts acting suspicious, and she starts believing that he's out to kill her for her money.

I'm going to majorly spoil this movie, all right? But, it's a 70 year old movie…

I like this movie. Of course, I love Cary Grant and, of course, I love Hitchcock movies. It's full of little Hitchcock touches, like there's a window in Johnnie (Grant) and Lena's (Fontaine) house. This window is circular, but it has panes through it. The shadows the panes make look like a spider web. As the movie progresses, and Lena becomes more and more suspicious about her husband, the shadows deepen. She's a fly, caught in a spider's web.

And, probably the most famous scene is Johnnie bringing Lena up a glass of milk. Lena thinks that Johnnie is poisoning her with the milk. Hitchcock and his lighting director highlighted the milk glass by putting a light in it. So it shows up in the dark shadows. It looks pretty sinister. There's a twist ending, and all sort of red herrings.

Another touch that Hitchcock brings to it is his twisted sense of humor and his love for double entendres. From the first line of the movie and the situation—it's a dark screen, because the train that Lena and Johnnie are on just went into a tunnel, but the audience doesn't know that. Grant has the first line: "Oh, I beg your pardon. Was that your leg? I had no idea we were going into a tunnel. I thought the compartment was empty." This situation is pretty racy, then and now. The audience doesn't know what's going on, and there's a lot of situations anyone with a slightly twisted mind can think of. Turns out, Johnnie accidentally bumped Lena's leg in the dark because he thought the cabin was empty.

The end of this movie falls apart. All of Lena's suspicions are unjustified. Her husband wasn't trying to murder her. He didn't have a hand in his friend's death. The reason why he was asking about an untraceable poison was just, well, a contrivance. It turns out that Johnnie wants to kill himself because he's broke and he can't face responsibility. I guess. At the end of the movie, it's implied that Johnnie will start accepting responsibility, with his wife's help and guidance.

I've always heard that Hitchcock didn't like the ending of the movie. In the book, Johnnie does murder his wife, and he's implicated in her murder by a letter that she posted. Rumor has it that the studio didn't want Cary Grant to be depicted as a murderer.

According to the book The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures by Donald Spoto, the ending is just what Hitchcock designed. And, it does make sense. If the movie ended like the novel did, there wouldn't have been a twist. Johnnie is set up as a murderer, and he turns out to be one. There is no nuance. There is no twist in the end or payoff. The ending is mainstream Hitchcock—romantic, with need and passion wrapped in a twist.

But, the ending does come out of nowhere. I don't see any evidence before the "twist" that Johnnie was supposed to be suicidal, not homicidal. Having watched it so many times, I still don't see that. I try to see it. Maybe it's because Grant was a master of the façade—a handsome, glib face hiding a deeper character. So, maybe there is something there. Maybe if I dig past the handsome, humorous appearance, I may be able to see the suicidal man desperately trying to grow up….

Or maybe not.

Here's another problem I have with the ending: with Lena misunderstanding everything that Johnnie said or done puts her in a bad light. She's suddenly paranoid, obsessive. Now, I completely understand where she's coming from. Everything that he does points to him being a bad guy.

But, Joan Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance, making it the only Oscar-winning performance that Hitchcock directed.

Good movie. Not the best Hitchcock movie, but still well worth your time.

Till next time.

Kat