Wives Under Suspicion

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Wives Under Suspicion
Wives Under Suspicion poster3.jpg
Theatrical release poster by Karoly Grosz [1]
Directed by James Whale
Screenplay by Myles Connolly
Based onThe Kiss Before the Mirror
by Ladislas Fodor
Produced by Edmund Grainger
Starring Warren William
Gail Patrick
Cinematography George Robinson
Edited byCharles Maynard
Music by Frank Skinner
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date
  • June 3, 1938 (1938-06-03)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$205,000 [2]
Full film

Wives Under Suspicion is a 1938 Universal Pictures American crime film based on a 1932 Ladislas Fodor play that was previously adapted into the 1933 film The Kiss Before the Mirror . Wives Under Suspicion was directed by James Whale and stars Warren William, Gail Patrick, Ralph Morgan and Constance Moore.

Contents

Plot

District attorney Jim Stowell realizes that his wife might be having an affair while he is prosecuting a cuckolded murderer.

Cast

Production

Wives Under Suspicion is a remake of a film also directed by James Whale, The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933). Ralph Morgan, who plays Professor MacAllen, was the brother of Frank Morgan, who plays the prosecutor in The Kiss Before the Mirror.

In 1966, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication. [3]

Reception

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

The one about the ruthless District Attorney hoist by his own oratorical petard is repeated in terms of Warren William and Gail Patrick and nothing else that differs from previous versions in "Wives Under Suspicion" ... The parallel between the crime passional Warren is prosecuting with so much unnecessary vigor and the one he is very nearly led to commit himself through a sudden inflamed suspicion of Gail is just a little bit too pat in all departments. It checks too well; for example, Warren neglects neglects his wife and so did Ralph Morgan, the wife-slayer who, everybody but Warren agrees, deserves clemency; he gets his first suspicion from a conjugal kiss before a lighted mirror, the same as Ralph did, and so on. And it wasn't even convincing when Ralph did it. [4]

References

  1. ↑ Rebello, Stephen; Allen, Richard C. (1988). Reel Art: Great Posters from the Golden Age of the Silver Screen. New York: Abbeville Pres. p. 325. ISBN   0-89659-869-1.
  2. ↑ Dick, Bernard K. (2015). City of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures. University Press of Kentucky. p. 116. ISBN   9780813158891.
  3. ↑ Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN   0892-2160. JSTOR   25165419. OCLC   15122313. S2CID   191633078.
  4. ↑ Nugent, Frank S. (1938-07-01). "The Screen: 'Lord Jeff,' with Freddie Bartholomew, Opens at the Capitol—'Wives Under Suspicion' at Rialto". The New York Times . p. 22.


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