MOVIE OF THE DAY: "SUSPENSE" (1946)

When a Monogram film costs at least twice as much as usual to produce and runs over a third longer than its typical 75 minutes, you've got to expect something either pretentious or an A-list release with a B-movie gut. Thank God (and the producers) they opted for the latter. Even if it is the only film noir ever made broken up by ice skating routines.

Low-rent mug Joe Morgan, on the lam from an unidentified nasty experience in New York, happens upon a skating revue in L.A. Quickly working his way up from peanut salesman to assistant of revue owner Frank Leonard, Morgan also has eyes for both his boss's job and Frank's wife Roberta, the star of the show. So now it's Joe skating on thin ice.

Frank's black cat should have been a
tip-off for Joe to amscray.

Following Frank and Roberta to their cabin in the snowy mountains of Northern California, Joe makes his intentions a little too clear for Frank's comfort. As Joe watches Roberta practice a new routine on a frozen pond, Frank decides he doesn't need an assistant anymore and, rifle in hand, follows them from a safe distance. Anything to avoid paying severance!

The resulting gunshots miss their mark, but start an avalanche just where Frank was standing. In short order, Joe takes over the business, and is doing the ol' double axle with Roberta (and I don't mean on ice). But soon he's in over his head, thanks to the arrival of his former floozie Ronnie... and the weird feeling that Frank, too, is keeping an eye on him.

Just a little to the left, sweetie.

Although it takes a little while to get going, Suspense shows promise from the get-go, as every character reeks of sleaze. Even the classy, pipe-puffing Frank Leonard appears to be two steps removed from the gutter. Roberta clearly enjoys playing a hooker in one of her routines. And Joe gets a promotion by suggesting she leap through a circle of long, sharp knives. This ice show is family entertainment?

I know I've been out of circulation for a
long time, but this doesn't look like the
way to a dame's heart to me.

From the leads down to bit players, Suspense overflows with interesting, often terrific actors. Using his natural stiffness and menacing looks to good effect, Barry Sullivan (as Joe) seems threatening even when selling peanuts at the ice show -- I was expecting him to sock the customers if they didn't fork over their ten cents. 

But a movie with an ice revue wouldn't work without a pro to do the routines convincingly. The uni-matronymic Belita -- an Olympic champ-turned-professional skater -- scores both on and off the ice. Unlike a lot of athletes-turned-actors, Belita convinces as the woman who doesn't know which man she really wants -- the husband or the hoodlum. And she's good-looking in a non-Hollywood way, making her far more appealing than many noir janes. 

Let me know if you see a new movie with actors who
look like this.

Whether deliberate or not, Albert Dekker plays Frank Leonard as borderline asexual. He clearly loves Roberta -- he wants to shut down the show so they can get away to the mountains together -- but you never get the feeling that he wants anything more than her company.  

But the real surprise is Eugene Pallette as Frank's sidekick Harry. Sounding even more like the human frog he's always appeared to be, Pallette -- perhaps for the first time -- underplays his part so well that he appears to be the most natural actor of the bunch. He knows Joe has the hots for Roberta, and quietly tortures him by reminding him she's married to the boss.

Pallette also figures in Suspense's best scene, as he and a now-paranoid Joe are chatting in the empty theater not long after Frank's apparent death. Beautifully shot by Karl Struss, the men sit in semi-darkness. As he puffs away on cigarette, Pallette emits smoke from every orifice on his head except his ears with every syllable he speaks, like a fat, human chimney. I mean, I smelled like a carton of Luckies by the end of the scene.

Body in the roll-top desk? What body in the roll-top desk?

Going into it, I hoped that Suspense, like I Love a Mystery and the Whistler movies, was based upon the radio series of the same name. Instead, I had to settle for a surprisingly well-made original noir with an interesting story and a half-dozen or so familiar supporting actors and bit players giving some of their best performances ever. 

Plus I learned a valuable lesson: never go after the boss's wife, even if you think he's dead.

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