Screenplay by Joan Harrison, Alma Reville, and Samson Raphaelson based on the novel “Before The Fact” by Frances Iles.
This is another one of those movies that I know all of the dialogue to (“A passionate hairdresser!”) and could do a one man show, if suddenly required to save mankind from some horrible fate. I don’t really know why I have seen this film so many times, but I suspect it was one of those films from my childhood that was *always* on TV, and also the kind of movie I love... so if my choice was between SUSPICION on one channel and some other movie that always played on TV on another channel, I’d watch SUSPICION again. I identified with the female lead - not because I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body or because Cary Grant is my “Mango” - but because the first time we see her she is reading a book, and books are her life. That was me as a kid. In fact, this was one of many films that had me riding my bike to the library to check out the novel it was based on. As a shy, bookish, boy, I understood what it meant to secretly love someone way out of your league (Debbie Morrow in grade school)... and know that your heart will be broken again and again because they are just out of your league.
Nutshell: Shy, bookish Lina (Joan Fontaine) comes from a wealthy family - her mother and father (Dame May Whitty and Sir Cedric Hardwicke) expect her to die an unwed virgin, she’s approaching thirty and never even been kissed! On a train she meets handsome, charming, lady’s man Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) who hides from the conductor in her first class compartment... and when caught, asks her if she will pay for the balance of his ticket. Their paths cross a couple more times, with Johnnie always asking her for something... and they begin dating. He sweeps her off her feet - one of the most eligible men in all of England, and he picks *her*! It’s like Cinderella... and although Johnnie is charming, is he a prince? More the male version of a gold digger. Her parents (and just about everyone else) don’t approve of Johnnie, so they elope - getting married at a Justice Of The Peace and honeymooning in Europe. But, did Johnnie only marry her for her money? Though he lives like a millionaire, he has no money of his own - just his good looks. He has spent his life living off wealthy women. He seems to always have some get rich quick scheme that never works... and *he* never works - he is a born freeloader. He bets on horses, embezzles money from relatives who offer him jobs, sells Lina’s family heirlooms, and does all kinds of awful things - but is always funny and charming and the perfect husband.
When Johnnie enters into a scheme with his wealthy college pal Beaky (Nigel Bruce), Lina begins to suspect that Johnnie may be planning to murder his pal for the money... and when Lina’s father dies and she is in line to inherit, she begins to suspect that Johnnie plans to kill *her* for the money. Johnnie befriends a local mystery writer to find untraceable poisons... and Lina *has* been feeling a little strange lately. Has he been giving her a slow-acting poison? Will she call the police and report the man she loves to the police... or die a happily married woman?
Experiment: Though there is that great shot of Cary Grant climbing the staircase with a *glowing* glass of milk (Hitchcock put a light *inside* the glass to call attention to it) and several other cool shots, the film doesn’t have any obvious ground breaking experiments except the “did he or didn’t he” plot which seems rather daring for a movie starring Cary Grant... and the unfilmed ending. I’m going to save the ending discussion for the end of this blog entry - with SPOILER notices all over the place first.
Hitch Appearance: Dropping a letter in the mailbox... which is part of the film’s leitmotif, which we will discuss in a minute.
Great Scenes: The two great screenwriting lessons we can find in SUSPICION are the “did he or didn’t he” scenes of suspicion, and the use of mailing letters as a leitmotif throughout the film.
Unreliable Character:
One of the keys to creating suspicion about a character is to make sure they are unreliable - that we have room to doubt them. Cary Grant is a romantic lead - who would ever believe he *might* be a bad guy? So the story contains scenes that throw his character into question again and again. These are like the Suspicion Scenes we will discuss in a moment, but are more about establishing the untrustworthy character.
The meet-cute has Johnnie hiding from the conductor in her first class car, and when he’s discovered, he asks her for money to pay for the ticket. Not your most dependable person... yet right after he pays off the conductor, she sees his photo in a society magazine. He tracks her down, showing up at her parent’s house on Sunday morning and asking if she will go to church with him. Except he doesn’t take her to church - she takes her on a walk in the country and tries to kiss her. Later, he says he’ll pick her up at 3pm to go out... then calls to cancel. A week goes by and she doesn’t hear from him - on the day of a big party, she gets a telegram saying he will see her at the party. She dresses up - looks hot - and goes to the party... and he’s a no-show. When he finally does show up at the party, he has no invitation and tells the doorman that he’s Lina’s father’s guest. Lina’s father is not happy about this. After one dance, Johnnie “borrows” Lina’s father’s car and takes her on a drive - kissing her in the car. After the make out session, he asks if she will marry him - um, kind of sudden! By having him break rules, be unpredictable and undependable, yet still be suave, charming Cary Grant; we don’t know what to expect from him throughout the movie. He becomes attractive *and* dangerous. The *character* of Johnnie is suspicious!
Suspicion Is Tearing Us Apart:
As promised in the SHADOW OF A DOUBT chapter, this film is a great example of how to maintain suspicion without ever telling us if he did it or not. As I said in that entry, at the heart of every screenplay is the central question. It's what propels the story forward and keeps the audience involved. In a romantic comedy, the central question might be: Will they hook up or not? In a disaster movie it might be: Will they survive, and *who* will survive? The story begins with the introduction of the central question and then keeps us wondering how it will be resolved for the next 100 pages. This question is what keeps the story going - and will not be answered until the end of the movie. It is the fuel that propels the story, and the moment the question is answered, there is no more fuel for the story.
To keep the question “alive” and keep the suspense growing, we need to keep that question in the foreground - and not let the audience forget it. I call this “poking the tiger” - we will forget that a tiger is dangerous if we allow it to fall asleep and the audience to forget it. So we need to keep poking it throughout the story. Which is where suspicion comes in - we need to suspect that Cary Grant is guilty... yet when Lina gets ready to confront him, have a logical explanation for every bit of suspicion she has. But *keep* the suspicions mounting so that we don’t forget what that central question is and *always* wonder if he is guilty of something. Unlike in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, we never know whether Cary Grant’s Johnnie is guilty or innocent until the very end - so we never know whether Lina is in real danger or just has an over-active imagination until the very end. This keeps the suspense simmering throughout the film.
Creating and maintaining suspicion is an important tool in screenwriting, no matter what genre you are working in. Obviously it’s part of many thrillers and mysteries, but it can be used in comedies and romances and dramatic films. Does the guy love the gal in the rom-com or not? Was our hero betrayed by his best friend or not? Is she married or not? Is the protagonist about to lose their job or not? Suspicion is a great tool that we can use in every genre.
Guilty: When they return from their No-Expenses-Spared honeymoon in Europe, Johnnie gets a letter from a friend asking for money... The money he borrowed to finance the honeymoon.
Guilty: When they arrive at their new house, the decorator has the bill in hand and wants to be paid. Johnnie tells him to put it on that nice little table near the door and leave.
Guilty: When Lina asks how Johnnie intends to pay for all of this, he has no answer - he has never had a job in his life, and has no skills. Lina tells him her parents are *not* going to support them... and that’s when her father calls.
Guilty: Johnnie tells her father that he has been offered a job by his cousin Captain Melbeck that will pay the bills.
Innocent: After hanging up, Lina gets angry with Johnnie for lying to her father about the job offer from Captain Melbeck... but Johnnie pulls an envelope from his coat pocket with a letter from Melback (Leo G. Carroll) offering him a job. He was hoping not to have to work for a living, but if he must...
Guilty: Lina’s father is giving them a special wedding gift... Johnnie is hoping for bags of money, but it ends up being a pair of antique chairs. When Lina comes home the next day, the two chairs are missing. Johnnie’s friend Beaky says the odds are 20 to 1 that Johnnie sold them and went to the race track. When she asks, Johnnie hems and haws and then says he sold them to an American for $200. The next day, Lina sees them in a pawn shop window while walking with local mystery writer Isobel Sedbusk (Auriol Lee) - who says she has seen Johnnie at the race track when he was supposed to be at work. Johnnie comes home with gifts for everyone - he’s won $2,000 at the race track on a bet of $200. Lina asks where he got the $200, and forces him to admit he pawned the chairs...
Innocent: But then he produces the receipt for the chairs - he’s bought them back with his winnings. Not exactly innocent, but he’s done the right thing, right?
Guilty: Lina goes to Captain Melbeck to find out how Johnnie can be at the track when he’s supposed to be working, and discovers that Johnnie was fired... because he embezzled $2,000! The exact amount he supposedly won at the race track. Did he really win the money? Melbeck doesn’t want to go to the police, and has given Johnnie a few months to find the money to reap him.
Innocent: When Lina goes to confront him, he breaks the news that her father has died, and comforts her like the perfect husband.
Guilty: Early in the film, Johnnie tells Lina, “A girl like you is going to come into lots of money eventually.” So when Johnnie and Lina go to the reading of the will, Johnnie is sure that Lina will inherit the half of the old man’s money that doesn’t go to his widow. But they end up inheriting the painting of the old man in full military uniform... and Lina will continue to receive her allowance. Johnnie says he doesn’t know what he would do if Lina were to die first... is he plotting to kill her?
Innocent: The great thing about “not knowing what he would do if she died first” is that it’s ominous... but also romantic. You can take it either way.
Guilty: Once again, Lina asks Johnnie why Melbeck fired him... and he answers “We just didn’t get along.”
Innocent: This continues to build throughout the story - getting worse.
Guilty: Johnnie forms a partnership with Beaky to buy some property on a cliff overlooking the ocean and develop it. Johnnie’s plan, Beaky’s $30,000 - after Beaky agrees, he calls Melbeck to say he’ll soon be able to repay that $2,000 he stole. While Johnnie is making that call in the next room, Lina tries to warn Beaky that this may not be a good investment, maybe he shouldn’t trust Johnnie so much... and Johnnie enters and overhears this. He threatens Lina, tells her not to meddle in his business. It’s *obvious* he plans on ripping off Beaky.
Innocent: The next day he apologizes to Lina for losing his temper, and has decided not to go through with the deal.
Guilty: Instead of just calling off the deal, Johnnie insists on taking Beaky out to the cliff-side property the next morning to show him the reason why he no longer wants to do the deal. Beaky says he doesn’t need to see the reason, he trusts Johnnie. This conversation takes place while the three are playing Scrabble, and Lina arranges her letters to form a word - “Murder” - and a couple more letters make it “Murderer”. She has a flash of Johnnie pushing Beaky off the cliff into the sea far, far below.
Guilty: When she wakes up the next morning, Johnnie and Beaky have already left to look at the cliff-side property. She gets in her car and speeds out to stop the murder. But when she gets there, it is too late. No one is there... just tire tracks leading *over* the edge of the cliff! And Johnnie’s footprints. She looks over the cliff, can see no sign of the car. The sea has already washed away the evidence. She races home to confront Johnnie... and finds him *alone* in the living room. No sign of Beaky. He really did kill his friend for $30,000!
Innocent: Until Beaky pops his head up. Alive! He says he *almost* died, when he put the car into reverse and almost drove over the cliff, but Johnnie jumped in and saved his life.. almost killing himself in the process.
Guilty: Johnnie begins reading books by local mystery writer Isobel Sedbusk... why the sudden interest in reading about murder? He was never one to read before...
Guilty: Johnnie wants to go to a dinner party at Isobel’s house because her brother - the London medical examiner - will be present. Huh? Johnnie asks the brother about untraceable poisons... discovers there is one. Cleverly questions him until he finds out more about the poison Is Johnnie planning on poisoning her?
Innocent: Isobel tells Lina that Johnnie has been asking her many questions about crime because he plans on writing a mystery novel. Is this how Johnnie plans to earn a living?
Guilty: Earlier in the film, Beaky quaffs a snifter of brandy and has a seizure. Johnnie does nothing - just stands there watching his friend suffer. He says Beaky knows he shouldn’t drink brandy, has had this reaction before, and he will either live or die - not much they can do to help.
Guilty: Beaky has to go to Paris to return the $30,000, and Johnnie wants to go with him. Beaky says that’s not necessary... so Johnnie insists on going with him to London, then sticking around London to look for a job.
A couple of days later, a pair of Homicide Detectives ring the bell and want to talk to Johnnie. Lina says he’s away, asks what it’s about... Beaky has died in Paris from drinking a snifter of brandy. He was with another Englishman who dared him to drink a full snifter quickly. The Paris police found papers in Beaky’s pocket about the partnership with Johnnie. When will Johnnie return so the police can question him? Lina says he’s in London looking for a job...
Guilty: When the two Detectives leave, she phones Johnnie’s club in London to talk to him... but he checked out the same day as Beaky left for Paris.
Guilty: Lina asks Isobel about the brandy seizure thing, and Isobel says people have used it to murder in the past, in fact, there’s a book about it on her research shelf... but when Isobel looks for it, it isn’t there... then she remembers: She loaned it to Johnnie a few weeks ago.
Innocent: Johnnie comes home, heart-broken over Beaky’s death. He warned him that drinking brandy might kill him. He did not go with Beaky to Paris, instead looked for a job in London... and checked out of his expensive club to stay in a cheaper hotel... he has a reason for everything that makes him look guilty.
Guilty: Hey, but what about that untraceable poison? Johnnie gets a letter from an insurance company... that he hides from Lina. She sneaks over, pulls it out of his coat pocket while he is in the shower, reads it. (Great suspense scene.) It’s about borrowing on *her* life insurance. Says the only way he can get any money from the policy is in the event of her death.
Guilty: That night he brings her the glowing glass of milk...
Innocent: Though I’ve pretty much spoiled the whole movie, I’ll spoil the end in the section called “Unfilmed Ending”...
By having a reason or explanation or excuse for everything that makes Johnnie look guilty, Johnnie is never proven guilty... just stays under that cloud of suspicion. If there was no explanation for any of these things, we would *know* he was guilty and wonder why the heck she didn’t get out of the house NOW! But this way we wonder, as Lina does, if all of this is in her mind. Does she have an over-active imagination? Is this her insecurity at being a homely woman married to a handsome man making her jump to conclusions? Because there is a potentially innocent reason for everything he has done, she sticks with him... and we don’t think she’s stupid for doing that... and the story can continue to ratchet up the tension without reaching a conclusion as to whether he is guilty or not. Johnnie is certainly not innocent of everything - he *is* an embezzler and ex-womanizer and lazy bum pretty-boy... but whether he’s a killer or not, and whether he plans to murder Lina, are unanswered questions that remain unanswered until the end of the film. That “guilty or innocent” question is what drives the story, so we don’t want it to be answered until the very end.
Leitmotif: A 'leitmotif' is a recurring theme, phrase or image associated with a person, situation, or idea. Robert McKee calls them 'image systems', but they aren’t always images. Whatever term you use, it's an additional thread connecting pieces of the story, and often a way to explore theme through recurring images. Instead of arbitrarily forcing a leitmotif on your script, you should grow one naturally from the plot and characters. In SUSPICION the leitmotif is letters... not the kind Vanna White turns on Wheel Of Fortune, but those things people wrote on paper before the invention of e-mail.
The way to spot a leitmotif is to look for story elements that connect to each other that are their due to a choice or decision on the part of the writer. So when Lina is digging in her purse to find some money to pay the train conductor for Johnnie’s ticket, she pulls out a postage stamp... and Johnnie says that will do - it’s as good as money - then tells the conductor to use the stamp to write to his mother. He *could* have just used the coins she pulled out, but the writer made a decision to use a postage stamp... because it has to do with letters (and maybe another reason we will look at in a moment).
After Johnnie cancels their first date... then seems to disappear... Lina goes to the post office and asks if there are any letters for her that may have been misplaced.
When Lina decides to elope with Johnnie, she tells her mother and father that she is going to the post office in town... she could have said she was going to the store, but letters and the mail are the leitmotif.
Johnnie has that letter from Captain Melbeck offering him a job in his pocket.
The letter from the insurance company that Lina sneaks a peak at.
And at least a half dozen more instances. Throughout the film, letters and the post office are an additional thread connecting parts of the story. You might even add in those Scrabble letters - they could have been playing any game. These are conscious choices on the part of the writer - just as the use of *water* is the leitmotif in CHINATOWN and sharks are the leitmotif in LADY FROM SHANGHAI and mirror reflections are the leitmotif in PSYCHO. The leitmotif isn’t something required to tell the story, they are and additional element. All of these letters and stamps and post office visits seem to be leading to something... the ending that Hitchcock claims he wanted to use, but the studio wouldn’t let him.
Unfilmed Ending:
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Hey, now that I’ve spoiled all of the suspense in the film, let me spoil the ending!
Hitchcock has always said he had an ending for this film that the studio wouldn’t let him use - Lina writes a letter to her mother that Johnnie is killing her slowly with poison he learned about from the mystery writer, but she is allowing it to happen because she loves him. She seals the letter in an envelope, stamps it, and then Johnnie comes with the poisoned milk. She asks him to do her a favor and mail the letter to her mother... then drinks the milk and dies. Johnnie takes the letter to the post box - not knowing it contains the information that will lead to his arrest and conviction - and drops it through the slot. Cool ending... but there has always been a dispute about whether it ever existed or not. There is no trace of a script with that ending.
The ending of the film - where Johnnie seems to be trying to push her out of the speeding car, but ends up saving her, then tells her the poison was for himself because he’s facing jail time for embezzling money and would rather kill himself than shame her - was *not* the original ending... even though it fits the “guilty”/”innocent” pattern. There was a previous ending that test audiences hated...
Lina drinks the glass of milk she believes is poisoned, hugs Johnnie and tells her that she loves him no matter what he has done... Johnnie realizes she thinks he has been trying to kill her, and that does not trust him. He is ashamed and leaves her... and then World War 2 breaks out, and just like in ATONEMENT they lose track of each other.
Later, she is on a train - in a scene similar to the opening scene - sees him in a newspaper as an RAF fighter pilot in uniform like her father. She goes to the airbase where the Commander tells her that he is their best pilot - a hero who has risked his life for his fellow pilots again and again - and the nickname of the plane he flies is “Monkeyface” - his nickname for Lina. He may not return from his current mission - attacking Berlin. Lina realizes he is an honorable man who really did love her. The End.
That ending seems designed to not work... making me wonder if the plan all along was to replace the ending all along with the one Hitchcock claims he always wanted...
And when we look at the Leitmotif - letters and stamps - and add Johnnie’s line to the conductor after he uses Lina’s stamp to pay the difference on his train ticket, “Write to your mother”, it all seems to be leading to that ending that Hitchcock described. I suspect Hitchcock wanted his mailbox ending from the very beginning, but knew the studio would not let it fly with a star like Cary Grant in the lead (other actors like Edmund O’Brien were considered for the lead, and before Hitchcock was involved Orson Welles was going to play the lead in a version where Johnnie *was* a killer and later shot down by the police after a chase)... so he waited until test audiences rejected the original ending, then let the studio “discover” the logical ending with the mailbox so they would think it was their brilliant idea... and instead we ended up with Johnnie’s completely out of character wish to commit suicide to save her from the shame of being married to an embezzler.
Neither the original ending nor the ending we ended up with, fit the movie that comes before them. It’s the most out of place ending of any Hitchcock film - including TOPAZ’s post production suicide ending.
Though there is no record of the ending *on paper* with Johnnie poisoning Lina while Hitchcock was involved in the production, *I* would not have a written version ready, either. One of the skills a screenwriter develops is the ability to make the other guy think he came up with the idea - so having that ending on paper would ruin any chance of having it end up on screen, since it would obviously have been *Hitchcock’s* idea. Best way to play this is to have nothing on paper and let the Executives watch the movie and realize that all of the pieces are leading up to this idea *they* thought of - the poisoning of Lina and the letter to her mother. But what if you set this all up... and the executives *don’t see the obvious*? I think the ending Hitchcock always talked about in interviews is the ending he intended... but then got screwed by the studios - a star as big as Cary Grant could not be a killer, even if it *was* the obvious ending.
Sound Track: Good score by Franz Waxman who would later do REAR WINDOW.
By the way - part of the Hitchcock loyalty of working with the same people - the gal who plays the maid will also play the woman with the dead baby in LIFEBOAT.
Except for the iffy ending, SUSPICION still works as a romantic suspense film, and is probably the predecessor of movies like JAGGED EDGE and SEA OF LOVE. And like INCEPTION, the ending provokes a great deal of conversation and debate. I think after he saves her from falling out of the car, he drives her home and poisons her - the end.
- Bill
The other Fridays With Hitchcock.
BUY THE DVD AT AMAZON:
This is another one of those movies that I know all of the dialogue to (“A passionate hairdresser!”) and could do a one man show, if suddenly required to save mankind from some horrible fate. I don’t really know why I have seen this film so many times, but I suspect it was one of those films from my childhood that was *always* on TV, and also the kind of movie I love... so if my choice was between SUSPICION on one channel and some other movie that always played on TV on another channel, I’d watch SUSPICION again. I identified with the female lead - not because I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body or because Cary Grant is my “Mango” - but because the first time we see her she is reading a book, and books are her life. That was me as a kid. In fact, this was one of many films that had me riding my bike to the library to check out the novel it was based on. As a shy, bookish, boy, I understood what it meant to secretly love someone way out of your league (Debbie Morrow in grade school)... and know that your heart will be broken again and again because they are just out of your league.
Nutshell: Shy, bookish Lina (Joan Fontaine) comes from a wealthy family - her mother and father (Dame May Whitty and Sir Cedric Hardwicke) expect her to die an unwed virgin, she’s approaching thirty and never even been kissed! On a train she meets handsome, charming, lady’s man Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) who hides from the conductor in her first class compartment... and when caught, asks her if she will pay for the balance of his ticket. Their paths cross a couple more times, with Johnnie always asking her for something... and they begin dating. He sweeps her off her feet - one of the most eligible men in all of England, and he picks *her*! It’s like Cinderella... and although Johnnie is charming, is he a prince? More the male version of a gold digger. Her parents (and just about everyone else) don’t approve of Johnnie, so they elope - getting married at a Justice Of The Peace and honeymooning in Europe. But, did Johnnie only marry her for her money? Though he lives like a millionaire, he has no money of his own - just his good looks. He has spent his life living off wealthy women. He seems to always have some get rich quick scheme that never works... and *he* never works - he is a born freeloader. He bets on horses, embezzles money from relatives who offer him jobs, sells Lina’s family heirlooms, and does all kinds of awful things - but is always funny and charming and the perfect husband.
When Johnnie enters into a scheme with his wealthy college pal Beaky (Nigel Bruce), Lina begins to suspect that Johnnie may be planning to murder his pal for the money... and when Lina’s father dies and she is in line to inherit, she begins to suspect that Johnnie plans to kill *her* for the money. Johnnie befriends a local mystery writer to find untraceable poisons... and Lina *has* been feeling a little strange lately. Has he been giving her a slow-acting poison? Will she call the police and report the man she loves to the police... or die a happily married woman?
Experiment: Though there is that great shot of Cary Grant climbing the staircase with a *glowing* glass of milk (Hitchcock put a light *inside* the glass to call attention to it) and several other cool shots, the film doesn’t have any obvious ground breaking experiments except the “did he or didn’t he” plot which seems rather daring for a movie starring Cary Grant... and the unfilmed ending. I’m going to save the ending discussion for the end of this blog entry - with SPOILER notices all over the place first.
Hitch Appearance: Dropping a letter in the mailbox... which is part of the film’s leitmotif, which we will discuss in a minute.
Great Scenes: The two great screenwriting lessons we can find in SUSPICION are the “did he or didn’t he” scenes of suspicion, and the use of mailing letters as a leitmotif throughout the film.
Unreliable Character:
One of the keys to creating suspicion about a character is to make sure they are unreliable - that we have room to doubt them. Cary Grant is a romantic lead - who would ever believe he *might* be a bad guy? So the story contains scenes that throw his character into question again and again. These are like the Suspicion Scenes we will discuss in a moment, but are more about establishing the untrustworthy character.
The meet-cute has Johnnie hiding from the conductor in her first class car, and when he’s discovered, he asks her for money to pay for the ticket. Not your most dependable person... yet right after he pays off the conductor, she sees his photo in a society magazine. He tracks her down, showing up at her parent’s house on Sunday morning and asking if she will go to church with him. Except he doesn’t take her to church - she takes her on a walk in the country and tries to kiss her. Later, he says he’ll pick her up at 3pm to go out... then calls to cancel. A week goes by and she doesn’t hear from him - on the day of a big party, she gets a telegram saying he will see her at the party. She dresses up - looks hot - and goes to the party... and he’s a no-show. When he finally does show up at the party, he has no invitation and tells the doorman that he’s Lina’s father’s guest. Lina’s father is not happy about this. After one dance, Johnnie “borrows” Lina’s father’s car and takes her on a drive - kissing her in the car. After the make out session, he asks if she will marry him - um, kind of sudden! By having him break rules, be unpredictable and undependable, yet still be suave, charming Cary Grant; we don’t know what to expect from him throughout the movie. He becomes attractive *and* dangerous. The *character* of Johnnie is suspicious!
Suspicion Is Tearing Us Apart:
As promised in the SHADOW OF A DOUBT chapter, this film is a great example of how to maintain suspicion without ever telling us if he did it or not. As I said in that entry, at the heart of every screenplay is the central question. It's what propels the story forward and keeps the audience involved. In a romantic comedy, the central question might be: Will they hook up or not? In a disaster movie it might be: Will they survive, and *who* will survive? The story begins with the introduction of the central question and then keeps us wondering how it will be resolved for the next 100 pages. This question is what keeps the story going - and will not be answered until the end of the movie. It is the fuel that propels the story, and the moment the question is answered, there is no more fuel for the story.
To keep the question “alive” and keep the suspense growing, we need to keep that question in the foreground - and not let the audience forget it. I call this “poking the tiger” - we will forget that a tiger is dangerous if we allow it to fall asleep and the audience to forget it. So we need to keep poking it throughout the story. Which is where suspicion comes in - we need to suspect that Cary Grant is guilty... yet when Lina gets ready to confront him, have a logical explanation for every bit of suspicion she has. But *keep* the suspicions mounting so that we don’t forget what that central question is and *always* wonder if he is guilty of something. Unlike in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, we never know whether Cary Grant’s Johnnie is guilty or innocent until the very end - so we never know whether Lina is in real danger or just has an over-active imagination until the very end. This keeps the suspense simmering throughout the film.
Creating and maintaining suspicion is an important tool in screenwriting, no matter what genre you are working in. Obviously it’s part of many thrillers and mysteries, but it can be used in comedies and romances and dramatic films. Does the guy love the gal in the rom-com or not? Was our hero betrayed by his best friend or not? Is she married or not? Is the protagonist about to lose their job or not? Suspicion is a great tool that we can use in every genre.
Guilty: When they return from their No-Expenses-Spared honeymoon in Europe, Johnnie gets a letter from a friend asking for money... The money he borrowed to finance the honeymoon.
Guilty: When they arrive at their new house, the decorator has the bill in hand and wants to be paid. Johnnie tells him to put it on that nice little table near the door and leave.
Guilty: When Lina asks how Johnnie intends to pay for all of this, he has no answer - he has never had a job in his life, and has no skills. Lina tells him her parents are *not* going to support them... and that’s when her father calls.
Guilty: Johnnie tells her father that he has been offered a job by his cousin Captain Melbeck that will pay the bills.
Innocent: After hanging up, Lina gets angry with Johnnie for lying to her father about the job offer from Captain Melbeck... but Johnnie pulls an envelope from his coat pocket with a letter from Melback (Leo G. Carroll) offering him a job. He was hoping not to have to work for a living, but if he must...
Guilty: Lina’s father is giving them a special wedding gift... Johnnie is hoping for bags of money, but it ends up being a pair of antique chairs. When Lina comes home the next day, the two chairs are missing. Johnnie’s friend Beaky says the odds are 20 to 1 that Johnnie sold them and went to the race track. When she asks, Johnnie hems and haws and then says he sold them to an American for $200. The next day, Lina sees them in a pawn shop window while walking with local mystery writer Isobel Sedbusk (Auriol Lee) - who says she has seen Johnnie at the race track when he was supposed to be at work. Johnnie comes home with gifts for everyone - he’s won $2,000 at the race track on a bet of $200. Lina asks where he got the $200, and forces him to admit he pawned the chairs...
Innocent: But then he produces the receipt for the chairs - he’s bought them back with his winnings. Not exactly innocent, but he’s done the right thing, right?
Guilty: Lina goes to Captain Melbeck to find out how Johnnie can be at the track when he’s supposed to be working, and discovers that Johnnie was fired... because he embezzled $2,000! The exact amount he supposedly won at the race track. Did he really win the money? Melbeck doesn’t want to go to the police, and has given Johnnie a few months to find the money to reap him.
Innocent: When Lina goes to confront him, he breaks the news that her father has died, and comforts her like the perfect husband.
Guilty: Early in the film, Johnnie tells Lina, “A girl like you is going to come into lots of money eventually.” So when Johnnie and Lina go to the reading of the will, Johnnie is sure that Lina will inherit the half of the old man’s money that doesn’t go to his widow. But they end up inheriting the painting of the old man in full military uniform... and Lina will continue to receive her allowance. Johnnie says he doesn’t know what he would do if Lina were to die first... is he plotting to kill her?
Innocent: The great thing about “not knowing what he would do if she died first” is that it’s ominous... but also romantic. You can take it either way.
Guilty: Once again, Lina asks Johnnie why Melbeck fired him... and he answers “We just didn’t get along.”
Innocent: This continues to build throughout the story - getting worse.
Guilty: Johnnie forms a partnership with Beaky to buy some property on a cliff overlooking the ocean and develop it. Johnnie’s plan, Beaky’s $30,000 - after Beaky agrees, he calls Melbeck to say he’ll soon be able to repay that $2,000 he stole. While Johnnie is making that call in the next room, Lina tries to warn Beaky that this may not be a good investment, maybe he shouldn’t trust Johnnie so much... and Johnnie enters and overhears this. He threatens Lina, tells her not to meddle in his business. It’s *obvious* he plans on ripping off Beaky.
Innocent: The next day he apologizes to Lina for losing his temper, and has decided not to go through with the deal.
Guilty: Instead of just calling off the deal, Johnnie insists on taking Beaky out to the cliff-side property the next morning to show him the reason why he no longer wants to do the deal. Beaky says he doesn’t need to see the reason, he trusts Johnnie. This conversation takes place while the three are playing Scrabble, and Lina arranges her letters to form a word - “Murder” - and a couple more letters make it “Murderer”. She has a flash of Johnnie pushing Beaky off the cliff into the sea far, far below.
Guilty: When she wakes up the next morning, Johnnie and Beaky have already left to look at the cliff-side property. She gets in her car and speeds out to stop the murder. But when she gets there, it is too late. No one is there... just tire tracks leading *over* the edge of the cliff! And Johnnie’s footprints. She looks over the cliff, can see no sign of the car. The sea has already washed away the evidence. She races home to confront Johnnie... and finds him *alone* in the living room. No sign of Beaky. He really did kill his friend for $30,000!
Innocent: Until Beaky pops his head up. Alive! He says he *almost* died, when he put the car into reverse and almost drove over the cliff, but Johnnie jumped in and saved his life.. almost killing himself in the process.
Guilty: Johnnie begins reading books by local mystery writer Isobel Sedbusk... why the sudden interest in reading about murder? He was never one to read before...
Guilty: Johnnie wants to go to a dinner party at Isobel’s house because her brother - the London medical examiner - will be present. Huh? Johnnie asks the brother about untraceable poisons... discovers there is one. Cleverly questions him until he finds out more about the poison Is Johnnie planning on poisoning her?
Innocent: Isobel tells Lina that Johnnie has been asking her many questions about crime because he plans on writing a mystery novel. Is this how Johnnie plans to earn a living?
Guilty: Earlier in the film, Beaky quaffs a snifter of brandy and has a seizure. Johnnie does nothing - just stands there watching his friend suffer. He says Beaky knows he shouldn’t drink brandy, has had this reaction before, and he will either live or die - not much they can do to help.
Guilty: Beaky has to go to Paris to return the $30,000, and Johnnie wants to go with him. Beaky says that’s not necessary... so Johnnie insists on going with him to London, then sticking around London to look for a job.
A couple of days later, a pair of Homicide Detectives ring the bell and want to talk to Johnnie. Lina says he’s away, asks what it’s about... Beaky has died in Paris from drinking a snifter of brandy. He was with another Englishman who dared him to drink a full snifter quickly. The Paris police found papers in Beaky’s pocket about the partnership with Johnnie. When will Johnnie return so the police can question him? Lina says he’s in London looking for a job...
Guilty: When the two Detectives leave, she phones Johnnie’s club in London to talk to him... but he checked out the same day as Beaky left for Paris.
Guilty: Lina asks Isobel about the brandy seizure thing, and Isobel says people have used it to murder in the past, in fact, there’s a book about it on her research shelf... but when Isobel looks for it, it isn’t there... then she remembers: She loaned it to Johnnie a few weeks ago.
Innocent: Johnnie comes home, heart-broken over Beaky’s death. He warned him that drinking brandy might kill him. He did not go with Beaky to Paris, instead looked for a job in London... and checked out of his expensive club to stay in a cheaper hotel... he has a reason for everything that makes him look guilty.
Guilty: Hey, but what about that untraceable poison? Johnnie gets a letter from an insurance company... that he hides from Lina. She sneaks over, pulls it out of his coat pocket while he is in the shower, reads it. (Great suspense scene.) It’s about borrowing on *her* life insurance. Says the only way he can get any money from the policy is in the event of her death.
Guilty: That night he brings her the glowing glass of milk...
Innocent: Though I’ve pretty much spoiled the whole movie, I’ll spoil the end in the section called “Unfilmed Ending”...
By having a reason or explanation or excuse for everything that makes Johnnie look guilty, Johnnie is never proven guilty... just stays under that cloud of suspicion. If there was no explanation for any of these things, we would *know* he was guilty and wonder why the heck she didn’t get out of the house NOW! But this way we wonder, as Lina does, if all of this is in her mind. Does she have an over-active imagination? Is this her insecurity at being a homely woman married to a handsome man making her jump to conclusions? Because there is a potentially innocent reason for everything he has done, she sticks with him... and we don’t think she’s stupid for doing that... and the story can continue to ratchet up the tension without reaching a conclusion as to whether he is guilty or not. Johnnie is certainly not innocent of everything - he *is* an embezzler and ex-womanizer and lazy bum pretty-boy... but whether he’s a killer or not, and whether he plans to murder Lina, are unanswered questions that remain unanswered until the end of the film. That “guilty or innocent” question is what drives the story, so we don’t want it to be answered until the very end.
Leitmotif: A 'leitmotif' is a recurring theme, phrase or image associated with a person, situation, or idea. Robert McKee calls them 'image systems', but they aren’t always images. Whatever term you use, it's an additional thread connecting pieces of the story, and often a way to explore theme through recurring images. Instead of arbitrarily forcing a leitmotif on your script, you should grow one naturally from the plot and characters. In SUSPICION the leitmotif is letters... not the kind Vanna White turns on Wheel Of Fortune, but those things people wrote on paper before the invention of e-mail.
The way to spot a leitmotif is to look for story elements that connect to each other that are their due to a choice or decision on the part of the writer. So when Lina is digging in her purse to find some money to pay the train conductor for Johnnie’s ticket, she pulls out a postage stamp... and Johnnie says that will do - it’s as good as money - then tells the conductor to use the stamp to write to his mother. He *could* have just used the coins she pulled out, but the writer made a decision to use a postage stamp... because it has to do with letters (and maybe another reason we will look at in a moment).
After Johnnie cancels their first date... then seems to disappear... Lina goes to the post office and asks if there are any letters for her that may have been misplaced.
When Lina decides to elope with Johnnie, she tells her mother and father that she is going to the post office in town... she could have said she was going to the store, but letters and the mail are the leitmotif.
Johnnie has that letter from Captain Melbeck offering him a job in his pocket.
The letter from the insurance company that Lina sneaks a peak at.
And at least a half dozen more instances. Throughout the film, letters and the post office are an additional thread connecting parts of the story. You might even add in those Scrabble letters - they could have been playing any game. These are conscious choices on the part of the writer - just as the use of *water* is the leitmotif in CHINATOWN and sharks are the leitmotif in LADY FROM SHANGHAI and mirror reflections are the leitmotif in PSYCHO. The leitmotif isn’t something required to tell the story, they are and additional element. All of these letters and stamps and post office visits seem to be leading to something... the ending that Hitchcock claims he wanted to use, but the studio wouldn’t let him.
Unfilmed Ending:
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Hey, now that I’ve spoiled all of the suspense in the film, let me spoil the ending!
Hitchcock has always said he had an ending for this film that the studio wouldn’t let him use - Lina writes a letter to her mother that Johnnie is killing her slowly with poison he learned about from the mystery writer, but she is allowing it to happen because she loves him. She seals the letter in an envelope, stamps it, and then Johnnie comes with the poisoned milk. She asks him to do her a favor and mail the letter to her mother... then drinks the milk and dies. Johnnie takes the letter to the post box - not knowing it contains the information that will lead to his arrest and conviction - and drops it through the slot. Cool ending... but there has always been a dispute about whether it ever existed or not. There is no trace of a script with that ending.
The ending of the film - where Johnnie seems to be trying to push her out of the speeding car, but ends up saving her, then tells her the poison was for himself because he’s facing jail time for embezzling money and would rather kill himself than shame her - was *not* the original ending... even though it fits the “guilty”/”innocent” pattern. There was a previous ending that test audiences hated...
Lina drinks the glass of milk she believes is poisoned, hugs Johnnie and tells her that she loves him no matter what he has done... Johnnie realizes she thinks he has been trying to kill her, and that does not trust him. He is ashamed and leaves her... and then World War 2 breaks out, and just like in ATONEMENT they lose track of each other.
Later, she is on a train - in a scene similar to the opening scene - sees him in a newspaper as an RAF fighter pilot in uniform like her father. She goes to the airbase where the Commander tells her that he is their best pilot - a hero who has risked his life for his fellow pilots again and again - and the nickname of the plane he flies is “Monkeyface” - his nickname for Lina. He may not return from his current mission - attacking Berlin. Lina realizes he is an honorable man who really did love her. The End.
That ending seems designed to not work... making me wonder if the plan all along was to replace the ending all along with the one Hitchcock claims he always wanted...
And when we look at the Leitmotif - letters and stamps - and add Johnnie’s line to the conductor after he uses Lina’s stamp to pay the difference on his train ticket, “Write to your mother”, it all seems to be leading to that ending that Hitchcock described. I suspect Hitchcock wanted his mailbox ending from the very beginning, but knew the studio would not let it fly with a star like Cary Grant in the lead (other actors like Edmund O’Brien were considered for the lead, and before Hitchcock was involved Orson Welles was going to play the lead in a version where Johnnie *was* a killer and later shot down by the police after a chase)... so he waited until test audiences rejected the original ending, then let the studio “discover” the logical ending with the mailbox so they would think it was their brilliant idea... and instead we ended up with Johnnie’s completely out of character wish to commit suicide to save her from the shame of being married to an embezzler.
Neither the original ending nor the ending we ended up with, fit the movie that comes before them. It’s the most out of place ending of any Hitchcock film - including TOPAZ’s post production suicide ending.
Though there is no record of the ending *on paper* with Johnnie poisoning Lina while Hitchcock was involved in the production, *I* would not have a written version ready, either. One of the skills a screenwriter develops is the ability to make the other guy think he came up with the idea - so having that ending on paper would ruin any chance of having it end up on screen, since it would obviously have been *Hitchcock’s* idea. Best way to play this is to have nothing on paper and let the Executives watch the movie and realize that all of the pieces are leading up to this idea *they* thought of - the poisoning of Lina and the letter to her mother. But what if you set this all up... and the executives *don’t see the obvious*? I think the ending Hitchcock always talked about in interviews is the ending he intended... but then got screwed by the studios - a star as big as Cary Grant could not be a killer, even if it *was* the obvious ending.
Sound Track: Good score by Franz Waxman who would later do REAR WINDOW.
By the way - part of the Hitchcock loyalty of working with the same people - the gal who plays the maid will also play the woman with the dead baby in LIFEBOAT.
Except for the iffy ending, SUSPICION still works as a romantic suspense film, and is probably the predecessor of movies like JAGGED EDGE and SEA OF LOVE. And like INCEPTION, the ending provokes a great deal of conversation and debate. I think after he saves her from falling out of the car, he drives her home and poisons her - the end.
- Bill
The other Fridays With Hitchcock.
BUY THE DVD AT AMAZON:
No comments:
Post a Comment