SUZY
US, 1936, 93 minutes, Black and white.
Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone, Cary Grant, Lewis Stone, Benita Hume, Una O’ Connor.
Directed by George Fitzmaurice.
Suzy is a melodrama with a World War One setting. It is a star vehicle for Jean Harlow who was to die the following year of uremic poisoning at the age of twenty-six. She had made a strong mark at MGM during the first part of the 30s (and some film biographies were to follow in the 1960s).
She is an American vaudeville star who is on the lookout in London for marrying into the aristocracy. She is knocked over by a car driven by Franchot Tone and assumes he is an aristocrat. However, he works in an engineering factory, managed by a German woman with a ring of spies. He is shot by the spy who thinks that he knows more than he actually does. Jean Harlow, as Suzy, rushes away from the scene of the murder. It is the day of their wedding.
Entertaining troops in Paris, she encounters a French aristocrat, Cary Grant (who speaks his lines as if he was imitating Tony Curtis imitating him in Some Like it Hot). He is a debonair air ace, but fickle in his relationships and, by coincidence, he is in a relationship with the woman who shot Franchot Tone. When Tone, alive, is sent to France to test out some planes with Grant, Suzy is in the middle of a dilemma. It all ends melodramatically – but happily for Franchot Tone and Harlow. There are some air battle sequences which are outtakes from Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels.
1. An MGM melodrama of the 1930s? With action twenty years earlier? In retrospect and perspectives on World War One and the films of the 30s?
2. MGM production values, black and white photography, London, Paris, France? The use of aerial combat sequences? The cast? The musical score?
3. The focus on Suzy? Jean Harlow and her status at the time? Showgirl, her friendship with Maisie, their performances, her looking for a rich husband, the banter? The fog, knocked down by Terry? Thinking him an aristocrat? The whirlwind romance? At the factory? The marriage, the attack by the spy, shooting Terry? Suzy thinking he was dead and escaping? Going to Paris, the songs, entertaining the troops? The rude soldiers, especially Andre? The attraction? The romance, the marriage? Going to his home, meeting the baron? The baron becoming fond of her? Andre and his liaisons? Going to war? The meeting with Terry, his accusing her of being a gold-digger? Her devotion to Andre, the discovery of his relationship, the shooting, Andre’s death? Terry and his self-sacrifice in the battle in the air? The honours at the end? And the happy ending for Suzy?
4. Terry, debonair, the engineer, his jovial tone with Suzy, romance, marriage, his speaking in German, his being shot under suspicion by the spies? His not dying, returning to his work, bringing the plane to France, the tests with Andre? The friendship with Andre? The discovery of the truth about Suzy? His antagonism? The spy, Andre’s death? Terry and his flying the plane, success for the combat? The anonymity, providing Andre’s body for the honour ceremony? The happy ending?
5. Andre, Cary Grant’s style? Debonair, in the club, the attraction to Suzy, the marriage? His flings? His relationship with his father? Going to war, his success in combat? The testing of the plane? The liaison with the spy, the discovery of the truth, the confrontation, his being shot? The posthumous honours?
6. The baron, genial, suspicious of Suzy, bonding with her, her making up letters from Andre? His support of her?
7. The spies, in England in 1914, engineering, information? The spy moving to Paris, to France in society? Her butler, the information from Andre? The confrontation, the shooting?
8. A melodrama of its period – and the supporting cast, Una O’Connor? as the sympathetic landlady, Inez Courtney as Maisie and her friendship with Suzy? The variety of French military?