Suspense is a weird movie with a lame title. It’s a film noir set at an ice show. The featured image proves that I am not making this up. The movie has an equally lame alternate title, Glamour Girl. which sounds like a Betty Grable musical.

I’ve been pondering alternate titles for this bizarre little movie:

Suspense On Ice

Skates Of Death

Cheating On Ice

Walking In A Weird Winter Wonderland

Walking In A Wicked Winter Wonderland

The last two titles would require a holiday release but why not? It’s a winter movie.

Suspense was released by the poverty row studio Monogram, but was not a low budget flick. It has the following: A fire; an avalanche; a missing person; ice dancing; scary basements, and a smoky nightclub scene. Every film noir with a decent budget has a smoky nightclub scene. Oh, there’s a murder as well.

It also has this freaky ice show set:

This dizzy confection is held together by a fine performance by film noir regular Barry Sullivan; one of the most underrated actors of his era. Albert Dekker plays the ice show boss whose wife Sullivan canoodles with. Watching Suspense made me realize that Dekker is the Ralph Bellamy of noir. He rarely got the girl, but he got the cat in this movie:

The star of this weird little movie is  Olympic ice skater Belita. Her acting career was inspired by fellow Olympian, Sonja Henie, but Sonja didn’t try doing gritty dramas, she specialized in escapist flicks. In addition to skating the two women had something else important in common: neither could act her way out of a paper bag. But Belita sure could skate:

I’m always glad to see the portly and gravel voiced Eugene Pallette who’s best known for playing Friar Tuck in The Adventures Of Robin Hood. Bonita Granville played Fitzgerald’s bitter ex-girlfriend who’s the real femme fatale of the piece.

I nearly forgot: Suspense also has a hunting lodge scene. See Barry Sullivan skulk. Skulk, Barry, skulk.

Suspense qualifies as a film noir because Eddie Muller says it is. It certainly has the noir look thanks to the presence of Karl Struss as cinematographer. He began his career as an art photographer who hung out with the likes of Alfred Stieglitz. Struss gives the movie its shadowy noiry look. Is noiry a word? It should be. Struss won an Oscar for one of the artiest American films ever, FW Murnau’s Sunrise.

I never give shout-outs to set designers. but George James Hopkins’ sets are stunning. He went on to win Oscars for My Fair Lady and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 

Suspense was directed by journeyman Frank Tuttle and the original story and script are by Philip Yordan who won an Oscar for the Spencer Tracy western, Broken Lance.

I’ve circled around the plot, which is fairly basic: drifter gets job and falls in love with the boss’ wife. Icy mayhem ensues. That’s all I got for you. This feature is called pulp fiction, not pulp spoilers, after all. Besides, the weird details are what matter with this quirky little film.

Grading Time: Suspense is so weirdly entertaining that it deserves 3 stars and an Adrastos Grade of B.

It’s time to plaster some posters on the post:

Here’s the quad:

Does anybody know what time it is? I hope you care more than Chicago, the band, not the city.

Who knew a movie snack could double as a drum major?

The lobby cards for this dizzy little movie are in color unlike the film itself. The first one has a better picture of Dekker’s kitty:

I couldn’t find the trailer, so the last word goes to Eddie Muller with his Noir Alley intro and outro: