everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I didn't think Claude Rains had ever been in a stinker before, but here he is in this thing. I blame the director. A poor story is told in the most muddled way possible. Wives show up before husbands and you never can match them up, dead people come back to life, the three female leads are all of the same build, dressed in similar gowns, whose role in the film is not clear at all (girlfriend? secretary? producer? rich niece?). Claude's character goes by two names, neither of which you'll associate with him until later in the picture. So scenes where a woman is coming on to a man can be a cheating wife, a lonely single woman, niece cozying up to Uncle, who knows? Hurd Hatfield is wasted and you'll be lucky to figure out who he's married too before it doesn't matter. The second lead is Ted North, whom I've never seen before. For the plot to work some of the characters have to be really stupid (which they appear to be). If the movie weren't so dull you could watch it twice and see if it all made sense. I'll pass.

Many reviewers here call this a "hidden gem," but to me it's hidden for a good reason. Yes, the lighting is interesting, sort of noir Victoriana - the backgrounds are busy but dramatic and distinctive. But the plot is slow and convoluted, and it lacks the crisp narrative style of "Laura," to which some compare it. Poor Claude Rains, who is good in anything, is paired with so many actors who tower over him that his small stature is rather jarringly accentuated in many scenes. Not a total washout, but not a masterpiece either.

This is certainly one of the most lushly photographed of all noirs. Hardly a set-up goes by without an eye-catching furbelow of one kind or another, thanks to cameraman Woody Bredell and Art Director Anton Grot. That's one main reason to catch up with this otherwise turgid 1947 release. Then too, except for the unfortunate Ted North, it's a stellar cast from the sleekly malevolent Rains to the coldly conniving Totter to the wittily sophisticated Bennett. However, I suspect that's one reason this richly endowed exercise failed to achieve classic status— just too many stars with too many lines that multiply subplots in a rather poorly thought-out storyline. There's simply not enough coherence and focus to generate the desired suspense of, say, a Rebecca (1940) or a Suspicion (1941), both of which the screenplay resembles. This results in a movie of bits and pieces, and a good chance to catch up with post-war high fashion. And catch that salvage yard from hell that turns up at the end, along with the behind-the-scenes glimpse of radio drama or what was then aptly called "the theater of the mind". Anyway, no movie with the commanding Claude Rains can afford to be passed up, here at his cultured and calculating best.

Deftly directed by Michael Curtiz and starring a slew of first-rate entertainers such as Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennet, Hurd Hatfield, Joan Caulfield, and the always overlooked Fred Clark, The Unsuspected seems to be in the shadow of other film noir films of the decade(at least by many of the review accounts on here)most notably Laura with Clifton Webb and Gene Tierney. Well, I love Laura and think it is a first-rate film - it is a different kind of film as well. The Unsuspected is generated by different goals and objectives by the lead "killer" if you will. Curtiz is always impressive creating suspense and keeps the pacing of the film very tight and tense. The actors do excellent jobs playing a variety of character types with Claude Rains stealing his scenes as only he can with that deceptively mellifluous voice. Fred Clark plays a detective that somewhat acts as the film's conscience in a way. Clark gives a very subtle yet strong performance. I have always felt he had been overlooked as an actor, because he was so good with comedic roles. At any rate, The Unsuspected is a great mystery thriller with a series of murders, attempted murders, a drugging, a fake identity, and a radio broadcast all figuring into the resolution prominently.