Guilty Pleasures: Susan Slade

1961 Drama

From Warner Bros

Directed by Delmer Daves

Starring

Troy Donahue

Connie Stevens

Dorothy McGuire

Lloyd Nolan

Brian Aherne

Grant Williams

Natalie Schaefer

Bert Convy

Kent Smith

After a decade of nine successful westerns and working with such big names as Glenn Ford, James Stewart, Gary Cooper and Richard Widmark, director Delmer Daves turned to young love and Troy Donahue.  Their first collaboration was the most financially successful movie either of them ever made, A Summer Place. 

The film, which dealt with young love and adulterous parents did, in fact, make stars out of Donahue and Sandra Dee and they were more than aided by the film's two leads, Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire, but also Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford.  It was also lushly filmed by esteemed cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. and romantically scored by Max Steiner whose Theme from A Summer Place (1959) became a hit record and still evokes lovely memories when heard today.

So now what did the brothers Warner do?  Oh you know.  Let's do it again.  They rounded up Daves, Donahue, Stradling and Steiner and put the story in the Connecticut tobacco fields and called it Parrish (1961).  They populated it with three Golden Age stalwarts, Claudette Colbert, Karl Malden and Dean Jagger.  As the title star, Donahue gets to romance three ingenues... Connie Stevens, Diane McBain and Sharon Hugueny.   (Dee, by the way, said no thanks and wasn't under contract to WB so they couldn't force her to do it, which they would have).

And what happened?  Bang.  Another huge hit... oldsters and youngsters came to see what all the fuss was about.  They were treated to Stradling's gorgeous photography and another delicious score.  Each of the three young actresses had her own theme which played each time they appeared on screen.

The public, which included fan clubs for Donahue and Stevens, was clamoring for another movie starring the pair.  They had also appeared together in a popular television series, Hawaiian Eye, but a big screen movie was what was wanted.  Enter Susan Slade.  It was based on a novel by Doris Hume published earlier in the year called The Sin of Susan Slade.  The studio changed the title because they didn't want any confusion with a film they'd released earlier in the year, The Sins of Rachel Cade, which bombed.

At the center of the story is a young woman who has an illegitimate child and the reactions, behaviors and fears of her parents, especially her mother, as to what people would say.  People say it was dated by the time it was released.  I say it wasn't.  Young women were still shunned for such things if the truth got out.  Some of us wanted to be modern, be the first to yell out BFD but still high schoolers, we chose to just gossip about it around campus.

Today, of course, I imagine a husband coming home from work and after greeting his wife, she says Hi Honey.  Don't take off your shoes.  Could you go get some hamburger buns?  By the way, Laura down the street had a baby yesterday.

I didn't know she was married, he says without really caring.

She's not.  Could you get some ice cream too?

Sure I snicker when I watch it today (the DVD does line my bookshelves) but it's not as much about datedness or the subject matter as it is the acting of the two leads and some corny lines.  Donahue, holding onto Stevens while they alternately argue and hug, says... so help me God he says it... Never ask me to stop loving you.  I can't.  I put my hand over my eyes... and I was watching it alone.

Lloyd Nolan & Dorothy McGuire

Ok, let's get to it.  Susan (Stevens) has been in Chile for 10 years while her father (Nolan) runs a mining operation.  But now he's retiring.  Mom (McGuire) is excited to get back to the Monterey Peninsula (don't you just love to watch the rich suffer up there on the silver screen?) and be among her society friends.  

On the voyage home, Susan meets Con (Williams), whose 10 years or so older, from a wealthy family and whose occupation is mountain climbing.  Mt. McKinley is in his immediate future.  He falls for Susan right away.  We're led to believe it's not just a shipboard romance but Susan's innocent and completely ungroomed in such matters.  He reassures her he's a good guy, well-intentioned and a few days later she loves him, too.

There is a scene of them dancing and smooching while Theme from A Summer Place is playing.

Grant Williams & Connie Stevens

After the ship docks they go their separate ways.  Although they plan to marry neither one knows they will never see the other one again.  The Slades' best friends, the Corbetts, (Aherne, Schaefer & Convy) welcome them back and into a surprise home they have secretly had built for them overlooking the sea.  (Imagine the home McGuire and Egan have in A Summer Place, only better.)

Nolan buys his daughter a horse and it is kept at a local stable run by Donahue who plans to be a novelist.  His father, who worked for the wealthy Aherne, killed himself after he stole from the company and was imprisoned.  More corn here Donahue looks through either a gate or the prison bars and sees a shadow of his father hanging.  I'm not blaming Donahue here but Daves and the screenwriter might be questioned.  Donahue has been sulking (a specialty of the actor's) because he says the town has turned against him because of his father.

There are some beautifully filmed scenes on the peninsula of Stevens and Donahue riding with the help of Stradling's perceptive cameras and Steiner's lovely score.  I must add that as much as I like the score,  it doesn't hold a candle to the other three films of Donahue and Daves.  

Stevens and Troy Donahue

One night while the Slades are throwing a swanky party, Susan takes a call from Con's San Francisco-based father.  He tells her that Con has been killed on the mountain.  She becomes hysterical.  She jumps on her horse and rides it into the ocean, jumps off and hopes to drown.  She is saved by Donahue.

She had been depressed all along since returning from Chile because she had never heard from Con (because he's on the mountain, apparently).  He did call once but she missed it.  But her depression deepened when, just days before the father's call, Susan found out she was pregnant.

McGuire makes most of the decisions for the family but it is Nolan who decides to take a two-year assignment in Guatemala.  Stevens will have the baby there and when they all return to Monterey, McGuire will tell everyone it's her child.  It doesn't set well with Stevens but she's been led to believe it's definitely for the best.  What will people say?  What might they do?  

Soon after returning, Nolan has a heart attack and dies.  He's been keeping the news of a weak heart from his family.  Stevens and McGuire continue debating over the decision that's been made on the child.

Both Donahue and Convy want to marry Stevens.  She doesn't love Convy but he would provide her with many advantages and it is her mother's choice.  Stevens is starting to fall for Donahue but neither man knows her truth and she is afraid that both would opt out of marrying her if they did know it.

As we near the finale Stevens and Donahue are chatting in her living room.  He's again proposing marriage.  Suddenly they heard the baby screaming.  They rush to him and find that he has set himself on fire by playing with a cigarette lighter that fascinates him.  We may all know a doll was used but it's embarrassing that it's perfectly obvious.  How could the makers be so careless?

The child is rushed to the hospital.  Stevens and Donahue are joined by McGuire, Aherne, Schaefer and Convy who have been at a party.  It is my favorite scene.  The doctor (Smith) comes into the waiting room and announces that while the baby has suffered burns, it's not as bad as it could have been and his face is unharmed.  He commends the fast action of Stevens and Donahue, saying just a few minutes more and the results would have been much worse.

And then it happens.  We knew it would.  You did, too.  The doctor  announces McGuire can visit the child for a few minutes.  Stevens asks if she can go, too, and is told, sorry, no, just the mother. The camera hugs the face of McGuire and I am reminded how much I love this actress.  She is the only true reason I watch this film.

She and Stevens stare at one another in silence.  No one else seems to see it coming. You have to let me go in, Stevens cries.  Now Mother, you understand.  They have to let me go in.  Mother, he was almost taken away from me and I cannot deny him anymore.

McGuire, Donahue, Smith, Stevens, Aherne, Convy, Schaefer

Eyes widen all around.  Convy obviously has changed his mind about marriage, pig that he is.  His parents are understanding and Aherne tells Susan she is courageous.  McGuire also expresses her complete understanding and tells Susan that anything she wants to do in the future is alright with her.

Stevens is surprised to see that Donahue is still standing by.  He tells her he stands by her no matter what.

Susan Slade has some serious soap opera features.  Critics seemed to agree that is was corny and cliché-ridden.  I don't disagree which is why I called it a guilty pleasure.  But a pleasure it also was and still is.  I wasn't as whipped on Donahue as some others I knew but I didn't miss his movies because I thought they were a pleasure.  Except for The Greatest Story Ever Told, I am pretty sure I saw every movie Dorothy McGuire ever made.

Donahue, though top-billed, is not the star of the film.  Sometimes watching him act was painful.  He delivered lines in a monotone and  seemed more like he was discussing a chemistry project with his high school classmates.  He did have those blond good looks and was often decked out in a red windbreaker, red shirt or red pullover sweater.

Stevens never developed into much of an actress but working with Donahue it wasn't so noticeable.  McGuire gives a speech to Stevens about young love that is reminiscent of the speech she gave to Richard Egan in A Summer Place about Donahue and Dee. 

Nolan and Aherne were both such reliable actors.  Always a pleasure to see them.  Williams, also a regular on Hawaiian Eye, was handsome and sexy.  He and Convy should have traded roles.  He was at his career peak in 1957 with the title role of The Incredible Shrinking Man.  Convy, in his film debut, is okay.  Stevens, by the way, is the only one of the main cast alive today.

Daves took a hit not so much for his direction but for his adapting the cornball screenplay.  Harry Stradling bowed out of handling the Technicolor cameras but Lucien Ballard stepped in and did a fine job.  

It was old home week for McGuire.  Of course she played Donahue's mother in A Summer Place and worked with Nolan in 1945's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  McGuire also worked with Kent Smith 1946's The Spiral Staircase and 1959's This Earth Is Mine.

Location work was at Monterey and Pebble Beach, California with interiors done at the studio.

As soon as Susan Slade wrapped, Donahue, Daves and Max Steiner headed for Italy and Rome Adventure (1962).  It was a success with the public, and was more in line in that regard with Parrish.  Suzanne Pleshette is the love interest and Constance Ford (so good in A Summer Place) is a delightful bookstore owner.  I thought Steiner's musical score was sensational as was Charles Lawton's cinematography.

Donahue and Stevens had another movie pairing in them... and that's too bad.  Palm Springs Weekend (1963) made Susan Slade look like an Oscar winner.  The attempt was to have the film do for Palm Springs what Where the Boys Are did for Ft. Lauderdale.  No sale. No one from their prior two films was associated with this one.

Here is a trailer:

Next posting:

Not until September 5

(enjoying a Canadian holiday)