The 1941 American film Deep in doubt was Hitchcock's second film in Hollywood. The film is still the suspense film that Hitchcock excels at. Hollywood star Gary Grant plays the prodigal Johnny, and Joan Fontaine plays the beautiful and wealthy girl Lina. Lina is a simple, intelligent, stubborn face-loving girl, lonely she is very eager for love. After meeting her crush, Johnny, she marries the prodigal son who has misbehaved despite her father's strong objections. Soon after the marriage, Lina discovers many suspicious things about Johnny, her gambling husband, and her friend who died for no reason, making Lina always suspect that her husband will kill himself for huge insurance.
"Deep Doubt" is Hitchcock's first introduction of domestic crime into his film, which was originally an innovation and a social warning. Whether it is the original book of the movie or the ending that Hitchcock originally envisioned, Johnny is the murderer. But because of the Regulations of hays Code of film censorship in the United States and the need to preserve the positive screen image of big star Hugh Grant, Hugh Grant cannot play a criminal who seeks money and kills his wife. Hollywood producers forcefully demanded that Hitchcock have to change the film's ending. In order to pass the movie, in order to survive in Hollywood, like "Butterfly Dream", Hitchcock once again gave in and had no choice but to modify his elaborate ending.
The result of being forced to modify the ending leads to the film's inconsistencies, presenting a psychedelic ending. In the early stages, the film lays a lot of groundwork for the male protagonist Johnny's criminal motives, but at the end of the movie, it all becomes an illusion caused by the heroine Lina's suspicious heart. The original theme of the film had the effect of warning against family crimes, but in the end it became a satire on the irrational and suspicious nature of women in the face of love.
Because of the confusion of the ending of the movie, and many people do not know the cause and effect of the birth of the movie, many viewers also believe that Lina suspects that her husband is only because of her suspicions. In fact, the clever Hitchcock has already told the audience exactly in the movie that Johnny deliberately killed his wife.
First of all, Johnny's subjective motive: he didn't love Lina at all, he married Lina to make money.
Lina, who longs for love and hates marriage, has a crush on Johnny when she first meets him on the train. Johnny met the beautiful Lina in order to rub the high carriage, and he was bent on talking, but as soon as he saw Lina wearing glasses and holding a book, a look of world-seeing and shrewdness, he immediately dismissed the idea.
When he met Lina again, he had discovered that Lina was not only simple but also had money, and he immediately began a passionate pursuit of pennilessness. Overwhelmed by love, Lina, despite her father's objections, easily chooses to elope with Johnny.
At this time, Johnny thought that as long as he married Lina, Lina's father would give in sooner or later. He borrows money to live a lavish life, and is sure that Lina's father will give his only daughter financial help. Unexpectedly, the stubborn general's wedding gift to his daughter was a precious and useless ancestral chair. The gambling Johnny did not hesitate to sell his wife's beloved chair. In the end, he redeems the chair, not only because he has won money, but also because he needs to continue to curry favor with Lina, who thinks that Lina still has a chance to inherit a huge inheritance.
Johnny has since set the goal of making money on his cousins and friends. Until the death of her father-in-law, Lina received only a small amount of money, or paid annually. At this point, Lina had no hope of getting a rich family property. Johnny's purpose of marrying Lina to get rich was frustrated! The living Lina was of no use to him. He bought a huge amount of insurance for his wife, and what the purpose was self-evident.
The ending of the movie is that all of Lina's suspicions are derived from her "suspicious gods and ghosts", so is Lina just an ignorant woman who is very suspicious?
First of all, Lina is a smart and sober woman, and she has enough judgment on others. She was so desperate for love that she was blinded, but as long as she was sober, her judgment was still online. In fact, Lina's biggest flaw is that she wants too much face.
Eager for love, she is lost in the pursuit of the handsome and sweet-talking Johnny, but she has no intention of marrying him immediately. But when she overhears her father saying that she can't marry and intends to raise her for the rest of her life, Lina, feeling insulted, immediately agrees to johnny to associate with her. Faced with her father's relentless questioning, the rebellious Lina eloped with Johnny.
When Lina learned that her husband was unemployed and penniless but living a wealthy life on loan, she immediately suspected that her husband was not in love with her, but because she married herself because of money. Although eventually fooled by Johnny's rhetoric, the seeds of doubt have begun to be planted. But because she loves her husband, and because she refuses to admit her failed marriage and blinded eyes, Lina forcibly fights for her husband in front of her parents, friends, and even the police, says good things, and convinces herself that Johnny loves herself and that he will change...
Lina has since struggled with the contradiction between doubt and self-doubt.
Johnny sells the chair, she doubts her husband's character, the chair redeems her and she feels guilty about herself and is suspicious;
Johnny embezzles her cousin's public money, and she questions her husband while believing his self-justification;
Johnny took advantage of doing business with her honest friends, reminding them to be deeply suspicious of her husband's intentions;
When her friend dies unexpectedly, Lina immediately suspects that her husband killed her friend by taking advantage of his friend's allergies when he drank brandy. But for the sake of face, Lina still chooses to defend her husband in front of the police;
Because Johnny has alibi, Lina reluctantly puts away her suspicions, but when she learns that he borrows the novelist's friend's crime novel, and the novel has a way to kill people by alcohol, Lina is already convinced that her husband is murdering his friend's life for money.
When Lina saw the huge insurance bill that Johnny had bought for herself, she understood that her husband was ready to attack her. She immediately broke her illusion and planned to escape from her husband's clutches... Such a foreshadowing, and then taking Johnny's criminal behavior is all Lina's suspicions, is naturally not convincing.
Although the ending is awkward and there is no obvious Heath's suspense film style, the obedient director has an award! Joan Fontaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this film, and the once-recognized Hee Fat has gained a foothold in Hollywood.
(Text/Qin Shi Xiaoge ended on August 19, 2021 in 51 minutes)
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