Wealthy, sheltered Joan Fontaine is swept off her feet by charming ne'er-do-well Cary Grant. Though warned that Grant is little more than a fortune-hunter, Fontaine marries him anyway. She remains loyal to her irresponsible husband as he plows his way from one disreputable business scheme to another. Gradually, Fontaine comes to the conclusion that Grant intends to do away with her in order to collect her inheritance...a suspicion confirmed when Grant's likeable business partner Nigel Bruce dies
under mysterious circumstances. To his dying day, Hitchcock insisted that he wanted to retain the novelist Francis Iles' original ending, but that the RKO executives intervened. Fontaine won an Academy Award for her work. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The disappointingly neat coda has led to the dismissal of the film as second-tier Hitchcock, but up to that ending, the critique of marriage is so provocative, the imagery so powerful, and the acting so good that it's extremely enjoyable to watch.
The problem for the audience is accepting the possibility that Cary Grant, the always delightful big-time movie star, could ever, in a hundred years, actually play a murderer.
The director does some wonderful things with the picture up until the ludicrous ending. Still you can't help feeling a vague disappointment with the whole enterprise.
Walter, this is another one where I wish I'd written the script. Maybe my favorite Hitchcock, but I have to agree with him when he says he'd rather have had it end with Grant murdering Fontaine -- the way the book it was based on ended. As is, the "happy" ending is a little too quick and not quite
convincing, although given the constraints of having to have a "happy" ending, I think Hitchcock came up with a decent finish. I really don't believe that Grant was checking out poisons that couldn't be traced because he wanted to kill himself due to his shame. The character really is without shame, and bordering on amoral. And to have Fontaine voice the realization of Grant's wanting to kill himself is just too unbelievable for me. Still, the edge of your seat non-stop guessing game is masterful. Really one of Hitchcock's best jobs.
In my opinion, this film would be ranked with other Hitchcock masterworks if it wasn't for the cop-out ending forced onto him by RKO Studios. Cary Grant at his most sinister and Joan Fontaine gives her best performance.
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