Suspicion
Warner Home Video
Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Nigel Bruce, Cedric Hardwicke
Extras: Documentary, Trailer
Rating:
Very much in the vein of ’Rebecca, ’ which he directed one year earlier, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1941 thriller ’Suspicion’ is an atmospheric film in which a lot of the suspense is created by the way the story suggests certain things and directs the viewer – and the heroine – to make certain assumptions. With these expectations Hitchcock masterfully toys and weaves a film that is as mysterious and menacing in the brightest sunlight as many other films are in the most brooding dead of night.
Warner Home Video is presenting the movie in its original fullframe aspect ratio in a transfer that is generally clean, although there are scratches and blemishes throughout. The transfer shows quite a bit of graininess as well in many shots that is carried over into the DVD presentation and creates an image that is maybe not as stable as it could be. The black and white reproduction is without problems, rendering solid blacks and clean highlights while maintaining the whole range of grays to create a detailed and contrasting image. No compression artifacts are evident.
The audio on the DV comes as the original mono language track with optional subtitles in English, French and Spanish. The audio has been cleaned up and is free of hiss, pops or background noise, but still ,the presentation has a limited frequency response with harsh sounding dialogues and music.
A new documentary is also enclosed on the DVD featuring interviews with many Hitchcock scholars as well as his daughter Patricia. It is full of great little tidbits that add to the overall understanding of the movie and is very well worth checking out.
’Suspicion’ is a wonderful film that shows what a marvelous suspense-storyteller Hitchcock was. He managed to make sunny boy Cary Grant as dark and menacing as anything without ever having him do any violent acts or displaying any overt aggressiveness. Joan Fontaine is once again giving us a heroine that is torn by doubt and suspicion while always trying to overcome her own fears and weaknesses.
Great classic cinema, is all I can say about this movie. It is a fairly early Hitchcock gem and definitely worth seeing.
