A shy young English woman marries a charming gentleman, then begins to suspect him of trying to kill her. [imdb]
Nominated for 3 Oscars:
Best Picture
Best Actress: Joan Fontaine (WINNER)
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
This has to be the worst Hitchcock film I've ever seen (he's done plenty of films nobody's talking about, so I can't say it's his worst ever). But how surprising for him to craft such a bad film, especially only 1 year after the wonderful Rebecca. This film has nothing except for 1 or 2 good ideas (the glass of milk) that aren't even explored properly.
Cary Grant is dislikeable here, even beyond his character. Joan plays a VERY naive woman in an overly theatrical performance that makes for one for the most unfortunate Best Actress wins in history. The music is too much, while the ending - I was hoping for it to redeem the film - is just pure vanilla, probably forced upon Hitchcock by the studio. Let's skip it unless we have to.
My rating for the film: 4/10.
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I remember this as being more woefully mediocre rather than really bad. But it's been a long, long time. I watched on TCM randomly one day, and remember it at least being watchable, same with Fontaine. Hmmm, clearly I could use a rewatch.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe I'm tough on it because I've seen it twice, thought the ending was crap and the dialogue not good. :)
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