Suzanne et ses idées

Susan and God (1940)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Joan Crawford certainly had a couple interesting years at MGM. In 1939 she delivered what many consider to be her best (THE WOMEN) and worst (THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939) films while in 1940 she delivered two of the strangest religious pictures ever made. STRANGE CARGO was a pretty entertaining movie that also had Clark Gable. This picture co-stars Fredric March but sadly the end result is somewhat of a disaster. Crawford plays Susan, a woman who comes back from a cruise and only has God on her mind. She tries to push the word of God on her friends but they just laugh at her while her alcoholic husband (March) has a few issues of his own. SUSAN AND GOD is an incredibly weird little picture that some might want to check out just to see how weird it actually is. Up to this point I think it's the worst Crawford picture I've seen for a number of reasons. For starters, the film is just so darn boring that I couldn't wait for it to be over. The thing moves so slow and features so many boring characters that the film's 117-minute running time just seems like an eternity. Even worse is the fact that you really don't care or like the Crawford character. Perhaps things would have been different had we met Susan before the cruise and before she started to worship God. Since we meet her after the fact it's just an annoying character. It also doesn't help that Crawford is way too over-the-top in the film. I've read that she's tried to mimic the lady who originally played the part on stage and if so it just didn't work. Even March is pretty forgettable in the film and even worse is that the wasted cast includes Ruth Hussey, Rita Hayworth, John Carroll, Nigel Bruce and Bruce Cabot. SUSAN AND GOD is a bizarre film about religion and I must admit that I really didn't like any of it. It's a hard film to sit through but an easy one to forget.

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.

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.

Odd film especially for a Crawford vehicle about a shallow socialite who takes up religion on a whim with an overly simplistic ending.

It's easy to see why Joan accepted this after Norma Shearer's vanity got in the way of her taking the part, she wouldn't play a part of a woman with an almost adult child. Norma would have been much more right for the role since her facile, sometime brittle superior air was more in line with the part than Crawford's earthiness although she tries to submerge it. Susan was definitely different for Joan who at this point was looking for challenges cracking that she'd play Wally Beery's grandmother if it was a good part!

The film suffers from not having anyone to really root for outside the minor character of the main couple's daughter Blossom. Both Joan and March's characters are selfish, and for the most part, thoughtless fools.

This was the screen debut, in a wordless bit, of Susan Peters and Dan Dailey in a slightly larger part. Also keep a sharp eye out for Joan Leslie and Gloria De Haven in tiny parts just starting out.

Someone who has a larger part and actually attracted quite a bit of notice for this picture moving her forward to larger parts than she had been cast previously is Rita Hayworth. She's ravishing although not quite fully arrived at her star persona just yet. Still a brunette she handles her small supporting role well injecting a touch of pathos into a sketchily drawn part.

Points to Crawford for trying to stretch her established persona but while it's an admirable attempt the results are mixed.