As embodied by Joan Fontaine, who nabbed an Oscar in this second outing with the director, Lina McLaidlaw is a buttoned-up, bookish heiress whose prim exterior conceals longings for a more engaged emotional life. Her solution materializes in the darkly handsome Johnnie Aysgarth, a gambler, womanizer, and spendthrift who flirts, then pursues, and soon marries her. As Aysgarth, Cary Grant is both irresistible and sinister, capable of deceit and petty theft, as well as grander designs on his bride's impending fortune. Lina's passion for Johnnie is clouded by each new revelation about his apparent dishonesty, from clandestine gambling to real estate development schemes; more troubling are clues implicating him in the death of his best friend, and the prospect that Johnnie may be slowly poisoning Lina herself. By the time we see him ascending a darkened staircase with a suspicious glass of milk, an image made all the more indelible through the spectral glow the director captures in the glass, the evidence seems damning indeed.

In fact, even as Hitchcock stacks the deck against Johnnie, and takes full advantage of Grant's skill at conveying such menace, the director also dots his landscape with visual clues to Lina's own neurotic (and erotic) obsessions. The final scene forces us to reevaluate her behavior while leaving enough of a cloud over Johnnie to rob him, and us, of a complete exoneration. It's a wicked, unsettling payoff to a brilliantly executed thriller. --Sam Sutherland

All this is a shameful travesty, since the rest of the movie is a showcase for some of Hitchcock's best work. Skillfully complemented by Harry Stradling's camerawork and Franz Waxman's score, the director produces some of the most chilling and suspenseful sequences of his career. The film in itself (minus the ending) is a masterful exercise in playing with the conventions of the star persona: the story is told from the point of view Joan Fontaine, with the suspicion of the title falling firmly upon the roguish, but charming, Cary Grant. How could a director even think of toying with the sacred like this? Remember, this was in the day when the studio system ruled. In the hands of a master like Hitchcock, though, such a reversal of the scheme of things (beautifully encaptured by an early shot in the film in which the camera encircles the embracing lovers) can work. Hitchcock tried it many times after that, most notably with James Stewart in Vertigo. Evidently the studio mistrusted Hitchcock, which explains the atrocious conclusion.

The result is that the film feels like an appalling waste of time. It almost certainly cannot be enjoyed more than once, at least not fully, and according to the director's intentions. Ultimately, we are left bewildered as a classic becomes mediocre before our eyes.


Please enter a title for your review:   August 1, 2002
 8 out of 12 found this review helpful

First off let me warn you that the colourised version of this movie is SO BAD. If you buy it make sure you get the black and white version. The colourised one looks like someone... a five year old child... took paint and slapped it all over the film. It's awful.

Second of all let me warn you that this is NOT one of the best Hitchcock films. I find it really aggravating at moments, because Cary Grant's character drives me looney with his incessant fibbing and calling Lina "monkeyface". I did like the hairdo he gave her. Overall his acting is annoying here. In his other three Hitchcock films - Notorious, North by Northwest, and To Catch a Thief - he was much better. Joan Fontaine is basically the same character as she played in Rebecca, except that here it is rather tiring to watch her simper and swoon and be all sentimental over her man... In Rebecca I felt the role called for all that naive schoolgirl stuff. Here it isn't right. Ingrid Bergman could have done wonders for this movie...

I can say some positive things too, however. The costumes were lovely - what I could see of them under the sloppy colourisation. The story itself was quite good as well, except of course the controversial ending... which personally I felt was just one last lie from Cary and that he did kill her after they got home. Far too abrupt, whatever it was supposed to mean. The guy who played Beaky was one of the best characters - at least I didn't feel like he was acting. The murder mystery writer lady was good in her part, and her mortician brother was as well.

It would have been nice to have a bit more development with the characters. In most every other Hitchcock film, you know what they think and how they feel... here I was never sure.

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