The Unsuspected

Back in September, I used the movie The Unsuspected in an edition of Thursday Movie Picks, not realizing at the time that the movie would be on TCM later that month. I knew I hadn't blogged about it before, so I recorded it to watch and do that review.

Claude Rains plays Victor Grandison, who hosts a true-crime radio show in New York. His secretary Roslyn works in out of his study/office at his nice home up in Westchester. One night, as Victor is coming home from the show, Roslyn gets a call from Victor's cousin Althea (Audrey Totter). But during the call, we see Roslyn get strangled by somebody, with the killing then disguised to look like a suicide! And Althea doesn't bother to tell the police.

We then learn that it's technically not Victor's house. The house belongs to Victor's niece (apparently by another sibling, different from Victor and whoever begat Althea) Matilda, and Victor has been her guardian ever since her parents died. Or, at least, the house did belong to her. She went off to Portugal for some reason, and the boat sank, killing her. And if you think that's not complicated enough, things are about to get a whole lot more complicated.

First, we meet an obliging young man, Steven Howard (Ted North, whose on-screen career didn't go anywhere after this movie, and who is credited as Michael North). He shows up in the middle of a party, claiming that he had gotten married to Matilda just before she set off for Lisbon. Victor naturally suspects that Mr. Howard is after Matilda's money, but it just so happens that he's got wealthy parents of his own. But then even nuttier is that, as in My Favorite Wife, Matilda (played by Joan Caulfield) informs everybody that she was picked up by a trawler which returned to Brasil, so she's going to be flying up from Brazil.

And that's only half of the insanity. Steven wants to be the first to greet his wife when she arrives at the airport, so he goes alone. And when she sees Steven... she doesn't recognize him at all! So Steven could in fact be after Matilda's money after all. Or maybe it could be Althea. She's trapped in a loveless marriage with Oliver (Hurd Hatfield), and is decidedly resentful at having to live off the good graces of Matilda.

And we still haven't answered the question of who killed Roslyn, and why. Eventually, we do learn the who, although the killer is revealed enough before the end that the movie turns into a suspense movie instead of a mystery. Also, Victor discovers that Steven has a love photograph from Roslyn in his wallet. So why did he marry Matilda? Or is that a ruse, too?

The big problem with The Unsuspected is that the plot is way too convoluted for its own good. And then, thanks to the presence of the Production Code, you know that the bad people are going to have to get their punishment in the end while the good people have to have their doings explained. This is done, but not in a particularly satisfactory way. I don't think the why of the Roslyn killing was ever mentioned; nor is it explained why Matilda went to South America instead of Portugal.

Still, this being a product of the Hollywood studio system with a classy star like Claude Rains and a top-tier director like Michael Curtiz, you know you're going to get a product that's well made in aspects of the movie apart from the messy script. Rains, unsurprisingly, does well, as does Totter. The other men in the proceedings come off relatively worse, or at least the two man supporting men. Veteran character actor Fred Clark is more than competent in a dramatic role as the police detective.

It's easy to see, however, why The Unsuspected is one of those movies that despite the star power has fallen through the cracks over the ensuing 75 years and is less remembered than other movies from that era of Hollywood. Still, it's definitely worth a watch.