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The Unsuspected (1947)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A gilt-edged performance from Rains, revelling in sinister ambiguities as a radio personality/criminologist who, while regaling his fans with titillating tales of true crime and learned speculations as to the tortuous ways of the criminal mind, secretly commits a murder of his own. Based on a marvellous novel by Charlotte Armstrong, the film is considerably weakened by the fact that her intricate plot is partly discarded. But this hardly matters, since Curtiz wraps the rest up in a pyrotechnic display of expressionistic effects, including one shot in which a girl dying of poison is coolly watched through the bubbles in a champagne glass, and another in which a reluctant killer broods in his sleazy hotel room while Rains (who is blackmailing him into killing again) can be heard droning away on the radio and part of a neon sign seen flashing on and off outside urges 'kill...kill...kill'. The use Curtiz makes of the weirdly opulent mansion in which most of the action takes place is almost as psychologically acute as in Losey's The Prowler.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: Michael Curtiz
Producer: Charles Hoffman
Cast: Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett, Hurd Hatfield, Michael North, Fred Clark, Jack Lambert full cast
Duration: 103 mins
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