Development Suspicion illustrates how a novel's plot can be so much altered in the transition to film as to reverse the author's original intention. As
William L. De Andrea states in his
Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994),
Suspicionwas supposed to be the study of a murder as seen through the eyes of the eventual victim. However, because Cary Grant was to be the killer and Joan Fontaine the person killed, the studio — RKO — decreed a different ending, which Hitchcock supplied and then spent the rest of his life complaining about. Hitchcock was quoted as saying that he was forced to alter the ending of the movie. The biggest difference is the ending. In Iles' novel, Johnnie serves his sick wife a drink which she knows to be poisoned, and she voluntarily gulps it down. In the film, the drink may or may not be poisoned and can be seen untouched the following morning. Another ending was considered but not used, in which Lina is writing a letter to her mother stating that she fears Johnnie is going to poison her, at which point he walks in with the milk. She finishes the letter, seals and stamps an envelope, asks Johnnie to mail the letter, then drinks the milk. The final shot would have shown him leaving the house and dropping into a mailbox the letter which incriminates him. Hitchcock's recollection of this original ending—in his book-length interview with
François Truffaut, published in English as
Hitchcock/Truffaut in 1967—is that Lina's letter tells her mother she knows that Johnnie is killing her, but that she loves him too much to care.{{cite book A musical
leitmotif is introduced in
Suspicion. Whenever Lina is happy with Johnnie — starting with a ball organised by General McLaidlaw —
Johann Strauss's waltz "
Wiener Blut" is played in its original, light-hearted version. At one point, when she is suspicious of her husband, a threatening, minor-key version of the waltz is employed, metamorphosing into the full and happy version after the suspense has been lifted. At another, Johnnie is whistling the waltz. At yet another, while Johnnie is serving the drink of milk, a sad version of "Wiener Blut" is played again. By placing a lightbulb in the milk, the filmmakers made the contents appear to glow as the glass is carried upstairs by Johnnie, further enhancing the audience's fear that it is poisoned. A visual threat is inserted when Lina suspects her husband of preparing to kill Beaky: On the night before, at the Aysgarths' home, they play
Anagrams, and suddenly, by exchanging a letter, Lina changes "mudder" into "murder" and then "murderer." Seeing the word, Lina looks at the flyer showing the cliffs Johnnie and Beaky plan to inspect for a real estate venture the next morning. The silhouettes of two men appear in the photograph. One pushes the other over the cliff, and we see Beaky falling and screaming. Lina faints. If the viewer accepts Johnnie's statements in the final scene and decides that he is, for all his faults, no murderer, the film becomes a cautionary tale about the dangers of suspicion based only on assumed, incomplete, and circumstantial evidence. However, given his behaviour up to this point, it is not clear why Johnnie's assertions should be readily believed; in effect, the film leaves the viewer in a perpetual state of suspense as to what the truth is and what might happen next.
Casting Originally, the story was intended as a
B picture to star
George Sanders and
Anne Shirley. Then when Alfred Hitchcock became involved, the budget increased and
Laurence Olivier and
Frances Dee were to star. Eventually, it was decided to cast Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. Fontaine had to be borrowed from David O. Selznick for an expensive fee; she had been dropped from RKO's contract list some years before. Grant and Fontaine had previously worked together in
Gunga Din.
Filming The film was shot entirely on
sound stages between February 10 and July 24, 1941. ==Reception==