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|    Message 191,529 of 192,336    |
|    gggg gggg to Matt Barry    |
|    Re: Suspicion and the British Style    |
|    20 Aug 22 06:47:54    |
      From: ggggg9271@gmail.com              On Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 8:40:01 AM UTC-7, Matt Barry wrote:       > Alfred Hitchcock can be a difficult director to write about, because his       > name, themes and favorite obsessions are always larger than the individual       > films that make up his body of work. As with any large body of work, there       > are stronger and weaker works. "Suspicion", a 1941 suspense thriller       > starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, is a film that is easy to classify in       > that latter category. But, despite it's flaws, I would rank it closer to the       > former.       > The plot revolves around a charming cad, Johnny, played by Cary Grant. He       > ends up getting married to young and innocent Joan Fontaine, but soon,       > mysterious things begin happening that give her a very bad feeling about       > him. Soon, she even becomes convinced that he is plotting to murder her for       > her inheritance, which she has ended up forfeiting as her father doesn't       > approve of Johnny.       > What is remarkable about the film is not the plot, nor the performances, but       > the sheer style that Hitchcock brings to every frame. He was still working       > very much in what I see as his "British" style. There is a calm, almost       > lyrical pace to the film even in its more intense moments. He is still using       > his performers more as "types" than as real characters, which seemed to be       > the traditional approach in his British work. We see the remnants of his       > "British" stylistic sensibility in a number of his early films, certainly       > "Rebecca", most clearly in "Foreign Correspondent", and to a lesser degree       > in "Suspicion". The one exception may be "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", a thoroughly       > American screwball comedy that Hitchcock (supposedly) directed as a favor to       > Carole Lombard. However, this film, along with "The Trouble with Harry",       > perhaps gets closer than any other of his American films to what he was       > trying to do all along in Britain, which was to make comedies. Hitchcock's       > sense of humor is above all what marks his "British" style. I would argue       > that it was with "Saboteur" and "Shadow of a Doubt" in 1942 and 1943,       > respectively, that Hitchcock really moved fully into an "American style".       > The ending of "Suspicion" also recalls the ending of Hitchcock's "The       > Lodger", in that the obviously guilty man is suddenly announced not to be       > the killer after all, not for any logical connection to the events that have       > preceded it in the plot, but because the studio felt that the public just       > didn't want to see lovable Cary Grant (like Ivor Novello in the earlier       > film) as a killer. This is the kind of studio-era interference out of which       > the auteur theory was born, because although such a forced ending could have       > ruined the film, Hitchcock makes it work, somehow, despite our senses       > telling us of the obvious incongruity of the ending compared with what has       > gone before.       > "Suspicion" is a solid Hitchcock film, not one of his very best, but       > containing many of his favorite elements and handled with a clear style that       > enhances what would have been a fairly routine picture in other hands.       > --       > Matt Barry       > View my films at: www.youtube.com/comedyfilm       > Read my blog at: http://filmreel.blogspot.com              https://bestlifeonline.com/cary-grant-joan-fontaine-news/              --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05        * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)    |
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