Michael_Elliott
Above Suspicion (1943) ** 1/2 (out of 4)By-the-numbers WWII drama from MGM has Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray playing newlyweds who are asked by the government to do some spying as they make their way into Nazi controlled territory. ABOVE SUSPICION was one of the hundreds of films turned out by Hollywood to motivate or at least pursued the country to support the war and to show how evil the Nazi party was. With so many films in this sub-genre it's always hard to find a "great" film and this here certainly isn't one of them. While the film remains slightly entertaining from start to finish, there's really no way to deny the fact that there's just nothing overly special here and it's also incredibly uneven. I say uneven because the tone of the film seems to change from one scene to the next. Sometimes you feel as if you're watching some sort of light comedy and then the next minute everything is being handled so heavily. At times there seems to be a wink-wink going on between the two leads and then the next second everything is back to being dead serious. I thought the entire tone of the film was just wrong and it was incredibly hard for me to believe the story or take it too serious. Both Crawford and MacMurray are good in their roles, although I'm not so sure they play were together. I really didn't buy them as a married couple and I also didn't buy them working together on these missions. Conrad Veidt is good in his role as a good German and Basil Rathbone steals the film as the evil German. Reginald Owen has a good supporting part as well. Again, at just 90-minutes the film moves well enough but there's just not enough going on here to make it worth watching except for fans of the cast.
T Y
This is a movie so silly that it borders on offensive. It's sole purpose was to provide propaganda on the homefront during the war. It's value after V.E. Day is not clear. Crawford and MacMurray traipse through Nazi Germany with the casualness of mixed pairs on a tennis court. At one point they infiltrate an intimidating Nazi castle/encampment that is staffed by perhaps two Nazis. The movie ends up supporting an absurd proposition that 6 million Jews and a hundred thousand homosexuals were killed because they didn't have enough perky gumption to just casually stroll away from Nazi strongholds. It's a disservice to anyone snared by the Nazis, to suggest that tricking & evading the Germans was as easy as falling out of bed. I'd like to make the outrageous proposal to Hollywood that all of WW2 wasn't fought to provide easy villains for mediocre movies.
bkoganbing
For what she obviously knew what would be her last film with MGM, Joan Crawford saunters through the part of a newlywed bride who thinks a little espionage on her honeymoon with Fred MacMurray would be just the thing to give it some spice.Above Suspicion finds MacMurray and Crawford as a pair of newlyweds in 1939 Great Britain. He's a visiting American professor at Oxford and right after their visit to the preacher MacMurray is asked by someone from British Intelligence to locate some of their missing agents in Nazi Germany. Also to try and get a copy of the design of a secret weapon which was the original agent's mission.Incredibly enough they agree both being good anti-Nazis. They get into a whole lot of intrigue over in the Reich which includes the assassination of a concentration camp head. It also includes meeting a former Oxford colleague of MacMurray's Basil Rathbone who now works for the Gestapo. Rathbone is no fool, he's a shrewd adversary and gives the best performance in the film.The part Joan does seems to have been written with Myrna Loy in mind, possibly something to do with Bill Powell, though at Powell's age it would have been a tough sell for him as honeymooner. Myrna after Pearl Harbor put her career on hold and devoted herself exclusively to all kinds of war work permitted for females. I'm sure a lot of parts were written for her that got played by others and this got assigned to Crawford on her way out of MGM. Obviously the miscasting didn't bother Louis B. Mayer a bit.As for MacMurray he had a career turning role just ahead in Double Indemnity at his home studio of Paramount. This might have worked for him better had he been teamed with a frequent screen partner, Carole Lombard. But that was a casting decision no longer possible.Conrad Veidt is also in this in one of his last roles before his untimely death. He's a 'guide' which is a term to cover a multitude of talents that prove useful to the spying honeymooners.Well, I'll bet Ralph and Alice didn't have a honeymoon as interesting as this one.
krorie
If the viewer can keep up with all the directions given in this nifty little spy vs. spy thriller, he is a better man than I Gunga Din. It's amazing that Richard Myles (Fred MacMurray) can remember all the details. The viewer may also be amazed that Fred MacMurray speaks such good German. MacMurray is one of those great Hollywood actors who never received his due, even though he almost matched the performances of Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck in the film noir classic "Double Indemnity." He certainly keeps up with Joan Crawford in "Above Suspicion," although the two simply don't jell as a team. Barbara Stanwyck would have made a much better partner for MacMurray in this film.All that aside, this is still a topnotch suspense movie from World War II. The flick is fast-paced and has worn well with the passage of time, since all the goings on are now just history to most viewers. Since director Richard Thorpe was an old hand at directing action pictures he lets the show get on the road and move along rapidly. He throws humor in from time to time to ease the tension the way Hitchcock would do in a more masterful way. Viewers used to seeing Basil Rathbone play Sherlock Holmes will enjoy seeing him play a dastardly Nazi stooge who receives his just desserts. In the opposite direction viewers may also enjoy seeing Conrad Veidt playing a good guy who assists the newlyweds Frances and Richard Myles (Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray)in their dangerous mission inside Nazi Germany. Those who enjoy World War II espionage films, should find this one a winner.
AD
