Sean_Biggins

Because it's Hitchcock and has Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, you think, what could go wrong? Well it turns out that PLENTY can go wrong. In a nutshell, it was based on a book, but RKO pictures didn't want it to end the same way as the book, because they didn't want to mar Cary Grant's likeable Hollywood image, so instead, you end up with this really weird ending that makes no sense. I've posted an excerpt below from Wikipedia which explains what happened if anyone is interested: It's too bad because the acting is great and Fontaine won and Academy Award and deserved it as she is excellent in this, but all the best acting in the world can't save a bad screenplay.

"The novel was adapted to film as Suspicion (1941), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. However, the inverted detective story format was eliminated, making Johnnie's murderous indiscretions merely a product of Lina's imagination. According to William L. De Andrea in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa (1994), this was because the studio, RKO Radio Pictures, was uncomfortable with the idea of having one of Hollywood's leading actors Cary Grant, who played Johnnie, being shown on screen as a devious psychopath.

Hitchcock was quoted as saying that he was forced to alter the ending of the movie. He wanted an ending similar to the climax of the novel, but the studio, more concerned with Cary Grant's "heroic" image, insisted that it be changed. Writer Donald Spoto, in his biography of Hitchcock The Dark Side of Genius, disputes Hitchcock's claim to have been over-ruled on the film's ending. Spoto claims that the first RKO treatment and memos between Hitchcock and the studio show that Hitchcock emphatically desired to make a film about a woman's fantasy life."

Hackman said this movie flopped at the box office and it's SO easy to see why. I wish I'd trusted the low-rated reviews here before wasting my time because this movie is dreadful. There were a number of movies like this in the early '70's because frankly, life sucked in the '70's so I guess the thinking was that misery had to have company? I dunno if that's why, but just like most of the 1970's, this movie was depressing and sucked badly. There are a LOT of fan-boy reviews here on IMDB, but take my advice and don't trust them unless you're the type of person who ONLY likes movies if everyone else hates them so that you can tell yourself that you're smarter than the majority of humans.

I didn't know that BEFORE I watched the movie, but it's based on a REAL-LIFE story about a couple who met through an ad and stayed on an island together for a year and the guy was apparently kind of a boor who just wanted to laze about and thought the woman would have sex with him (which she didn't'!), and so for that part, Oliver Reed, who drank during the filming of it, fit the role well and he just plays his usual self. Amanda Donohoe I guess was good in her role as the attractive woman who walks around for the whole movie pretty much nude but is not interested in sex at all. Some guys in other reviews found her sexy but I didn't as she just looked like a typical plain-Jane, no clothes, no makeup -- just a nude chick -- so what -- get over it, but I guess some of these guys have never had wives or girlfriends or something. Anyhow, if you plan to watch this, I wouldn't waste your time until you read this part below:

"This book was a big U. K. hit in the 1980s, as it told the story of an older man and a younger woman who spend a year together on the desert island of Tuin, off the Torres Straits of Australia. The couple are combustible from the get-go, as the man wants sex and an escape from responsibilities, while the woman wants to find herself. Never a good combination."