Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

aka The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry). In the former, the central male protagonist,
middle-aged Philip Marshall (Charles Laughton) kills his wife when she discovers that he
is involved (though not physically) with young Mary Gray (Ella Raines). The viewer’s
sympathy is grounded in the fact that Philip is a good-natured and hopelessly hen-pecked
shopkeeper, seething with repressed desires. Similarly to The Spiral Staircase, to be
discussed next, The Suspect also deals with Victorian sexual maladjustment and murder
but from the point-of-view of the killer rather than the victim. The latter Uncle Harry
introduces bachelor Harry Quincy (George Sanders) who lives a dull life with his
domineering sisters, hypochondriac Lettie (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and querulous widow
Hester (Moyna MacGill). His developing relationship with Deborah Brown (Ella Raines)
will lead the repressed Harry to an elaborate murder scheme. The portrayal of obsessive
love between brother and sister (with its consequent suggestion of incest) is developed in
the same direct way as such other films as Phantom Lady or The Dark Mirror.
Both films therefore present archetypal downtrodden male characters, gripped by
hidden sexual desires which reveal and discharge their dark, murderous selves, and finally
both pictures reveal Siodmak’s sustained concern with duality, masochism, and vicious
relationships. In The Suspect’s finale, Philip, freed from the work-a-day world, tries to
resume being, as he calls it, “a pillar of respectability”, but finds himself alone on a
darkened street. Charles Laughton’s character and the mental turmoil he experiences after
his criminal act resemble the protagonists of Siodmak’s major noir films, like The File on
Thelma Jordon (1950).
Lettie from Uncle Harry, in turn, is convicted of her sister’s murder but does not
incriminate Harry because she knows that her death will prevent him from marrying
Deborah. Harry wakes up and discovers that the entire situation has been a dream. His
recourse to an elaborate murder scheme as opposed to a direct, adult confrontation with his
sisters reinforces the idea that his reverie is a manifestation of profound guilt over his
sexual attraction to his sister. Just like Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) in The
Woman in the Window, Harry awakens from an intolerable dream situation with relief but
finds himself no less oppressed by reality than he was before. The disguised dream plot
was one of Hollywood’s ways of approaching salacious forbidden desires, while allowing
themselves the easy get-out of disavowal.
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