SUSPICION: gutsy Grant deserved a golden gong

Joan Fontaine won an Oscar for her performance in SUSPICION but it's Cary Grant who deserved it.

I'm not saying Fontaine was undeserving but Grant is just magnificent in this Alfred Hitchcock thriller, playing Johnnie, a charming but incredibly suspicious gentleman who seduces and marries the young and impressionable Lina, played by Fontaine.
Hitchcock reveals Johnnie's true character piece by piece, like peeling the layers from an onion, and the more Lina discovers the more she feels like crying.
There's clearly something not quite right about him on their first meeting in a railway carriage. He's prissy, effete and childish yet Lina, who's supposedly smart and intelligent (and reading a book on child psychology) is intrigued by him and secretly overjoyed when he contrives an opportunity to call on her a few days later.
Despite a growing number of warning signs she lets him sweep her off her feet and in no time at all they're married, which is when she starts discovering that almost nothing she'd assumed about him is true.
What so impressed me about Grant is that he's playing aggressively against type. Sure he'd played smooth talking charmers before - that was his screen persona - but never with the disturbing undercurrent of evil on show here. 1930s and 40s Hollywood was built on the premise that its stars always portrayed a type and never strayed from it, so this was a gutsy thing for Grant to do and I understand RKO were very uncomfortable about it. Often when stars stepped away from their type (Gable in 'Parnell', Bogart in 'The Return of Dr X' or 'Virginia City') it was a disaster because the public didn't want to see them playing a different kind of character, but Grant is effective because he takes his screen persona and subverts it, suggesting there's something very rotten beneath that smooth veneer.
It's genuinely disturbing to watch a character we think we know so well gradually reveal the darkness behind the handsome mask, and Fontaine does a great job in expressing the creeping fear that comes with this realisation.
By 1941 Hitchcock was already a master at ratcheting up the tension turn by turn, and interspersing it with moments of frivolity (provided here by a wonderfully nincompoopish Nigel Bruce) which just add to the stress levels rather than alleviating them. SUSPICION builds beautifully to what should be a spectacular climax but isn't because of RKO's jitters over messing with Grant's image. The blame for the ludicrous denouement lies squarely with the studio, not Grant or Hitchcock.
The result is an enormous let down and a load of unanswered questions, but this climactic disappoint can't detract from Grant's masterful performance. He's so good I actually didn't mind the cop-out conclusion (too much).

KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS: what's the magic word?

What intrigued me most about this 1948 film was its lurid title. How exactly would they work it into the story? Would it be a plaintiff plea to a loved one by someone looking for comfort in his darkest hour, or a command, barked pitilessly by the victor to his groveling defeated enemy? And what would the circumstances be that would give rise to such an unusual utterance?
Sadly all of these questions and more were left unanswered by this drama which wants to be a film noir but doesn't quite have the nerve to pull it off.

Burt Lancaster stars as Bill Saunders, a mentally disturbed ex-soldier on the run in postwar London who finds an unlikely friend and lover in Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), a lonely nurse, whose flat he takes refuge in after accidentally killing a man in a pub brawl.Despite the unconventional nature of their introduction Jane finds herself drawn to this troubled, tough but tender man who wants to do the right thing but just can't control his temper.
If director Norman Foster had remained true to his film noir aspirations this love story would have ended very differently to the way that it does, which is a shameful cop out that betrays almost everything that's gone before. Up to that point he'd done well to adapt the conventions of a uniquely American cinematic genre to a British setting, creating a sense of doom that while never scaling the heights of 'Double Indemnity' or 'The Big Sleep' does ok in the circumstances.
Lancaster is testosterone on legs. Virile is barely adequate to describe his presence on screen and it's not difficult to understand why Jane would be irresistibly drawn to this bad boy despite all the warning signs (starting with his confession that he's just killed someone). Fontaine is surprisingly likeable and appealing and - most importantly - convincing in a part that she's really a few years too old for.
Third billed Robert Newton, however, is another matter. His literally eye-rolling performance as the blackmailer who delights in tormenting the already tormented Saunders is a thick slice of boiled ham. His most famous film role, as Long John Silver in 'Treasure Island' was still 18 months in the future but he appears to be warming up for it here, with a parody of a cockney crook that even Dick van Dyke would blush at.
It all adds up to a routine drama that could have been so much more.