Suzanne et ses idées

Please take careful notice of the billing in the title of this film. It's about a society woman, Susan Trexel, who has taken up religion as some kind of a new fad. Ms. Trexel is rather full of herself and she would no doubt approve of the Deity getting second billing in a play about her life.

Susan and God, a play by Rachel Crothers, ran on Broadway for the 1937-1938 season for 256 performances and starred Gertrude Lawrence who got rave reviews for her performance as the Long Island society woman who is so full of herself that she neglects husband and daughter for her various fads. She's embraced a particular type of Christianity in which it's believed confession is not just good, but necessary for the soul. Not only your confession, but you must apparently be brutally frank about everyone around you.

I knew a woman many years ago when I lived in New York. She was a union official, the treasurer of a local. This was an office she used the way Susan Trexel uses her new religion, to become the world's biggest busybody, interjecting herself into everyone's business. When you're a busybody by nature it's great if you can find a religion that says God requires you to be one.

I wish I could give Susan and God a higher rating. But the fault lies with Joan Crawford who apparently made the mistake of seeing Gertrude Lawrence in the play. Someone who's never seen or heard Gertrude Lawrence might not catch it and just think Crawford is too mannered in her portrayal. But her inflections are unmistakable, her imitation of Lawrence just keeps coming out. She should have been a little more Joan Crawford in her performance.

That's a pity too, because apparently Crawford got both Louis B. Mayer and George Cukor to get the film rights to Susan and God in the hope of broadening her range as an actress. I couldn't say she succeeded here.

Fredric March plays her long suffering husband, a likable man driven to drink because of his wife and young Rita Quigley plays her shy daughter who Crawford has no time for. Rita Hayworth, a screen goddess to be, has a small role as a young actress who has married producer Nigel Bruce for her career. You can tell easily she was going to be a star.

Fans of Joan Crawford might like seeing her trying something different, but sad that it wasn't more of her in the role.

One of Joan Crawford's oddest movies. Joan plays a self-centered rich lady and busybody named Susan Trexel who undergoes a sudden religious conversion. Then, like a lot of people who find religion, she can't wait to tell everybody about it over and over again. She drives her friends nuts giving them unwanted advice and butting into their lives. She also neglects her family and doesn't apply her newfound beliefs to her own life. Her estranged husband Barrie (Fredric March) has a drinking problem he's trying to conquer to help bring their family back together but Susan isn't helping matters any. Also her poor daughter desperately wants her family back together but she's overlooked as well.

Nice supporting cast includes Ruth Hussey, Bruce Cabot, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Main, and Rita Hayworth. Special mention to young Rita Quigley as Susan's ugly duckling daughter. Joan was really trying to broaden her acting range during this period and this role is definitely unlike any other she had played up to this point. I've seen a number of criticisms towards her performance that say she compares badly with Gertrude Lawrence, who evidently originated the role on the stage. I'm not familiar with Mrs. Lawrence nor am I in possession of a time machine to go back over 70 years to compare the two performances. Thankfully I don't have the baggage of comparison to deal with when watching this movie. I think Joan is very good as the insufferable Susan. March is good in his part, as well.

My only major complaint is that you can tell the movie was adapted from a play. It's stagey by 1940 standards. There's barely any score, particularly in the first hour, and the scenes are all very setbound. Given the length this wears on you after awhile. I'm a little surprised George Cukor didn't do much about this. His direction is very pedestrian here. Overall, it's an OK drama with some comedy and one of Joan Crawford's most interesting performances.

... he would have given the part of Susan to his wife Norma Shearer. Instead it went to Joan Crawford, and, oh my, what a revelation. As socialite Susan, Joan goes from being sly to oblivious to caring (in her own way) at the snap of a finger. Joan had played socialites before, but usually with that world weary and wise way about her that Joan brought to so many of her parts. This is a completely different type of role for her.

In a nutshell, Susan is a wealthy rather air-headed woman who goes on a trip and learns about God "in a completely new way" from a fellow traveler, one Lady Wigstaff. She comes home loaded down with brochures in every language and immediately just bursts in on the most personal parts of her friends' lives in a very open and coarse way - You two should never have gotten married, you two should never get married, etc. Except now what she would previously have called nosy she calls religion! Plus you can tell that this rude kind of criticism is just Susan's nature but now she can claim she is on a mission from God.

However, this new found faith has not changed her attitude towards her husband, Barry (Fredric March), who drinks heavily due to Susan's neglect, nor her attitude toward her teenage daughter, Blossom, who at first glance looks like she is doing anything but blossoming - physically that is. Susan will do anything to avoid the two of them, but Barry arrives at the estate where Susan is staying with her friends and has a showdown. In the end Susan agrees to Barry's challenge. She will spend the summer in their country estate with Barry and Blossom and if Barry slips up and gets drunk just once, Susan can have the divorce she has wanted for some time. Complications ensue.

Did I mention that a close friend of both of them (Ruth Hussey as Charlotte) has always been and is still in love with Barry, hates to see Susan walk all over him, but is too good a person to trespass? Even though she has a small part I thought Hussey was really a stand-out here.

I think this film has been unfairly forgotten with an IMDb rating that might have you thinking it is a bore. I disagree. With an unusual topic explored in an unconventional way right before the second world war, with great ensemble acting and crisp dialogue that keeps the first half of the movie moving when it could easily have bogged down, I would recommend this one.

Having just watched the amazing A WOMAN'S FACE, ran across this comment thread and I am so glad to see this title has fervent admirers. I am definitely one. Watched it many years ago and was absolutely floored by Joan's performance in this, as atypical for her as A WOMAN'S FACE but in a completely different direction, high comedy. It is one of the all-time greatest comedic performances in my book, and yet remains tragically obscure, in both her and Cukor's filmographies. Of course, it is so over-the-top that it runs the risk of being pigeonholed as just another campy Joan Crawford display, and yet if you cast out your preconceptions about her you will see a multi-layered characterization that is at once absurd yet never condescending, expertly timed delivery that seems totally effortless. I simply cannot wait for a DVD of this!

I LOVE this film. Cukor made it the same year as PHILADELPHIA STORY and it has the same exact feel and tone. This film was definitely eclipsed by the Hepburn one but deserves to be revived. Crawford is magnificent. I have never seen her play comedy like this and under Cukor's direction she excels. It proved what a versatile actress she could be. I don't understand comments like "she gives a poor imitation of what Gertrude Lawrence did on-stage". I highly doubt the person who wrote that ever saw the original stage production. He says he heard Lawrence speak lines from PRIVATE LIVES on a recording with Noel Coward and obviously that is what Joan was trying to imitate. Joan does not imitate other people and Cukor would never have allowed her to. I find it odd that when Crawford stretches herself in character parts like RAIN, SUSAN AND GOD, THE WOMEN, and A WOMAN'S FACE her public, and more importantly MGM, did not support her when she is obviously and magnificently broadening her horizons and simultaneously doing great work. THE WOMEN was the only one of this bunch that was a hit. But MGM never seemed fit to promote Joan for an Oscar. Watch this film and you will be surprised at this twist in the MGM Crawford. I think her transition at the end is remarkable and the character of Susan really grows and changes. I'm sure it was difficult for Crawford to portray a flighty, ditsy, scatterbrained woman but she really connects with something in this. I watch this movie at least twice a year. People complain it is stagey and long but with dialogue this good I'll take it over a movie half its length. The supporting cast is great. Watch Rita Hayworth in an early role. Fredric March, as usual, is brilliant and wonderful alongside Crawford. This is Joan's best comedy; and more than that, an excellent film. It's subject matter resonates today with it's "new age" religious fervor. I only wish Cukor had directed her in more because she responds soooooo well to him. Imagine if he directed GOODBYE, MY FANCY or TORCH SONG. Ah well, you can't have everything.