Film Forum's Noir Fest: The Suspect

Cruelty is a necessary element of film noir, but it usually comes in the ending -- the last-minute reveal that he never really loved her or that she was only out for money, or that the wrong man will go down for the crime after all, because the system just doesn't care. The interesting thing about The Suspect is that cruelty is woven into the premise -- it paints the wholly improbable scenario of having a twenty-something secretary with the drop-dead movie star looks of Ella Raines (see above) fall in love with her boss, Charles Laughton. Yes, that Charles Laughton. Stop laughing, I'm serious. Laughton's character can hardly believe his good luck, and decides not to bother Ella Raines with the factoid that he has a wife at home. After what we can surmise has been a life of endless toil and trouble, he's not about to mess up this good thing that has fallen into his lap. The scenes where Laughton returns home from a hard day's work to be confronted by his shrieking horror of a wife (Rosalind Ivan) are entirely redundant -- the audience has already forgiven him for adultery, and is ready to forgive him for murder as well. In fact, we want him to murder his wife.

The Suspect was recently served up during Film Forum's B-Noir fest as half of a double feature (along with Phantom Lady) celebrating Ella Raines, a dark-haired '40s beauty who was discovered and groomed for stardom by Howard Hawks. The signature star in a Hawks production company, Raines was given the female lead in a string of films including Tall in the Saddle opposite John Wayne and Corvette-K225 opposite Randolph Scott. Somehow, though, she never landed on a winning picture during the '40s. By the mid-'50s, she was grinding out a living doing network television pilots. Shame. As the romantic dream come to life in The Suspect, there's never a hint that she harbors any hidden motives or that she's out for money -- he hasn't got any. She exists as the embodiment of real, uncomplicated happiness, which has eluded this fat, lonesome man his entire life. He's not going to let the monster at home ruin this opportunity for him. But murder is a slippery slope. Like the main character in the pulp novel A Simple Plan, Laughton's character soon finds that one murder sometimes necessitates more murders, each one less and less morally defensible. Pretty soon, you're just a serial killer with a complicated story to tell.

To his credit, Laughton's character doesn't pounce on murder at the start. He asks his wife for a divorce, which she refuses to grant. She values the petty successes she has achieved in London society, and nearly vomits over the idea of being mocked by her friends for being a divorced woman. She has also been out spying on Laughton and Raines, hiding in the London fog as they walk the streets. She threatens to publicize his philandering in every possible way, and drive away business from his shop. He takes all of these threats in stride; we get the feeling he hears the same thing every time he forgets to put the trash out. Then she goes too far. She threatens to use her influence in society to ruin the younger woman's career and reputation. That tears it. She's gotta go. If the divorce laws in turn-of-the-century England were anything as stringent as depicted in this film, the number of wives and husbands who accidentally ended up at the bottom of staircases with broken necks must have been a national epidemic.

As a story, The Suspect is pretty solid but it has two big flaws. Together, they render the film B-material. The first is the character of a police investigator played by Stanley Ridges, whose ability at deducing events through hindsight approaches the clairvoyant. Calling on Laughton at home late one night, soon after the death of the wife, Ridges immediately declares that he knows how, where, and why the murder occurred. He then goes on to offer an accurate demonstration, to boot. Was he peeping through the window during the murder? Is he one of those big-breasted television cop psychics like Jennifer Love Hewitt? No, none of the above. He's just really, really good at his job. Laughton is understandably rattled, and alters his plans accordingly. It's a very cheap way of advancing the plot, and the moment when Ridges walks across Laughton's living room, pulls a cane out of the cane holder, and announces his (correct) theory that a cane was the murder weapon evoked giggles in the audience I saw the film with. If I was Laughton, I would probably have already laid him out with that cane by this point, since he's got the entire case figured out.

The other big flaw is the film's ending. Without giving it away, I will say that it depends entirely on the sudden appearance of character traits which Laughton does not possess. There's a scene earlier in the film in which a supporting player makes the comment, in innocent jest, that Laughton has "no character at all." It brings a giggle to his chubby face, since it's true. With that in mind, it's simply not credible to believe he would make the choices he makes; you can feel the screenwriter's work being kneecapped to make the film acceptable to some British censor. The Omniscient Detective is also around to work his magic on the ending. He sets a trap for Laughton that, in real life, would have about a one in ten thousand chance of being sprung successfully, but here it works like a charm. Given all this, I think The Suspect is one of those 'could have been great' films that should be mined for remake material. The theme of a fat slob, beaten down by life, who dares to leap through all ethical boundaries for one chance at a beautiful woman, will never get old.