The Suspect (1944)

The Suspect
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Bertram Millhauser; adaptation by Arthur T. Horman from a novel by James Roland
1944/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Cora Marshall: I’d like to know what goes on in your head.

Philip Marshall:  It’s much better that you shouldn’t, Cora. It might frighten you.[/box]

Director Robert Siodmak is batting 1000 in my book.  This film, which features one of Charles Laughton’s better performances, really deserves a proper restoration and release.

The place is Victorian London.  Philip (Laughton) and Cora (Rosalind Ivan) Morrison are a very unhappily married couple.  The story begins as Cora forces their grown son out of the house for failing to help her fix the kitchen sink.  Turns out that the shrewish Cora threw a week’s worth of the son’s work into the fire in revenge first.  Philip, without much fanfare, moves into the son’s bedroom.  But it is impossible to avoid an argument with Cora.

Soon thereafter, Mary (Ella Raines) comes to the tobacco shop that Philip manages to ask for work as a stenographer and typist.  They have none to offer.  When Philip finds Mary crying in a park later that evening, he comforts her and asks her to join him for dinner.  He says he has no one to go home to.  Thereafter, they meet frequently and develop a deep friendship.  Mary sees beyond the unlikely exterior of the much older Philip and begins to fall in love with him.

Philip asks Cora for a divorce which she refuses, threatening to ruin Philip with his employer if he goes through with it.  Philip says goodbye to Mary but it doesn’t last.  Cora starts tracking his steps and discovers the affair.  After she threatens to ruin Mary’s life as well, Philip can take no more and kills her.  Things are looking up after the coroner’s inquest finds death by accident.  Then a man from Scotland Yard appears and an intricate game of cat and mouse begins, with the unflappable Philip more than holding his own. With Henry Daniell in a wonderful performance as Phillip and Cora’s next door neighbor, an alcoholic “gentleman” rotter.

Despite seeing it on YouTube in parts in a rather dodgy print, I just loved this one. Laughton is so great.  He is very, very restrained but conveys such emotion in the subtlest of ways.  He easily convinces you that this is the kind of man that a young and beautiful woman, with the requisite sensitivity, could fall in love with.  The story is interesting with some nice twists and turns.  I’m sure that Paul Ivano’s cinematography would look beautiful in a restored version.  Recommended.

Opening ten minutes