Suspicion DVD cover

Suspicion (1941) is a film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine as a married couple. It also stars Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Isabel Jeans and Heather Angel. Image File history File links Suspicion DVD cover This is a DVD cover. ... Image File history File links Suspicion DVD cover This is a DVD cover. ... See also: 1940 in film 1941 1942 in film 1940s in film years in film film Events Top grossing films Sergeant York Buck Privates, starring Abbott and Costello Tobacco Road Academy Awards Best Picture: How Green Was My Valley - 20th Century-Fox Best Actor: Gary Cooper - Sergeant York Best Actress... Film noir is a style of film associated with crime films, that portrays its principal characters as acting out of desparation in a bleak and morally ambiguous world. ... Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was a British film director closely associated with the suspense genre. ... Cary Grant Cary Grant (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was a British-born actor in mostly American films. ... Joan Fontaine with Cary Grant in Suspicion Joan Fontaine (born October 22, 1917) is an international actress. ... Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (February 19, 1893 - August 6, 1964) was a British actor. ... William Nigel Bruce (September 4, 1895 – October 8, 1953), usually credited as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor, best known as Dr. Watson in a series of films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. ... Dame May Whitty (June 19, 1865 - May 29, 1948) was a British theater and cinema actress. ... Heather Grace Angel (February 9, 1909 - December 13, 1986) was a British film actress. ...

It is based on Englishman Francis Iles's 1932 novel Before the Fact. Suspicion is one of the famous examples where, in the process of rewriting the novel for the big screen, the plot was tampered with to an extent that Iles´s original intention was completely reversed. As William L. De Andrea states in his Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994), Suspicion "was supposed to be the study of a murder as seen through the eyes of the eventual victim. However, because Cary Grant was to be the killer and Joan Fontaine the killee, the studio—RKO—decreed a different ending, which Hitchcock supplied and then spent the rest of his life complaining about." Anthony Berkeley Cox (July 5, 1893 - 1971) was a British crime fiction author, born in Watford, England. ... See also: 1931 in literature, other events of 1932, 1933 in literature, list of years in literature. ... See also: 1993 in literature, other events of 1994, 1995 in literature, list of years in literature. ... The classic logo of RKO Radio Pictures. ...

During the 1930s, soon after the advent of the talkies, sunny-boy Cary Grant acquired the screen image of the perfect young gentleman, the kind of cheerful young man every mother in her right mind would want as her son-in-law. By 1940 Grant had starred in so many light-hearted romantic films as well as screwball comedies that casting him as a scheming murderer seemed risky from the start. As far as the literary basis of the film is concerned, Iles's novel is experimental in that it is not a whodunit: It does not take long to determine the identity of the villain and his motives. According to Colin Dexter, Before the Fact is a "crime novel" rather than a "detective novel", Iles being "the father of the psychological suspense novel as we know it today". It is true that the police do not play any role in the book; none of the characters is ever charged with a crime, let alone indicted or convicted of one. // Events and trends The 1930s were spent struggling for a solution to the global depression. ... A sound film (or talkie) is a motion picture with synchronized sound, as opposed to a silent movie. ... The screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most elusive of the film genres. ... A whodunit or whodunnit (for Who done it? and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. ... (Norman) Colin Dexter is the British author of the Inspector Morse novels. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... In the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal charge of having committed a serious criminal offense. ...

The novel: Outline of the plot

Before the Fact is the story of Lina, a "born victim". She is raised in the country in the early decades of the 20th century and, at 28, she is still a virgin and in danger of becoming an old spinster. She finds country life with her parents rather boring, and only lives for strangers that might be passing through or that have been invited by someone living in or near their village. When the novel opens, such a stranger has just arrived: 27 year-old Johnnie Aysgarth, from an impoverished family who are, as she is told, "of rotten stock". General McLaidlaw, Lina´s father, is opposed to the marriage, and everyone seems to know that all that Johnnie is after is Lina's money, Lina herself having been told from an early age on that Joyce, her younger sister, has got all the looks and that she, Lina, has got the brains. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

In spite of these difficulties, Lina and Johnnie get married after only a short engagement. They go to Paris on their honeymoon where they stay at the best hotels and dine at the best restaurants, and, on their return to England, move into an eight-bedroom house in London. Only six weeks later, Johnnie, who has not got a job but whom Lina expects to have a regular income anyway, admits to his wife that they have been living on borrowed money and that there is none left any longer. Gradually, though unwillingly, Lina takes over the responsibility for the couple's finances and suggests to Johnnie that he should get a regular job. Also, they leave the expensive house and move to the country; they settle down in a part of Dorset where they do not know anybody and start living in a more modest house. For the time being, they both rely entirely on Lina's allowance. Reluctantly, Johnnie agrees to take a job: He becomes the steward of a large estate a Captain Melbeck has come into. Lina would always have liked to have children, but, as it turns out, she never gets pregnant. The Eiffel Tower has become a symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Dorset (pronounced Dorsit, sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the southwest of England, on the English Channel coast. ... An allowance is a term used to describe a regular allocation of money from one person to another. ... The terms steward or stewardess can refer to a number of different professional roles. ... An Estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. ...

As time goes by, Lina realizes - gradually and unwillingly - that Johnnie is a crook. Apart from being a compulsive liar, he by and by turns out to be

• a thief: For example, during a tennis party he steals an expensive diamond belonging to one of the guests and, soon afterwards, a piece of Lina´s jewelry. Also, he removes Lina's four Hepplewhite chairs and sells them to an antique shop in Bournemouth.
• a forger: He forges Lina's signature to be able to cash one of her cheques.
• an embezzler: He embezzles Captain Melbeck's money to be able to pay his gambling debts. Luckily, Melbeck says he is not going to prosecute.
• an adulterer: During his marriage he has affairs with a lot of women and village girls including Lina's best friend, Janet Caldwell - he has rented a flat in Bournemouth especially for that purpose -, and Ella, their parlour maid, by whom he even has a son.
• eventually, a murderer: He incites General McLaidlaw to do a trick involving chairs while he and Lina are staying with the General for Christmas. This is too much physical exercise for the General, and he dies a sudden death. Some years later, Johnnie sees no other way of cheating a rich school friend of his, Beaky Thwaite, out of his money than to travel incognito to Paris with him, go to a brothel there and have him drink a whole beaker of brandy in one gulp so that he drops dead.

However, Lina's own death will be Johnnie's first "real" murder. He goes to great lengths to conceive of a new method of murder that cannot be detected. When Isobel Sedbusk, the author of detective stories, happens to spend the summer months in their village, he associates with her and, on the pretext of discussing material for her new book, elicits one new method of murder from her: swallowing an alkali commonly used but never suspected as having a poisonous effect on humans - an alkali which, on top of that, leaves no trace in the human body when a post-mortem is carried out. At the very end of the novel, Lina, who really seems to have gone mad, catches flu. She has been waiting for her husband to try out that new method of murder on her for months now. When he brings her a drink to her bedside she swallows it deliberately, knowing that she is drinking a poisonous cocktail. Again Johnny is going to get away with it ("People did die of influenza."), and this is really what Lina, so much in love with her husband, hopes will happen. Theft (also known as stealing) is, in general, the wrongful taking of someone elses property without that persons willful consent. ... George Hepplewhite (died June 21, 1786) was a cabinet and chair maker. ... Bournemouth is a seaside resort in the county of Dorset on the south coast of England. ... Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive (fraud is the use of objects obtained through forgery). ... Embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation of property by a person to whom it has been entrusted. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that regulates governmental sanctions (such as imprisonment and/or fines) as retaliation for crimes against the social order. ... Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their lawful spouse. ... a still from the movie This work is copyrighted. ... For the battery, see alkaline battery The word alkali can mean:- In chemistry, an alkali is a specific type of base, formed as a carbonate, hydroxide or other ionic salt of an alkali metal or alkali earth metal element. ... For the former Death Metal band called Autopsy, see Autopsy (band). ...

The novel covers a period of approximately ten years: Johnnie Aysgarth's courtship of, and marriage to, Lina McLaidlaw, the disintegration of their marital life and her imminent death - although the reader cannot be too sure that she is really going to die. The interesting device employed by the author is the use of an omniscient third person narrator. The whole story is told from Lina Aysgarth's point of view. We know everything she does and everything she thinks. On the other hand, we know practically nothing about the villain except for what Lina sees and gathers. That way a lot of suspense is created. Courtship (sometimes called dating or going steady) is the process of selecting and attracting a mate for marriage or sex. ... Omniscience is the capacity to know everything, or at least everything that can be known. ... The Narrator is the entity within a story that tells the story to the reader. ... A stereotypical villain. ... One of the premier programs of the Golden Age of Radio (now known as old-time radio), Suspense advertised itself as radios oustanding theater of thrills and was heard in one form or another from 1942 through 1962. ...

The Hitchcock movie

In places, the screenplay of Suspicion faithfully follows the plot of the novel. There are, however, a number of major differences between the novel and its film version. For example, all references to Johnnie Aysgarth's infidelity were removed. True, in the first days of Johnnie's "courtship", while the couple are driving through the countryside in Lina's car ("Have you ever been kissed in a car?"), she asks him how many women he has had. Johnnie gives a humorous rather than a really evasive answer: He says that once, when he could not go to sleep, he started counting them, just like sheep jumping over a hedge, and he fell asleep at number 73. However, this, even back in the early 1940s, was accepted, or at least tolerated, male behaviour, especially of a man who was considered a playboy. Much is left open for the cinema-goer to decide: Did he actually sleep with any, some, or all of them? Or did he only kiss them? The crime of adultery, on the other hand, is altogether left out in the plot of the film: Lina's best friend does not appear at all, and Ella, their maid, certainly does not have an illegitimate son by Johnnie: Sex is not an issue. In a religious context, infidelity is lack of the faith that a religion requires; one who lacks such faith is an infidel. ... A small variety of cars, the most popular kind of automobile. ... The Kiss by Francesco Hayez A kiss (from Old English cyssan to kiss, in turn from coss a kiss, perhaps onomatopoeic) is the touching of the lips to some other thing; usually another person. ... Binomial name Ovis aries Linnaeus, 1758 A sheep is any of several woolly ruminant quadrupeds, but most commonly the Domestic Sheep (Ovis aries), which probably descends from the wild moufflon of south-central and south-west Asia. ... // Events and trends The 1940s were dominated by World War II, the most destructive armed conflict in history. ... Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their lawful spouse. ... Illegitimacy was a term in common usage for the condition of being born of parents who are not validly married to one another; the legal term is bastardy. ...

In both the novel and the film version, General McLaidlaw opposes his daughter's marriage to Johnnie Aysgarth. In the book as well as the movie, Johnnie freely admits that he would not mind the General's death because he expects Lina to inherit quite a substantial fortune from her father, which would solve their (ic his) financial problems. The book, however, is much more sinister, with Johnnie egging on the General to physically exert himself to a point where he collapses and dies. In the film, General McLaidlaw's death is only reported, and Johnnie is not involved in any way in his death. Again, Johnnie's criminal record remains incomplete. IC or ic may stand for: -ic suffix IATA code for Indian Airlines Illinois Central railroad (AAR reporting mark IC) Immediate constituent (IC), in morphology Imperial College London - The famous science university is often referred to simply as IC In Casu, Latin for in this case In Character in Roleplaying...

There are several scenes in the film which create suspense and in which the viewer is left in doubt as to Johnnie's intentions. In one of them, at the end of the film, Johnnie is driving his wife at breakneck speed to her mother's. Suddenly, the door of their car is open, and Lina is in danger of falling out and down the cliffs. For some seconds, the viewer must think that Johnnie is trying to throw her out. Immediately afterwards it turns out that he actually saved her life, that he just tried to close the door (which opened all by itself, or what? Why on earth didn't he stop the car instead? Why was he driving so fast in the first place?). This scene, which takes place after her (final) illness, does not exist in the book.

And of course the ending itself is different: In Iles's novel, Johnnie serves his sick wife a drink which she knows is poisoned. Nevertheless she gulps it down. In the film, it can be seen untouched on the following morning. Instead, she expresses the wish to go back to her mother's. Johnnie insists on driving her. The highly unbelievable scene on the cliff road follows. When the car has finally come to a standstill, Johnnie can persuade Lina to come home again: The final image, without words, is their car making a complete turn. What remains is Lina's (and the viewer's) constant fear that Johnnie might be a killer. a still from the movie This work is copyrighted. ... The skull and crossbones symbol traditionally used to label a poisonous substance. ...

In fact, Hitchcock was quoted as saying that he was forced to alter the ending of the movie. He wanted an ending similar to the climax of the novel, but the studio, more concerned with Cary Grant's "heroic" image, insisted that the ending be changed to what is seen in the film today.

As far as film language is concerned, a musical leitmotif is introduced in Suspicion. Whenever Lina is happy with Johnny - starting with a ball organised by General McLaidlaw -, we hear Johann Strauß´s waltz "Wiener Blut" in its original, light-hearted version. At one point, when she is suspicious of her husband, we hear a threatening, low-key version of the waltz, metamorphosing into the full and happy version after the suspense has been lifted. At another, Johnny is whistling the waltz. At yet another, while Johnny is serving the - obviously poisoned - drink of milk, a sad version of "Wiener Blut" is played again. A leitmotif (also spelled leitmotiv) is a recurring musical theme, associated within a particular piece of music with a particular person, place or idea. ... Johann Strauss II The Waltz King coming to life in the Stadtpark, Vienna Johann Strauss II (or Johann Strauss the Younger, or Johann Strauss Jr. ... Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood or Viennese Spirit) op. ...

A visual threat - something that could not be done on the printed page either - is inserted when Lina suspects her husband of preparing to kill Beaky Thwaite: On the night before, at the Aysgarths' home, they play anagrams, and suddenly Beaky has the word 'Murder' on the table in front of him. Seeing the word, Lina imagines the cliffs Johnny and Beaky told her they would be going to on the next morning, and faints elegantly. An anagram (Greek ana- = back or again, and graphein = to write) is the result of permuting the letters of a word or words in such a manner as to produce other words that possess linguistic meaning. ...

External links

• Suspicion at the Internet Movie Database