Suspicion, 1941

This movie captured my attention with its romance at first, and then with its amazing suspense.

I wanted to post my review of Suspicion after I ran my article about mushrooms because of the question: Which mushrooms are poisonous?

In this movie, there is a scene involving a glass of milk. Those who have seen this movie know exactly what I’m seeing in my mind. Cary Grant comes up the stairs with a glass of milk on a tray. For the effect to be truly and horrendously suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock made them put a light in the glass of milk so it would glow during the long walk up the stairs.

Everyone watching that scene wonders: is it okay to drink the milk? Is it poisonous?

You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

Suspicion stars Cary Grant as Johnnie, a fun-loving gentleman whose eye is set on a young woman who is destined to be an old maid. Joan Fontaine’s character, Lina, accepts his affection cautiously at first, then agrees to marry him.

Watching the film, I found myself rooting for Johnnie and Lina to get together, and then worried that she’d stay with him. I fell for the movie’s entrancing twists.

Story events that seemed to come from nowhere led me further down the road I didn’t want to travel, the road farther and farther from a happy ending. But Lina worked through her conflicts with that one last shred of hope that what seemed to be the truth was only half the story.

I love to guess the endings of stories, but this one won me over by how difficult it was for me to make up my mind. The ending was satisfying and perfect for the story.

Alfred Hitchcock is a master at bringing out humor in the midst of a suspenseful film. Cary Grant superbly handles his character’s nuances. And Nigel Bruce plays a beautifully humorous Beaky.

I never catch the moment in the film where Alfred Hitchcock makes his cameo. Instead, the Special Features part of the DVD shows me where to look for him.

The novel that led to this movie was told from an interesting point of view. However, Hitchcock had to change the movie’s ending after he had already planned an ending that was similar to the book’s.

Joan Fontaine earned an Academy Award for her performance as Lina. She is the only actress to win an Oscar by acting in a Hitchcock-directed movie.

Joan Fontaine and her older sister Olivia de Havilland were the first pair of sisters to win Oscars and the first to be nominated for Academy Awards in the same year.