12/20/2023 0 Comments Suspicion 1941Absent from the big screen for a while, she took parts in television and dinner theaters. In 1951 she starred in Paramount's Darling, How Could You! (1951), which turned out badly for both her and the studio and more weak productions followed. Joan took the year of 1949 off before coming back in 1950 with September Affair (1950) and Born to Be Bad (1950). In 1948, she accepted second billing to Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). By now it was safe to say she was more famous than her older sister and more fine films followed. Once again she was nominated for the Oscar, she lost out to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943). The following year she appeared in The Constant Nymph (1943). In 1942 she starred in the well-received This Above All (1942). Joan was making one film a year but choosing her roles well. She would again be Oscar-nominated for her role as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth in Suspicion (1941), and this time she won. Although she thought she should have won, (she lost out to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle (1940)), she was now an established member of the Hollywood set. In 1940 she garnered her first Academy Award nomination for Rebecca (1940). Although the next two years saw her in better roles, she still yearned for something better. In 1937, this time calling herself Joan Fontaine, she landed a better role as Trudy Olson in You Can't Beat Love (1937) and then an uncredited part in Quality Street (1937). During this time she roomed with Olivia, who was having much more success in films. She tested at MGM and gained a small role in No More Ladies (1935), but she was scarcely noticed and Joan was idle for a year and a half. After moving to L.A., Joan adopted the name of Joan Burfield because she didn't want to infringe upon Olivia, who was using the family surname. Joan likewise joined a theater group in San Jose and then Los Angeles to try her luck there. In 1934 she came back to California, where her sister was already making a name for herself on the stage. While Olivia pursued a stage career, Joan went back to Tokyo, where she attended the American School. de Havilland had a desire to be an actress but her dreams were curtailed when she married, but now she hoped to pass on her dream to Olivia and Joan. Joan's parents did not get along well and divorced soon afterward. de Havilland and the two girls settled in Saratoga while their father went back to his practice in Japan. Her father had a lucrative practice in Japan, but due to Joan and older sister Olivia de Havilland's recurring ailments the family moved to California in the hopes of improving their health. Her paternal grandfather's family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Still, it would have been nice to get that final, sinister shot: a confident Johnnie unknowingly mailing his own incriminating letter just as the movie fades to the very same black from which it began.Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement, to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. In an article for the "Los Angeles Times," it's explained that, "according to Hitchcock, RKO did not want to portray Cary Grant as a killer," which helps us understand how Hitchcock's dream ending wasn't exactly going to fly. The movie went through many revisions before settling on the ending that has frustrated so many viewers for years. Of course, this ending wasn't the only one that got scrapped before the film's final release. It completely turns the story on its head, giving the power back to Lina even in death. In fact, it's such a kicker that Emerald Fennell's Oscar-nominated film "Promising Young Woman" sports a conclusion that feels eerily similar to how "Suspicion" almost ended. Yes, Lina meets her demise, but she does so knowing she has also won. This is, in my opinion, an undoubtedly better ending. But Hitchcock himself actually wanted the movie to end in a way that was much closer to the source material. There is no potential child, and the ending is so ambiguous that it leads one to believe all of Lina's paranoia was completely unjustified. In the movie, though, the milk is given, but Lina never drinks it. The acceptance of her inevitable death can be understood in various ways as Lina, who is pregnant at the time she drinks the milk, perhaps choosing to save her unborn child from a life with Johnnie as their father. In the novel, Lina, completely aware of the fact that Johnnie is murdering friends and family for money, knowingly drinks a poisoned glass of milk given to her by her husband. Hitchcock's "Suspicion" is based on a 1932 novel by Francis Iles titled "Before the Fact." While I have not read the actual book, the plot of the film seems like it doesn't stray too far from its source material, but it does alter the ending significantly.
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