A Not-bad Knockoff of "Laura" with Claude Rains: "The Unsuspected" (1947)

"The Unsuspected" (1947) seems a little low on action for a Michael Curtiz movie, even if Curtiz did direct Claude Rains in his most famous role in "Casablanca." (There are two car chases in "The Unsuspected," the first of which is unconvincing, the second of which has some interesting twists.)

Based on a pulpy thriller of justifiable female paranoia by Charlotte Armstrong, it involves seeming amnesia, insidious planning, costly country lifestyles, and mistaken loyalties. The proceedings seem heavily influenced by Otto Preminger's "Laura," with Claude Rains as a more avuncular variation on Clifton Webb in that classic upper-crust mystery movie, and Ted North bringing even less charisma to the saving of a damsel unaware of the danger she is in than Dana Andrews brought to "Laura."Rains plays a toney radio teller of true crime stories. At the start, this urbane bachelor's heiress niece (played by Joan Caulfield, who received top-billing in the cast) has disappeared in a ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean. When she turns up, she does not remember the fiancé (North) who goes to meet her. She does remember her resentful cousin (Audrey Totter [The Setup, Tension] who stole her boyfriend (the dypsomaniac Hurd Hatfield [The Portrait of Dorian Gray], not a great catch...) and there is much posturing and undercutting between the old enemies. Corpses pile up, but the Motion Picture Production Code required that the malefactor be punished, and the murderer is duly trapped and confesses.

The deep-focus cinematography of "Woody" Bredell (who lensed the 1946 version of Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" directed by Robert Siodmak) is notable, almost noirish (though mostly in a suburban setting). Rains, Totter, and Constance Bennett (as his sarcastic assistant) are entertaining. Caulfield is adequate as the overly trusting beauty who (like Laura) does not recognize the danger she is in, even (like Laura) having disappeared and been presumed dead once.

Although it takes great efforts of suspending disbelief to accept the convoluted plot, and the motive for the murder in the opening scene remains largely opaque, the rewards for going with the flow include enjoying the suave Claude Rains in top form, the mostly forgotten Audrey Totter and Constance Bennett both making the most of stock characters (calculating vixen and wisecracking gal-pal), the look of 1940s opulence, even if it is in the shade of multiplying murders, and a memorable garbage dump scene.