Before the Release: an early published alternate ending to Suspicion

In "But is not this a Scotch marriage?" an alternate ending of The 39 Steps was described, one that had made its way into a short story adaptation for a magazine. Here's another example of that occurring.

A number of Hitchcock books and websites describe an ending of Suspicion which was to have Johnnie (Cary Grant) leave Lina (Joan Fontaine) to better himself, joining the Royal Air Force. The ending can be read in full on the linked website; just a couple excerpts are given here.

INSERT CLOSEUP A NOTE - in Johnnie's handwriting, it reads:

"Lina -- Please tell Melbeck I'll pay him back his money. It may take some time. As for you -- I owe you a greater debt. I'll try to find some way to pay that debt, and if I do, we'll see each other again. Johnnie."

[...]

EXT. AIRFIELD - EVENING

LONG SHOT. Through the glasses she can see Johnnie climbing into a machine. As he closes the glass top with a wave on her direction, she pans her glasses slightly along the plane, until we see painted on the side of the machine - "Monkey-face". The engine roars louder as his plane starts to taxi off, still held in the circle of the field glasses. The plane gets smaller and smaller. The whole scene blurs as though an irregular film were coming over it.

CLOSEUP - Lina lowers the glasses. We see that her eyes are filled with tears, but her face bears a look of tremendous pride.

"The Original Scripted Ending." Writing with Hitchcock.

The above earlier scripted ending (dated January 1940) also showed up in a fictionization. Some kind of relationship apparently existed between the studios and the various magazines that published these short stories that allowed for writers to have access to early versions of film scripts. Parts of the short story are actually verbatim from the script.

Readers of the magazine might have been surprised to find the movie end differently than what they'd read months earlier! (Granted, the movie also diverged from the source novel.) One wonders why the magazine's writer used the earlier script; the RAF ending had been dumped well prior to the publication date on the magazine.

        "You thought of me as your murderer," he repeatedly dully, and suddenly he got up and walked to the door.

        "Don't, don't!" Lina subbed. "Oh, please darling, don't!"

        But Johnnie's only answer was the key turning in the door of his dressing-room.

        In the morning, Ethel brought his note on Lina's breakfast tray. Her heart went cold. Johnnie had left her!

        Darling, there it was scrawled in his bold handwriting. "I'm going to pay back the money I stole. It may take me a long time. But I owe you a greater debt. I'll try to find some way to pay back that debt and if I do, we'll see each other again. Johnnie."

THERE wasn't any trace of him. He might as well have dropped from the face of the earth itself. But Lina never gave up searching, never gave up hoping.

        The world had changed, England had changed, since he had been gone. Counties fell one by one, first the little countries, then the big ones, and now England was standing alone with her back to the wall.

        Then one day Lina picked up an illustrated weekly, the same weekly that had printed so many pictures of the gay, laughing Johnnie of other days. And this time she found his picture, just as she had hoped she would someday. Only it was a different Johnnie she stared down at, a serious, purposeful Johnnie, standing in that group of R.A.F. fliers. But she knew it was Johnnie, even though the name printed in the caption identified him as James Allen.

        Oh, Lina was so proud, reading of his bravery, his unflinching gallantry. And then, almost without realizing what she was doing, she was getting into her coat, putting on her hat, running, running, laughing a little and crying a little, too, as she hailed a taxi.

        It wasn't like the other times seeing Johnnie. All the excitement was gone, only that deep, quiet happiness was left, only his voice saying her name and hers saying his.

"James Allen is the name now," Johnnie said, and though he didn't kiss her, though he only stood there with his arms around her, it was enough. "I like him better. He may seem like a stuffed shirt but I'm getting very fond of him. He was planning to drop in on you—next Tuesday. My leave starts then."

        Then she heard the tramping of feet in the corridor outside of the office and voices calling his name. On the field below, planes were warming up and engines roared as the first bombers zoomed toward the sky. Johnnie was going, too! They had such a little time together. But she was glad he was going, too.

        "Where are you going?" she asked quietly.

        "Well, darling," for a moment a little of the old gayety came back in Johnnie's voice. "Promise you won't tell anybody. It's Berlin. And I'll see you Tuesday."

        There was only time for that quick kiss and he was gone, and as Lina stood at the window, she saw him running to his plane, looking up once and waving to her as he climbed into it. There were a pair of field glasses on the desk and she picked them up, focussing them on the plan, and then she saw the name that had been painted on it, and somehow it meant even more than Johnnie’s kiss had meant.

        “Monkeyface,” she read and then suddenly the glasses were misted with her tears and she couldn’t see, so only the sound of the racing engines told her Johnnie’s plane was flying toward the sky.

"Before the Fact." Movie Story Magazine 16(86). June 1941. 89.