Plot:
- by Zoë Shaw
Suzy marries Terry, an Irish
inventor. She thinks he's been killed by a spy, and goes to Paris. There she
marries Andre (a famous French flyer). Terry is not dead, and comes to Paris
to work for Andre. Andre is then killed by the spy, Mme Eyrelle, while Terry
is flying. When Terry lands the plane, he and Suzy put Terry's body in the
plane so that people will think he was killed in combat. It works, and Suzy
and Terry begin a new life together.
Review:
- by
Anna Morgenier
Suzy is a well written movie that takes place during the
war in 1914. Cary Grant in convincing in the role of our hero Andre. Franchot Tone , as
always , plays his role as if it's no effort at all and pulls it off beautifully. Jean
Harlowe's heroine is both wonderful and tragic. I ran an entire gamut of emotions during
the film. The ending is not typical for all lovers of Cary Grant movies. I would say that
most admirers of Cary Grant will not put this movie on their top 10 list. Although well
played out, most will not enjoy seeing Mr. Grant in a role such as this.
VARIETY
Film Review - July 29, 1936
- by "Chic"
- submitted by Barry Martin
One of those hit-at-all-hazards concoctions that may bore in
the deluxers, but which will appeal to less discriminating
audiences, though Jean Harlow does not quite square herself for a
clumsy bigamy, and the scenarist does not help much in smoothing
this and other incongruities.
Dramatic angle hinges on Suzy's
flight from London when a German spy pops off her newly acquired
husband and tosses the gun into the room. The landlady
assumes that Suzy did the shooting and calls the police, while
Suzy goes down the back stairs, supposing Terry, her husband, to
be dead. She flees to Paris, where a former chorus pal helps
her to a cabaret job. She meets and marries Andre, a French
aviator who makes Richthofen look like an amateur glider
pilot. Andre turns out to be a cheater and is shot by the
same spy who popped Terry, who, meanwhile, has turned up, very
annoyed at Suzy. But he's a game sport and saves his rival's
reputation by taking over a flight, crashing the plane at the
chateau where Andre lies dead and letting it be inferred that it
was the later who crashed, providing a moving finish as Suzy
stands before the escadrille to listen to the official notice of
sympathy.
In the original novel Suzy was far
from being the tender lamb she is made in the picture, which
dispensed with the bigamous angle. In the film much
explanation does not quite acquit her of being too precipitate and
her looseness militates against her. There are a number of
other rough places the dialog simply cannot smooth out.
Dialog is generally too flippant and forced to give conviction to
the situations, but the story bristles with surefires, starting
with a generous dressing room sequence, a race scene with Suzy
betting on an outsider at 20-1 and bringing home the bacon, a well
written scene in a war-time railroad station where Lewis Stone, as
Andre's father, makes him be nice to Suzy, though Andre has played
hookey all through a visit to Paris. There is some gorgeous
flying stuff with cloud effects out of the files and a few feet of
air stuff apparently made for this picture.
But all through the scenarists have
put in the punch whether it belongs or not and the general effect
would seem to justify this treatment. It's cheap, sometimes
tawdry, but for the moment it appeals.
Miss Harlow works hard and
generally to good effect. She lacks a little in the more
serious moments, but Harlow fans do not expect more acting and are
likely to be content. Franchot Tone has the job as the first
husband and shades nicely from the carefree youngster of the
earlier scenes to the more serious minded airplane expert at the
front. On the other hand, Cary Grant contributes a fine
performance as Andre, but cannot wholly overcome the handicap of
his cheating proclivities. Lewis Stone is sympathetic as
Andre's father, who comes to love his daughter-in-law, and for
whose sake Suzy seeks to preserve the honor of the boy's
name. Benita Hume is good, if stereotyped, as the spy, and
Inez Courtney plays the chorus girl friend right up to the
hilt. Her exit from the scene about midway is to be
regretted, though she would have stolen too many of the later
scenes had she been permitted to remain. This comedienne has
been coming along in great style in pix of late.
Photography, save for some library
war stuff, is excellent, and the director made the most of the
rich opportunities in the script.
The one song is effectively
handled.
NEW YORK TIMES Film
Review - July
25, 1936
- by Frank S. Nugent
- submitted by Barry Martin
For years we have been hearing about George Spelvin, who is to
drama what Anon is to the dictionary of familiar quotations, but until
yesterday we never had met him. Spelvin is no mystery to us now; the
Capitol's "Suzy" presents him boldly: "Gaston …. George
Spelvin," reads the cast sheet, and Gaston is a billygoat. A faintly
symbolic billygoat, in fact, who lowers his head, butts his way through a
cabaret and obligingly charges out again into the nothingness that is
offstage.
Suzy must have been born under the
sign of Capricorn, too. With padded horns of dialogue and
venerable plot whiskers, it plunges across the screen, creates
some mild excitement and careens out again, leaving us with a few
esthetic bruises and a feeling that a little fresh air would do no
harm.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer describes its
romantic masterpiece as being based on the novel by Herbert S.
Gorman. Based seems too strong a word; one suspects that the
studio simply tore out a few chapters, distributed them among
Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell, Horace Jackson, Lenore Coffee and a
few George Spelvins on its writing staff, and suggested they
proceed from there. The final script indicates they retreated
instead. Miss Harlow has been returned to her unsophisticated
"Hell's Angels" days; Franchot Tone is some one out of
"The Key"; Cary Grant was revisited with "The Eagle
and the Hawk"; they found a place by the fireside for Lewis
Stone.
"Suzy," as they have
conceived it, is the tale of a shapely (we'll concede that to Miss
Harlow, anyway) chorus girl who lingers in pre-war London in the
hope of winning a title and a husband to go with it. She succeeds
only partially, netting merely an Irish inventor, and then loses
him on their wedding night when a mysterious woman shoots him down
for having stumbled on a spy ring. Believing her husband dead -
and she hardly waits for the belief to jell - Suzy dashes off to
Paris, arriving in time for the Sarajevo festival of 1914, and
with surprising emotional elasticity hurls herself into another
romance and wedding, this time with the French ace, Andre Charvell.
It is only a matter of time, as you
no doubt have guessed, until Suzy and her husbands have their
unwanted reunion, but it is an uncommonly long and dull time as
such things go, filled with dewy-eyed close-ups of Miss Harlow
grieving because her Andre - the wretch - spends all his furloughs
with other women and never even writes a letter home. Interest
picks up when the dénouement is reached, with the old spy ring
taking an active part in the plot again, and the war is permitted
to step between Miss Harlow and a four-inch lens. But it is
scarcely adequate compensation for the romantic balderdash that
has gone before.
Miss Harlow's performance may be
numbered among her least, and we still insist she would be wiser
not to stray beyond d the green pastures (no adv.) of comedy. Mr.
Tone can be thanked for the few honest moments of drama that the
film possesses. His young Irishman is about the only convincing
and natural character in the piece - other, of course, than George
Spelvin, the goat.
Review:
- by Kathy Fox
SUZY is Cary Grant's
twenty-third film and the only time he will star with Jean Harlow who
unfortunately died shortly thereafter at the age of twenty-six. SUZY
is a complicated story with Grant playing Andre Charville, an ace flyer in
World War I. Jean Harlow plays Suzy Trent who is a down-and-out singer
trying to find work whe she is hit by a car. Here she meets Terry
Moore and he falls in love with her. Suzy is tired of her meager
existence and decides to marry him. On the night of their marriage,
Moore who works in a German engineering factory, is shot by Madame Eyrelle
at the behest of Mrs. Schmidt who is engaged in anti-British espionage.
Suzy, believing the Terry is dead, flees the scene thinking she will be
blamed, and goes to Paris and moves in with a friend Maisie. There she
becomes employed as a singer and meets Andre Charville. They fall in
love and marry. They move in with Andre's father and Andre proceeds to
rack up shooting down planes. However, Andre is a Casanova and cheats
on Suzy, who has become very fond of Andre's father and vice versa. In
fact, Andre unbeknownst to him is seeing the woman who shot Suzy's first
husband and he has also become friends with Terry, who lived through the
shooting incident. Andre is injured and is in the hospital when Suzy
comes to visit him. On a return trip to visit Andre she meets her
first husband, Terry, whom she thought was dead, and also recognizes Madame
Eyrelle as being the trigger woman. Suzy and Terry try to convince
Andre that she is a bad woman, and almost finally do so, when Andre is shot
and killed. Terry goes up on the plane and returns by crashing the
plane into the house where Andre and Suzy are. In order to save his
name, the two drag Andre outside in the pretense that he was killed in the
crash. Andre Charville is honored and Suzy and Terry are able to
resume their relationship. Complicated, to say the least!!
Paramount loaned Grant to MGM to make SUZY in an attempt to show him they
were interested in furthering his career after all. Grant eventually
decided there was no room at MGM for him in their stable of actors.
However, it would not be long until Grant declared himself a free agent
which was the best move he could have made to further his career.
Review
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