Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7366 in VHS
• Released on: 1994-03-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, NTSC
• Original language: Arabic, English, French, German
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Customer Reviews

JOAN TAKES ON THE NAZIS...
This is a lively, moderately entertaining film with a somewhat implausible plot. Newlyweds, Richard Myles (Fred MacMurray) and Frances (Joan Crawford), are asked by British intelligence to do a little espionage work, while they are on their honeymoon in 1939 Germany. Richard, who is a professor at Oxford University, and his wife agree to do so without a qualm.

While in Germany, they follow a series of puzzling clues having to do with music and a red rose. There are many sinister Nazis, however, hot on the trail of the newlyweds, as they bumble about Germany. Through a series of twists and turns they come across an old school chum of Richard, a haughty aristocrat (Basil Rathbone), who turns out to be a lot more than they bargained for. With the aid of a mysterious Austrian agent (Conrad Veidt), Richard and Frances manage to complete their mission, but not before Frances has a hair raising run-in with the Gestapo. The Nazis, however, are no match for Frances.

This 1943 film is definitely a war propaganda movie. There is no doubt that the Nazis are the bad guys. Expect a lot of adventure and witty, highly stylized repartee between the newlyweds. Good performances are given by the entire cast. Although the plot is implausible, the film is still entertaining.

Fans of Joan Crawford will definitely enjoy this film.

Haunted Honeymoon
Richard Thorpe made so many wonderful movies and this is by no means the best, but it's still a five star escape. Thorpe isn't a flashy director, but he gets the job done; admiring MGM executives called him the "Thorpedo" for his quiet but deadly accurate aim and efficiency. This spy adventure perfectly melds two unlikely co-stars. Joan Crawford, her last film for MGM, you might think it was something awful, the way Bette Davis complained about her final pictures for Warners. I guess I always thought that ABOVE SUSPICION was a B-movie comedown for Crawford and I'm shocked how good it looks. I don't know how they pried Fred McMurray away from Paramount, but whoever had the idea to borrow him for this role should have gotten a bonus. I suppose part of the inspiration was that MGM had very few of its male stars left, for in a burst of patriotism all of them had joined the war effort, so that stars like Crawford had to play against fellows from other studios (her previous film had paired her with John Wayne of all people). In any case, Fred McMurray, so good at comedy, so good at hard-edged noir parts, gets to play a bit of both here, though why on earth they decided to cast him as a professor at Oxford I'll never figure out. Wouldn't Harvard have been distinguished enough? How many American professors were at Oxford in the summer of 1939 anyhow?

Joan Crawford may be a bit too old to play a young bride (in what would today be the Reese Witherspoon role), but she is excellent in every way, kittenish, amused, sophisticated and yet all-American, she shows a kind of light-hearted sweetness you don't see her using often. If all of her films had had her in this light comic role, she wouldn't have been "Joan Crawford," but no one would have believed Christina's charges about the coat hanger, etc. She's totally enchanting in this part and I love the way she sings "Only A Bird In A Gilded Cage," as an example of an American folk song! When she gets nervous, she twists her ankle, and she does it often in this movie, a charming tic that nearly proves the death of her and yet saves her life of course in the film's final reels.

The way the two lovebirds look through the Liszt book and find three minute little holes on one page, and the deductions they draw from these holes, will leave you gasping with audacity, it's so ridiculous. Those three holes should stand in for the holes in the plot, but somehow Thorpe's speed and visual acumen carry the day.

For me, the big question is, what happened to Bruce Lester? In this film, Lester plays Thornley, the talented pianist who practices Liszt at the Kleist guest house the afternoon of the big concert at which he does something shocking (I won't give away the plot). He isn't a big guy, but he had a perfect gleam and shine to him as only the greatest stars do. I remember him playing Bingley in the classic PRIDE AND PREJUDICE with Greer Garson and Olivier; and he also has a fairly large part in THE LETTER. Here he plays a heroic, romantic part, the sort of thing Ronald Colman used to say was a far, far better thing than ever he had done before; and he does it better than Colman would have! He's amazingly good-looking, sort of puts McMurray and Rathbone in the shade. But what's the back story, why did he never become a bigger star?

ABOVE SUSPICION IS WAY ABOVE AVERAGE
This film has it all, suspense, comedy, drama, romance and Joan and Fred MacMurray sing a duet! This 1943 classic was the last film Joan made under her 18 year tenure at MGM. Mayer should have kept her on the payroll. This is a sensational movie. The pace is lively and Joan plays a very likeable and human character. She and Fred have a good chemistry together. This film will leave you feeling good.