Suspects

by David Thomson

Interlocking "biographies" of legendary film characters--Jake Gittes and Noah Cross from "Chinatown," Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis from "Sunset Boulevard," and Rick and Ilsa from "Casablanca"--make up a tale of obsession and suspense.

Genres: Film, Fiction, Mystery, Novels, Media Tie In, Crime

274 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 1985

About the author

David Thomson, renowned as one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. Thomson is also the author of the acclaimed "Have You Seen . . . ?": A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London in 1941, he now lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Ian Laird · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have long been a fan of David Thomson’s highly individual and often idiosyncratic film reviews. His The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Expanded and Updated is held in high regard.

But this book is disastrous: so much effort, knowledge, imagination and ingenuity is expended for very little purpose. His idea might have looked good on the drawing board, such a clever concept he thinks: take characters from the film noir universe, fill out their back stories and complete their lives beyond the events depicted in their films. Introduce a mysterious narrator, who turns out not to be too mysterious, although it did take me until page 60 to work out who it was. Then, to complete the picture surround the narrator with connections with many of the characters we meet along the way.

All this simply does not work. The mystery is far-fetched to say the least, requiring co-incidences and several name changes to work, which it doesn’t anyway.

The imagined bios are meticulously prepared, full of convincing detail. It might have worked if it remained just as an exercise in backgrounding so many striking characters from rich source material. Film noir has a strong tradition of fatalism, along with murder, mayhem, betrayal and dangerous liaisons. All conveyed visually with atmosphere, music and more dark than light. But Thomson puts his film noir capsules into words, which is not quite as effective, and adds a layer of salaciousness which leaves a bad taste, like Roald Dahl at his worst.

For my own sins I have enjoyed 47 out of the 58 films Thomson draws upon, so it was interesting to learn the imagined fate of many familiar characters. It made it easier to follow the manufactured mystery, but most of the bios have nothing to do with the puzzle.

The last straw is when Thomson traduces one of the finest people in fictional cinema and the man’s wife, a paragon, who is shown in a perpetually bad light. So I extend a warning to my good friend Emmkay, to never open this book.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost all of David Thomson's writing is conceptual in one way or another, mixing suspected fact with outright fiction - his "Biographical Dictionary of Film" critiques the lives of motion picture performers as if their very existence was an artistic performance, and each of their film was a subplot along the way; "The Whole Equation" spins a history of Hollywood using, for primary sources, Fitzgerald's book "The Last Tycoon" and Robert Towne's script for Chinatown (both, Thomson argues, unfinished works - Fitzgerald died before he could complete his final novel, and Towne was never given the ability to write the many sequels he had planned for Jake Gittes and Los Angeles); his latest book, "Nicole Kidman," adopts the tone of an extended "Biographical Dictionary" entry, but focuses on one person and takes the first-person tone of a demented, helpless gothic romance.

"Suspects" is an early work by Thomson - his most experimental, his most brave (not because no one ever thought of it, but because no one would ever think it was a good idea), and his silliest. In several dozen biographical entries, he traces out the life stories of characters from movies - mostly noir films, mostly from the 40s and 50s, although Jack Torrance from "The Shining" and even one Jay Landesman Gatsby make an appearance, too. It is hard to know exactly how to read this book - it may be the most metaphysical film criticism ever created, or perhaps an elaborate work of fan fiction. Several entries add new, unexpected layers to old stories - Ilsa wasn't really in love with good old Victor Laszlo, she was just pretending to be his wife for the Resistance. Many entries end up overlapping. At first, this overlap can seem silly. By the end, when it becomes clear just who the narrator is and who his children have grown up to be, it is mesmerizing.

Mesmerizing is a good word for this book; I'm not sure you can call it "great," though. I noticed a definite lag of interest whenever I reached an entry based on a film I had not seen - and, indeed, I ended up skipping many of these entries, for fear of ruining the plot of a good movie.

There is great repetition - nearly every character is born with one name and changes to another one; too many of them find their way to Hollywood; incest recurs so often as to bemuse more than horrify (which may be Thomson's point.) Thomson is erudite without fail, and the book is fantastically easy to read, but its parts are much great than its whole.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Thomson, and there's a lot of fun, interesting, insightful stuff here. Who doesn't watch movies and give the characters backstory, wondering what their lives before and after we meet them on film? A lot of the ones he gives these characters are vivid and complex, showing that he's really picked up on the nuances of certain moments, gestures, lines, etc. He's a master critic for a reason.

But two problems- one, if you haven't seen the movies he's taking inspiration from then his reveries about them aren't all that meaningful. You kind of just nod along, skipping here and there since the references don't really have much meaning if you don't know what to do with them. Fan fiction- which is pretty much what this book is- is fine, but it works best for actual fans.

Two- and this is a bigger problem- the focus on grubby sex that these characters tend to have, or want to have, or inflict on one another, gets tedious and unnecessary and rather disturbing. Is it an indictment of sleazy Hollywood mores? Par for the course for the kinds of movies he's building off of (Chinatown's Noah Cross as an amoral Svengali/ubermench is a neat idea, since he radiates slime and entitlement in the film, and many more)? A way of demystifying tinsel town mythology? A neurotic shut-in's obsession with tabloids he's making with his imagination? (This goes for the main character in the book, a big reveal that doesn't really seem to cohere with the rest of the story and falls flat dramatically- I can only hope it doesn't apply to the author himself).

Whichever way it is, I'm not buying it. Too...suspicious.

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somehow, simultaneously, both grimdark and very very silly. Definitely in opposition to my view of the world (aside from my view of Rick and Louis from Casablanca, which maaaaaaaaay have been why I read this, embarrassingly) and even to my view of film noir. Far too long. Unequivocally bad fanfic that doesn't know it's bad fanfic, but instead thinks it's something Startling! and New! and Innovative!!!

And yet I can't quite bring myself to hate it, because Thomson's just so excited by and committed to his stupid project. If this were on AO3, I would leave courtesy-kudos.

Instead, as this is GoodReads: two stars.

[Jarvo · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Thomson is the author of a dictionary of film which is one of the most important and influential works of film criticism. Someone asked him if he was going to write a dictionary of film characters, he was intrigued by the idea and this book is the result. I am not aware of anything else quite like it. The book contains fictional biographies of 100 or so characters whose origin was in one or other film. Incident from the within is nearly always discussed, but the book gives the characters a back story, and in some cases a future as well. They also stray beyond the bounds of their allotted film, and mix and mingle.
It is a very hard book to evaluate in the sense that Thomson is a stronger as a writer of criticism than of fiction, and I am not sure how much you'd get out of the book if you haven't seen the films. However two things, in particular, do stand out. Most of the characters in the book are American, and most of the entries are meditations on failure, defeat, false dreams and broken promises. This is the dark side of the American dream. The presiding spirit of the book is probably Noah Cross from Chinatown, who is probably the only person in the book who cannot be described as a failure. If you have seen Chinatown you will know that suggests something quite bleak, and if you haven't seen Chinatown than there is not much hope for you. The sort of characters in this book n longer regularly make their way onto the Hollywood, and this re-enforces how much has been lost in the age of the blockbuster. Secondly the book suggests a truly fertile way of braking out of writers' block: if you are ever stuck just lift one of the characters here, lift them, and start writing. The people here demand attention, and they are testament to the wealth of Amercian cinema of the twentieth century, which was probably the most significant cultural force of its time.

(One of the most amusing subtexts of the book is the way that the central characters of the new Hollywood cinema of the late sixties/early seventies are often the offspring of the figures from the golden age of film noir. It fits like a glove, and its about time for the grand children, and I don't mean the over educated people with first world problems who dominate so called independent cinema.)

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don't have to be a big film fan (particularly noir) to enjoy "Suspects," but it certainly helps. It's, in itself, a noir "novel" consisting of 85 short, biographies of characters from classic films. These bios, which treat the fictional characters as real people, often pick up before the events of the films in question and tell the fates of the characters after the movies end. Turns out a lot of them are related either by blood or history. One example: Julian Kay, the gigolo in "American Gigolo," is actually the son of Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis and was raised by Max von Mayerling (all characters from "Sunset Boulevard"). The bios are related by a narrator whose own tragic story is intertwined with some of the characters'. This narrator's identity becomes obvious early on (you'll never watch a certain holiday classic the same way again), but his tale takes unexpected twists. The book is also a meditation on the relationship between life and film and on the joys and pitfalls of film fandom. These aspects are less enjoyable (and at times overwritten and overwrought) than the bios but in no way diminish the book's power. Indeed, for some, they may add to it. Myself, I love the individual bios, which are almost uniformly brutal and tragic: murder, incest, rape, suicide. In the end our narrator turns out not to be completely reliable, and, indeed, may be completely mad, but it sure is fun playing this grisly game of connect-the-dots with him. I haven't seen all the films mentioned in the book (or saw them so long ago they've faded from memory), but Googling the plots and characters helped me keep up. Also, David Thomson, the author (he also wrote another favorite, "A Biographical Dictionary of Film"), drops a bunch of Easter eggs throughout. I found a few, but I'm sure I missed a hundred more. Again, this will not impede your enjoyment of the book. I read this when it first came out in 1985, and while I liked it then, I came to LOVE it during this reading, even with its minor flaws. A forgotten masterpiece of film writing.

[James Bowman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't go into this demanding much - just a series of intriguing fictional biographies that interconnected with each other over the course of the novel. And to be fair, most of the biographies are well-written, and many are interesting. A few are even touching. But there are two major flaws that kept me from really enjoying this book:

1) To really appreciate this as a whole, you need to be familiar with all of the characters' source films. This is especially noticeable with some of the less famous films.

2) A significant number of the characters have unpleasant histories, with elements that only seemed to be added for shock value. This reaches its offensive peak with the last few bios, including that of the narrator.

If those two issues aren't likely to be a problem for you, then you might get something out of this. Otherwise, I'd probably pass.

[Mira · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you like the idea of turning Laura Hunt- a character specifically, explicitly written to be a feminist figure of a hardworking woman- into a "slut" who gives blowjobs to get ahead and seduces married men for kicks, this is the book for you. Mean-spirited, misogynistic trash. Any given Kim Newman book will give you this premise but better.

[Linton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A frustrating book. I love the concept of combining various noir characters into a single world, but while Thomson has fun mixing and matching different personalities, he cheats far too often.

For one thing, Bedford Falls is in New York, not Nebraska. And George Bailey's kids aren't who he says they are. There was no Travis or Sally. And for that matter, where is Zuzu? Wouldn't it be worth knowing what happened her? According to the book, Bailey didn't even have kids until after the events of It's a Wonderful Life. Also, I don't think someone like Bailey would be as explicit with sexual details as the narrator is here. Consider the time and place he was raised, and the overall demeanor of Jimmy Stewart, and it all points to a more "aww shucks" view of sexuality than a blunt and honest one. It seemed unrealistic for him to have this tone and it constantly took me out of the book.

I'm also confused as to how Bailey knows all these details about these characters. He functions basically as an omniscient narrator even though he can't be.

Maybe I'm being too nitpicky, but it seems to me that if you're going to do this you have to play fair with what came before, especially since you are standing on the shoulders of cinematic greats. The Bailey stuff doesn't line up and I'm sure other parts don't as well, I'm just not as familiar with them.

Also, having Rick Blaine be gay comes across as cheap shock and completely undermines the story told in Casablanca.

[Rachel Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The basic conceit of this book is that it’s narrated by George Bailey, hero of It’s A Wonderful Life and his wife, Mary Bailey, is actually the sister of Laura Hunt (from the 1959 film Laura). This connects a film noir with an anti-film noir. George tells the story of the characters of noir over 40 years, from The Maltese Falcon (1941) to American Gigolo (1980), imagining Julian Kirby as the illegitimate son of Norma Desmond and Joe Gillis, as well as claiming that Noah Cross (the incestuous rapist father of Evelyn in Chinatown) had an affair with Miss Sunset Boulevard, and that Rick from Casablanca crossed paths with Wilson Keyes, the investigator in Double Indemnity, that Norman Bates's mother owned the Overlook hotel, where Jack Nicholson went mad in The Shining.

I mean, it works and it’s quite fun to see what Thompson has imagined of the past and for the future of familiar characters. You will certainly learn a lot about noir, but you really need a basic understanding of post war films otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time on Wikipedia. Additionally, the misogyny is quite unpleasant.

[Bruce Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great books on film--no, movies, and the pall they can cast over the willing and obsessive. Several dozen biographies of movie characters, interwoven to delineate a conspiracy as dark and haunted as in any noir. By the end, a strange and sad tribute to that urge to leap into the screen and wander for ourselves the back alleys of Casablanca, the halls of the Overlook, or the scenic highlights of San Francisco (always just out of Madeleine's sight).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 out of 5 for the concept and 4 out of 5 for the execution gives it a 5 out of 5.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that this was the least successful of the five books about cinema by David Thomson that I have read. Probably because he mixed fiction with fact in his eighty five very short potted histories of some of the most iconic characters of the silver screen. It certainly helps if you are familiar with the old movies in which they appear. There were many I didn't know.

There are links between some of the characters, especially as they sometimes appear in the same movie. Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson in Chinatown) is followed by Noah Cross (John Huston) where the author introduces William Mullholland who gave his name to that famous Drive. Most of the back stories are pretty boring except, for instance, that for Joe Gillis (William Holden in Sunset Boulevard) where he needed some history given his demise in the movie. His co star Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond gives the author the excuse to talk about old Hollywood stars who started in silent films and then struggled with the coming of the talkies. How Norma comes to meet Noah Cross who cast her in his movie and bought her the mansion on that iconic road, is pure fantasy and does the book no favours.

Three characters from Double Indemnity include a back story for Harry Lime. But a lot better was that for Kay Corleone played by Diane Keaton in The Godfather, except where there is the most stupid and diabolical conceit. Then a nice imagining of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson in The Shining) and that for LB Jeffries (James Stewart in Rear Window). Similarly Walker in Point Blank (Lee Marvin) and, of course, a longer piece for Richard (Rick) Blaine played by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins in Psycho) gets a long back story and later there are four characters from Citizen Kane. But by then I was a bit fed up with it all.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book, but I suspect one that is likely to be a polarising "love it or hate it" read. Well-written, too, though at times it feels very much like what it is deep down - a tangled epic of fan-fiction. And, like most fan-fiction, you really need to have some knowledge of the characters before you dive in. Thomson has cleverly created a Wold-Newton-like world where the characters in classic films noirs ae related, know each other, or at the very least are influenced by each other's actions. Written in encyclopedic potted biographies of the characters, the same names repeat and intertwine to create the author's lattice. I found myself turning back to re-read earlier sections in the light of later details (dammit an index or at least table of contents would have been very useful!) And beyond this there is an overarching story. The narrator is on his own search for his own reasons - bleak, black reasons. Readable and clever, if at times a little too clever for its own good, and a treat for lovers of classic crime and thriller movies of the 1940s through to the 1980s.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual and clever book. Some probably think too clever and contrived. Thomson creates back stories for movie characters, focusing on film noir and crime movies of the 30s through 50s, but also more modern films like Chinatown. Many of the characters are connected by family or fate in Thomson’s world; Travis Bickle is George Bailey’s son (look it up). He has written the book as a series of short character sketches which focus on the dark side of middle America, where most of his “characters” have their roots. As one of these characters says, we’re all suspects. You may be tempted to jump around—ooh, there’s Norma Desmond—but read it straight through. There is a plot here.

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this a novel? Does it count as biography, even though the subjects are not real people? So many secondary (and a few primary) characters from film noir are given back stories and and have their stories told forward. It's hard to classify but it is enjoyable reading. It kind of settles in around It's a Wonderful Life although it is not a sequel nor prequel to that film. Read this many years ago and though I still do not fully understand its purpose I was drawn back to finding a copy and reading it again this year. Maybe it doesn't need to be analyzed - just enjoyed for what it is - again.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a series of stunningly-written essays, David Thomson constructs a fascinating universe where some of the most famous characters in all of cinema history interacted and impacted the lives of each other in myriad fashion. With the procession of each story, a compelling mystery carefully unfolds, bringing the occasionally overlapping collection into focus in the final pages. Suspects is a genuine literary treat for lovers of classic film.

[Jacqui Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very odd book and not what I expected. It’s lots of short stories giving backstory and imagined futures to classic characters from noir films. I think of myself as a film buff, but I didn’t know all the films. As the plots were detailed in the stories, I feel it would spoil the films for people and they are much better than this book. Some linking between films was good, but others made loved characters into unpleasant ones. Not for me

[Christine Sinclair · Rating 1 out of 5]

David Thomson applies his broad knowledge of film to this collection, the fictional backstories of many of our favorite movie characters. I found some of the chapters to be dull, unless I had seen the movie, and even then, the stories just didn't grab me. I skipped ahead to George Bailey at the end and was disappointed by his story as well. Nice idea, but poorly executed.

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noirish and atmospheric, at times poignant and even stunning, but ultimately convoluted and narratively confusing. This book seems like it'd reward rereads, but I'm not sure I can be fucked to go through it again. Especially not being intimately familiar with the dozens of films it references.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t love how he portrayed the narrator but the way the gaps were filled in for these characters are quite interesting. That’s probably the best thing I can write about it, interesting fan-fiction written before that genre took over the world.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like noir, this is definitely a book you should check out

[Rob Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Complex and ambitious. There's something about his appropriation of these characters and stories that drains away their fun a bit, but somehow this is still a very engrossing journey.

[John Bleasdale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Vernicious Knid · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books written about the imaginative possibilities and perils of American cinema.

[Dan Seitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Fanfic at its worst.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've seen every noir movie ever, you will love this book.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up (finally) on the advice of Gary Mairs, and it was quite worth it. It's an interesting critical meditation on film noir under the guise of a rather clever bit of metatextual fiction. Recommended.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seemed like a sure thing for a cinephile, but I struggled to get through this book at times. I've seen just about all of the films included, and found myself alternately enthralled and perturbed. I recommend Steve Erickson's Zeroville as a much more successful and entertaining book for film nerds.

[Paul Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love film noir, or for that matter 20th century American history, you'll love this. Brilliantly, clinically, written. Probably the best illustration I've seen of how film and it's characters and plots entered our psyches, and how 'truth' and 'fiction' have become intertwined in our heads.