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Didn't the American Detective tell Herbert Greenleaf that Tom lied?

posted 9 years ago by drummsteven23
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The American detective that Herbert Greenleaf hired did a background check on Tom Ripley and discovered that he had lied about attending Princeton as a student. You would think that he would have shared this information with Mr. Greenleaf. Hence Mr. Greenleaf would know that he hired Tom under false pretenses, i.e. he hired him because he thought that he knew his son as a fellow student at Princeton, when in fact that was obviously not the case since Tom wasn't even a student there. You would think this would have raised a red flag for both the detective and Mr. Greenleaf, as if Tom lied about this and took a job from Mr. Greenleaf under false pretenses, then what else could Tom be lying about? You would think that this, coupled with Marge stating that she thought that Tom was behind Dickie's murder, would have caused them to at least strongly consider the possibility that Tom had
something to do with Dickie's death. But the detective just mentions that he knows that Tom was never a student at Princeton and moves on, never mentioning it again, and Mr. Greenleaf never mentions it to Tom. This struck me
as peculiar. Thoughts anyone?

[–] Quicksilver1900 9 years ago

Yes. It is probable that the detective told Herbert Greenleaf all of his findings, as he had been paid to do so. This is one of the big moments of suspense in the film, where it seemed as if Tom had been caught in all his lies. But I can think of three possibilities which led to Herbert Greenleaf's decision to accept Tom at face value.

1. Tom had been truthful in saying that he had been at Princeton when Dickie was there. HG may have reflected that Tom had never said he had been a student there. It was possible that Tom had known Dickie at Princeton.

2. HG would have learned from the detective that, having lived with Dickie in Mongibello, Tom was likely to know about Dickie's responsibility for Sylvana's pregnancy and suicide. This was in line with Dickie's shameful past, nearly killing a man while at Princeton. He may have wanted to buy Tom's silence, to avoid bringing his dead son and family into disgrace.

3. Tom seemed to be the kind of son HG had wished Dickie had been. He was respectful, hardworking and grateful. In bequeathing Dickie's trust fund to Tom after Dickie's death, it was as if HG had replaced Dickie with Tom as his son. (I found this aspect of the plot very weak, actually.)

"I am always happy to engage in POLITE discourse."

De gustibus non est disputandum.

[–] drummsteven23 9 years ago

Good points. Yeah, there was that point at the end when HG said "people say that you can't choose your parents. But you can't choose your children either". So maybe HG was in a sense choosing to replace Dickie with Tom as his son, which was part of his motivation behind leaving Dickie's trust fund to Tom.

[–] Yorke71 9 years ago

1. Tom had been truthful in saying that he had been at Princeton when Dickie was there. HG may have reflected that Tom had never said he had been a student there. It was possible that Tom had known Dickie at Princeton.

That was my interpretation, too. The detective says "Oh, I found a Thomas Ripley, who was a piano tuner at Princeton..." So, the fact that he was there at the same time means he could have known Dickey. HG may have just assumed that Tom was too embarrassed to admit that he wasn't actually a student, but only an employee.

Another big factor is the "suicide" note that Tom forges, where Dickey seems to say that Tom was his closest friend. Everything hinges on that. If HG believes it to be genuine, then he can overlook Tom's lie of omission.

[–] Noir-It-All 8 years ago

#3 makes sense to me. I wonder if Herb Sr. had once been in Tom's social class? Creating a successful shipping business or even inheriting one and managing it takes a character NOT like Dickie's. Tom may have appeared to Herb Sr. as having those qualities.