Technically speaking, this is a well-made film and almost deserves a score of 8. It's pretty to look at, the acting is just fine and there are no major complaints at all about the story. The problem for me is that there is also nothing particularly distinguished or noteworthy about the film. Because Hitchcock's original darker vision for the movie was nixed by RKO executives, what remains is surprisingly bland---albeit, well-done. To me, there just isn't any particular specialness about the film. What's the big deal if, in the end, you find out that there really ISN'T a murder being plotted and everyone is going to live happily ever after?! In addition, both Cary Grant's and Joan Fontaine's characters are really hard to believe. He's just too awful and worthless and she's got the charm and charisma of a piece of cheese. That's odd, by the way, as Fontaine received an Oscar for her performance in a relatively flat film. No bad, mind you--just very flat. Other actresses up for Best Actress that year were Bette Davis in LITTLE FOXES and Barbara Stanwyck in BALL OF FIRE--two ladies whose performances I clearly preferred to Fontaine's. But Davis had already won the award a couple times and Stanwyck was in a comedy--a genre seldom respected by the Academy.

I watched this film last night, not knowing what to expect. Hitchcock is my favourite director, yet Suspicion is not treated among his best work. My conclusion from watching the film is that it is very good, but it is not perfect, and not Hitchcock's best. What let it down? Well, a lot of reviews have said so already, but the ending. For me it was abrupt and felt tacked on and somewhat implausible. Then again, StageFright and the Birds both had somewhat abrupt endings. And I know it isn't the fastest paced of his movies, but Torn Curtain's pacing was disappointingly pedestrian. However, Suspicion has a lot to recommend it. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Cary Grant charming and sometimes chilling as the man suspected of trying to murder his wife, and Joan Fontaine, looking gorgeous as ever even better as Lina giving a performance of edge and vulnerability. Out of the supporting performances, Nigel Bruce is simply terrific as Beaky, Leo G Caroll while in a brief role is memorable as the Captain and Cedric Hardwicke who played Frollo in the 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame so memorably is great as the General. The direction is superb, tense when it needs to be and gentle in others and also filled with the fashionable touches that make his very best films great. The film is shot in a very sumptuous visual style, with beautiful black and white cinematography and lovely costumes and sets. The score from Franz Waxman is simply marvellous; the scoring in the scene when Lina writes the letter is enough to give you goosebumps. All in all, not Hitchock's best, but very good all the same. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Alfred Hitchcock always dismissed his work in Suspicion. There was too much interference from the front office at RKO Studios which demanded a happy ending here. They also demanded an ending in which Cary Grant is not exposed as a calculating murderer.

As it is Cary Grant is poaching on Tyrone Power territory, doing one of those hero/heel roles that Power specialized in over at 20th Century Fox. I would not be surprised if an offer was made to Mr. Zanuck at Fox for Ty's services. But after Marie Antoinette, Ty Power never did a film away from Fox until 1952's Mississippi Gambler.

Grant's Johnny Aysgarth is what could be now described by that antiquated word, wastrel. He doesn't work, lives off his parents and has a bad gambling habit. He meets, woos, and weds the very prim and proper Joan Fontaine, daughter of Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Dame May Witty.

Hitchcock builds this up the way it was built in Night Must Fall for Robert Montgomery to be the murderer. In that film, though Montgomery got an Oscar nomination, the public repudiated the picture. No one wanted to see Montgomery as a murderer.

Seeing that you can't really blame RKO for interfering, but the film was ruined for posterity.

Joan Fontaine won for Best Actress in Suspicion as the wife who gradually comes to suspect Grant has plans to do her in. In many ways her character is similar to the one she played in Rebecca the withdrawn girl who the evil housekeeper wants to harm.

Rebecca was a much better film than Suspicion and it won for Alfred Hitchcock his only Best Picture Award from the Academy. Fontaine got her first really good notices for Rebecca and got overlooked at Oscar time.

As is a tradition in Academy voting, they made it up to her the following year with Suspicion. Fontaine's rivals that year for the Oscar were Bette Davis for The Little Foxes, Barbara Stanwyck for Ball of Fire, Greer Garson for Blossoms in the Dust and Fontaine's sister Olivia DeHavilland for Hold Back the Dawn.

In fact DeHavilland was the Las Vegas oddsmaker's favorite that year and Fontaine's win was one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history. The sisters had a history of feuding and this one really stoked the fires of resentment.

As for Alfred Hitchcock, he was able to cast against type a year later another popular leading man, Joseph Cotten, as a murderer in Shadow of a Doubt. I guess Cotten hadn't been around long enough to typecast at the time.

But you can't argue with success and who was Hitchcock to try.