Friday, July 19, 2013

Above Suspicion (1943)

Director: Richard Thorpe                            Writers: Keith Winter & Patricia Coleman
Film Score: Bronislau Kaper                       Cinematography: Robert H. Planck
Starring: Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, Conrad Veidt and Basil Rathbone

Above Suspicion is another wartime effort from MGM about the beginnings of World War II. Though they wouldn’t have seemed like the studio to do it, they were the most critical about Hitler and came into some criticism from the government for being out ahead of policy with films like The Mortal Storm before the U.S. had entered the war. What makes this one so interesting is the tremendous cast, as well as a unique teaming of Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray. Set in 1939, MacMurray plays a recently married Oxford graduate student on his honeymoon. But before he and his wife, Crawford, can get to the continent, the foreign office asks them to act as spies and bring back information from a scientist about the new German magnetic mines, hoping that their honeymoon will be enough of a cover to allow them to avoid detection.

While MacMurray and his friend, Richard Ainley, attempt to downplay the danger, Crawford’s eyes light up at the thought of being a real spy. While their time in Paris is exciting gathering clues, once the couple go to Bavaria, things get more intense. During a concert the couple attend--and copying Hitchcock’s original The Man Who Knew Too Much--a shot is fired at a point where the music is loudest, killing a German officer. The comparison with Hitchcock is appropriate. Even with their skulking around and the presence of the Gestapo, there never seems to be a real element of danger. Where Hitch’s chase films are nail-biting to the end, this one just doesn’t seem to have a lot of suspense, and certainly nothing like the fear that MacMurray exhibited in Double Indemnity. For a spy thriller, the whole thing is just a little too light and breezy, like Charade with Nazis, which doesn’t really work.

There’s a terrific supporting cast, though, that includes the wonderful Felix Bressart as a book shop owner, and Frank Reicher as a Nazi Colonel. The great Conrad Veidt plays against type as an Austrian who helps the couple find their objective. This would be Veidt’s last film, after completing Casablanca the year before, and his unexpected death was a great loss to film. Basil Rathbone plays a German count, and former classmate of MacMurray. Bruce Lester is the British agent already in Germany who is on a separate mission of his own, but winds up helping the couple. The backdrops are nice, and the studio exterior sets are well done. As far as the crew goes, it’s a solid job all the way around. Director Richard Thorpe had experience at MGM filming just about anything, from westerns, musicals and Tarzan pictures, to Thin Man episodes, and later in his career would direct Ivanhoe and the Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock.

It’s not the best spy film in the world, perhaps it’s not even good. But there is just too much to recommend to say it’s bad. It’s great seeing MacMurray and Crawford together, and while there isn’t any chemistry between them, there doesn’t need to be, as that wasn’t the point of the film. Add to that Connie Veidt and Basil Rathbone, and in the end Above Suspicion makes for a satisfying cinematic experience.

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