SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

jimjamjonny39 This is one of my favourite Charles Laughton movies. Playing a mild mannered man, very much loved by his peers for his gentleness and kindness to all around him. The only problem is his home life. The mother of his only son is a sour, vicious, complaining woman who doesn't want anybody to be happy including herself. She drives her son away from the family home and finds out that her husband (even though he's not sharing the marital bed) is having romantic liaisons with a young woman who recently enquired about employment as a "typist" wasn't much heard of in 1902, the year in which this is set. I totally understand why he has to do what he has to do and not the deed itself. You'll see for yourself the dilemma he has to face and may understand why I feel what he has done isn't really that bad.

st-shot Leave it to Charles Laughton to garner more sympathy than his victims while wishing the police would not do their job in The Suspect, a turn of the twentieth century cat and mouse that has you in the killer's corner. Successful, respected merchant Philip is married to Cora, a contemptuous harridan to both father and son. When the son moves to Canada Philip meets a younger woman but honors his vows until the hateful Cora stretches him to the limit and he offs her free of blame by all except Scotland Yard's detective Huxley who doggedly pursues. When an unctuous wife beating neighbor blackmails him he strikes again.The Suspect is an outstanding low key thriller that has you siding with the "villain" given his situation and the venal opponents he faces. Even the investigator has an unctuous intrusive way that offends especially when dealing with the total gentleman and well respected man Philip is. Laughton gives a beautifully measured and restrained performance that evokes great sympathy for a murderer; much of it with silent expressions and glances as well as stretch the part from pathetic to cocksure, tender to hateful. It is one of Laughton's finest and most underrated performances. As the dissipated neighbor poor man's George Sander's, Henry Daniell gives one of his finer efforts especially in the scene where he is spouting cynicism into the next world.For his part, director Robert Siodmak rightfully deserves comparison to Lang and Hitchcock as he delivers half a dozen intense moments with his impeccable display of film language displaying nothing of a grisly nature but only inferring. He also works in some timely comic relief to lift matters and give Philip and us some breathing room as we hope he makes it to the steamship bound for Canada on time.

howardmorley I saw this film for the first time today (21/9/10) mainly to see one of my American film heroines, Ella Raines.As other reviewers have observed this film does not appear on DVD, at least I have not seen it before and I regularly check availability of 1940s films which are my speciality.I finally saw it on "Youtube.com".Ella had a unique, genuine & generous quality, which comes through in all her films which I have seen and which no amount of acting can disguise.This quality is almost a blueprint which is with you for life and film producers must have noticed this quality in Ella when casting her in roles.Two examples, see "Impact" & La Dama Desconocida".The plot and similarities with the celebrated Dr. Crippen trial of 1910 have already been outlined by other reviewers.Of course the wretched moral code was in force in 1944, but the producers at least left one in some doubt of the denouement and great sympathy for Charlie Laughton's character.My only criticism was the obvious use of American actors playing British parts which rather grates on me.Bear in mind this was 1944 and us Brits were doing useful things like helping to win the war.At the time American actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow, Renee Zellweger & others were not around who could do convincing British accents.That is why I prefer to see Ella playing American characters on her home ground and why I awarded this film 6/10, as above average

theowinthrop The one great "crime passionale" of British murder cases is the 1910 murder of Cora "Belle Elmore" Crippen, wife of the American born "Dr." Hawley Harvey "Peter" Crippen. The couple had been married from the early 1890s, and moved from the United States to England, settling in London. Crippen was the possessor of a degree from a small medical college in the midwest, but he really was on shaky ground as a physician under British standards (or the standards of a major American city for that matter). In fact, he was a seller of patent medicines, and practiced some opthalmology and dentistry under questionable auspices. But he was a good businessman, and made a comfortable living. Cora had pretensions of being an opera singer, and trained her voice. She did have some performances at various music halls, but her career was mediocre at best. She also treated the long suffering, mild Crippen as dirt, making him clean up her lover's shoes when they slept over at their home. Crippen hired a secretary, Ethel Le Neve, and they fell in love. In January 1910 Belle disappeared. Her friends became concerned, and Crippen told them she had left him. Later he told them that she died in Los Angelas. But when Le Neve was seen wearing her jewelry they became suspicious. Contacting Scotland Yard about their suspicions, the Yard sent Inspector Walter Dew to see what was going on. At first Crippen seemed plausible, but then he and Le Neve fled. The remains of Belle were found in the basement. She had been poisoned. Crippen and Le Neve (disguised as his son) fled by ocean liner to Canada, followed by Dew, who arrested them off Quebec. They were taken back to England, where both were tried. The Doctor partly tied up his defense by insisting on protecting Le Neve. As a result he was found guilty and she was acquitted. The Doctor was hanged in November 1910.A movie was made, with Donald Pleasance as Crippen, and there have been films based on the story such as WE ARE NOT ALONE with Paul Muni. But this film with Charles Laughton is considered the best. Laughton captures the basic decency of the central figure, who made a bad marriage to a shrew, and fell for a decent woman too late. There are differences in the story. Rosalind Ivan (playing the "Belle" character) is not poisoned (like Flora Robson in the Muni film) but dies in an apparent accident falling downstairs. Laughton has a son who one suspects will marry the Le Neve figure after the film ends. And Laughton never even gets to see Canada, but gives himself up in England to save a neighbor suspected of killing her husband (a blackmailer Laughton has killed - another plot innovation not involved in the actual crime). But the film moves well, and one constantly feels for Laughton's character. Finally the fine Stanley Ridges gives a typically good performance as the counterpart of Inspector Walter Dew, who ended up sympathizing with the man whom he captured.