The Suspect

Edwardian London. Philip Marshall manages a tobacconist's, a quiet and courteous man whose wife Cora has been poisoning his life for years. He meets a young woman and asks for a divorce; Cora refuses and threatens him. Then Cora dies in a fall down the stairs. Inspector Huxley does not believe it was an accident and has nothing to prove it. Robert Siodmak directs. Charles Laughton plays Marshall and Ella Raines the young woman. It is a Universal picture. The interesting thing is where the film puts you. The killer is known from the start, and he is shown not as a criminal but as a man cornered. The tension does not come from whether he will be caught but from what carrying it will cost him. When a second killing becomes necessary, the real subject begins. Which is why Laughton is the centre of it. He builds the part out of gentleness rather than menace; the man speaks in the same soft voice while doing the worst thing he will ever do. Siodmak made a run of noirs at Universal in the forties, and this counts as the least known and one of the soundest of them. Who it is for: viewers who like noir and thrillers told from the criminal's side. Who it is not for: there is no action, it runs entirely on interiors and conversation, and the period decor sits heavily on it.