The Archive · 1941

Excellent New Film

Plot Found

Alfred Hitchegek, who has directed many good pictures, including "Rebecca," says he now has a better story than "Rebecca." This one is about a wife who believes her husband is trying to kill her.

Francis Isles concludes his novel. "Before the Fact," on which this film is based, with the murder. But Hitchcock says murders are commonplace end, anyway. the censors insist that murderers be punished in kind and Hitchcock doesn't want to treat his leading man that way. Cary Grant is the hero.

"This is different," says Hitchcock. "In this, the wife (Joan Fontaine) only thinks her husband is trying to kill her. This is due to a chain of odd circumstances. She finds a letter telling, him that he cannot borrow on an insurance policy, that he can collect only in the event of his wife's death, She becomes more suspicious when she hears him taking part in a conversation on ways to commit a perfect crime.

"Yet in spite of all this, she is so much in love with the bounder that she refuses to leave him. Strange character, what?

It is a great psychological study and one of those infrequent stories which can, be told subjectively—entirely through the distorted mind of the wife."

(In the New York Times")

The following hand was remarkable in many respects. The declarer

Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.

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