Calgary Herald (14/Nov/1991) - Thriller is loaded with great suspense

Details

• article: Thriller is loaded with great suspense
• author(s): Sharon Sontag
• newspaper: Calgary Herald (14/Nov/1991)
• keywords: Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Suspicion (1941)

Article

Thriller is loaded with great suspense

It's easy to accept the dashing and handsome Cary Grant as a carefree, monied playboy.

But a destitute, cold-blooded killer? Only Alfred Hitchcock could make us buy that.

Something's rotten in the heart of the cleft-chinned hero when Grant takes to the screen opposite Joan Fontaine in Suspicion, a 50-year-old mystery about a woman who begins to suspect her charming new groom of murder.

Grant plays Johnny Aysgarth, a Peter Pan who sweeps dowdy heiress Lina MacLaidlaw off her feet and into a huge mansion and a lavish lifestyle that he can't afford.

With no real means of support, Johnny spends his days borrowing from friends and gambling at the track with a devil-may-care attitude towards his wife's increasing apprehension.

Her concern turns to terror, however, when Johnny's dearest friend dies suspiciously and she uncovers a tangle of deceit which leads her to believe hubby plans to kill her.

Though the ending is a cop-out forced by the production company, this black-and-white mystery — which garnered Fontaine a best actress Oscar — should keep even today's action-addicted audiences wrapped in suspense.