Plot Intro
Shy, dowdy Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine) lives a quiet countryside life with her wealthy, traditional parents. One day, she meets Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) on a train, a charming, rambunctious but irresponsible chap who offers her a more exciting life as her husband. The two very quickly get married despite the disapproval of Lina’s parents. Lina quickly comes to realise, however, that despite his affections Johnnie is penniless, an incessant gambler, and a pathological liar when it comes to his money situation. As their financial and marital situations becomes increasingly precarious, a good friend and business associate of Johnnie’s suddenly dies from alcohol poisoning, and Johnnie stands to benefit from the death. Lina becomes convinced that Johnnie murdered his friend- and that Johnnie is plotting to murder her too.
Joan Fontaine is someone who may not appear on most “top 10 stars” lists but she is nonetheless a feature of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” and upon her death in 2013 she was one of the last remnants of that era.
She was born in 1917 in Tokyo, where her father was an attorney and her mother was a retired actress, both were British. Her full name was the prestigious Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, and her elder sister is the actress Olivia de Havilland, a two-time Best Actress winner (so we’ll be addressing her in more detail later), and one of the stars of Gone With the Wind with Vivien Leigh. When Fontaine was just two, her mother left her father because he employed the sexual services of geishas, and she took both children to California. De Havilland would eventually move back to Tokyo but Fontaine stayed in the US.
As an actress, their mother Lillian pushed them both to be performers too, but allegedly favoured Olivia which apparently sowed the seeds of discord between the two sisters. There are many rumours and stories related to this infamous sibling rivalry. We will uncover some of it in this blog post, and some more in our posts about de Havilland in the coming weeks, as there is a lot to write about.
Fontaine had a range of supporting roles in movies from the mid-thirties, before landing the leading role in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Best Picture winner, Rebecca. This made her a huge star, and she gained her first of three Best Actress nominations (she lost to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle).
The next year, she won for Suspicion, which I would personally describe as a “third tier Hitchcock”. On the top tier, you have classics such as Psycho and Rear Window; second tier possesses the lesser-known thrillers that deserve more recognition such as Strangers on a Train or The Lady Vanishes. Suspicion sits below them. You can see Hitchcock’s idiosyncratic skills and innovations, and the concept isn’t a bad one. But the film hasn’t stood the test of time at all.
The problem lies in the mawkish and terribly, terribly British script. The first hour feels more like a Noel Coward play, complete with cries of “Oh Johnnie, you cad!” and servants who says things like “fancy is as fancy does, but you can’t lead a horse to water”. Some sections feel more like a Harry Enfield sketch than a '40s thriller.
It’s also hard to empathise with Lina’s belief that Johnnie is planning to kill her. He’s very evidently in love but by today’s standards he obviously suffers from anxiety, disenchantment and a gambling addiction. Whenever Lina sees him as cold or aggressive, it’s usually because something tragic has happened or she’s been dismissive to him first. Her conclusions are, quite frankly, ridiculous. Apparently, Hitchcock wanted it to be a lot darker but the studio refused to allow Cary Grant to be too much of a villain. If only they’d listened.
Grant does a great job as a man trying to be debonair and perfect but hiding a great deal of stress and feelings of inadequacy. I can see why Fontaine hurriedly marries him to escape her stodgy, pastoral life of fox hunts and Sunday church services. And Fontaine is fine although her character has nothing much to do other than stare wistfully at Johnnie and faint a couple of times. She’s better in screwball comedy The Women where her character may be meek (this seems to be her niche) but it’s done for laughs.
Fontaine’s win for Suspicion is often analysed by biographers because not only did she defeat titans Bette Davis, Greer Garson and Barbara Stanwyck, but she also beat her own sister who had a slightly longer career than she at the time. Fontaine herself described herself as “appalled” that she had won, and rumours abounded that the friction between them that had existed since childhood had been exacerbated. One story (which Fontaine has denied) states that she rejected de Havilland’s attempts at congratulation at the Oscars ceremony.
But throughout the '40s, '50s and '60s, their relationship seemed more cordial and they were seen together at similar parties, although neither spoke much about their relationship. Fontaine’s career stayed strong and she even set up her own production company, Rampart Productions, with her second husband. However, sisterly conflict seems to rise again upon the death of their mother in 1975, and we’ll go into that in more detail in our two blog posts about de Havilland coming very soon.
Fontaine married and divorced four times and her second marriage produced her only biological child, Deborah. In 1951, she was in South America for a film festival where she met a four-year-old Peruvian girl called Martita. Fontaine arranged with Martita’s parents that she would be the girl’s legal guardian and take her to the USA for a more privileged life. As part of the arrangement, Martita was supposed to return to visit her parents in Peru at 16. Martita turned 16, Fontaine bought the ticket, but Martita refused to go. As a result, Fontaine stated that the two of them will remain estranged until Martita goes to Peru and as far as we know, nothing changed.
Fontaine died in 2013 at the age of 96. Her elder sister, de Havilland, is remarkably still alive and kicking and recently celebrated her 104th birthday. Good genes!
Highlight
Cary Grant’s performance, in my opinion, outshines Fontaine’s. You can see why she is attracted to someone who will help her escape her boring, privileged lifestyle, but you can also see a man wracked with an inability to settle and maintain stability due to his own upbringing.
Lowlight
The ending is a massive disappointment. Hitchcock wanted something darker but alas his hands were tied. Had they let him make his own decisions, this may well have been a much more renowned film of his.
Mark
3/10
Doug says...
Joan Fontaine is one of those names where I recognise it and know she was a film star of sorts, but equally I have no real idea what she’s been in, what she looks like, and what her Unique Selling Point is.
After watching this film, I’m none the wiser. It’s a half-assed Hitchcock where it seems to be building to some tremendous secret and then doesn’t have anything. Very Boy Who Cried Wolf realness. Cary Grant is trying, bless him, but again the writing is so weak that all he can do is be vaguely ominous and a bit shifty. It’s famous for a scene when Cary Grant carries a glass of milk that MIGHT be poisoned (spoiler, it isn’t) and Hitchcock put a light inside the milk so it glows ominously.
But when a film is famous for a glass of milk, you might rightfully start to wonder how good it is. The problem is that Hitchcock wasn’t allowed to do what he should have - made Cary Grant an actual murderer and then deal with the fallout from that. Without any real villain, the whole thing becomes insubstantial and unimportant.
At the centre of this is Fontaine who - frankly - isn’t very good. In fact I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t recognise her if I saw her again. It’s a bland, paint-by-numbers performance with no attempt to bring an edge to the role in a way that peers Joan Crawford, Bette Davis or Norma Shearer would have definitely have done.
However there is one real highlight that elevates the film above the lowest mark. At one point Fontaine collapses in grief. She sways slightly before crumbling to her knees in the most overdone way possible. She then sits upright for a good five seconds before fully collapsing on a nearby chair, in a manner that suggests Fontaine had forgotten what she was meant to be doing and then suddenly remembered. It is such an amazing moment that I made Paul rewind so I could watch it again, cackling loudly. Unintentionally hilarious - yes, but a much-needed diversion from a dreary uninteresting film.
Highlight
Fontaine’s chairography.
Lowlight
A Hitchcock film sans real menace and a villain is…beige.
Marks
2/10
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