M-G-M was a sucker for the shallow sophistication of B’way playwright Rachel Crothers. Joan Crawford alone did three. (NO MORE LADIES/’35; SUSAN AND GOD; WHEN LADIES MEET/’41.) In the right role, a better actress than she often gets credit for, ‘Susan’ isn’t the right role. The required ‘tony’ performing style, something slightly less & slightly more than realistic acting, a calling card of B’way divas like ‘Kit’ Cornell, Lynn Fontanne & Gertrude Lawrence (who made this a hit on stage), is far beyond Crawford’s natural range. Instead, she forces, killing laughs & repose. Then aping Lawrence’s distinctive flutey cracked vocals when trying to sound genuine. She plays a runaway wife & mother, just back from England where she was spiritually awakened. Now in thrall to a new system of relating to God, she insists on trying it out on all her rich horsey friends. Quite a line up, too: Ruth Hussey, Rita Hayworth, Bruce Cabot, Nigel Bruce, John Carroll, Rose Hobart, even housekeeper Marjorie Main. Only alcoholic husband Fredric March (very comfortable here) is deemed unworthy. Naturally, the treatment upsets all the relationships (divorces, marriages, house-parties equally upturned), with only March & their unhappy daughter finding the underlying truth Crawford spouts but doesn’t understand. George Cukor, working from Anita Loos’s adaptation, keeps up the pace, but the basic material stays as inert as the soundstage sets. And with Crawford so fraudulent, the inevitable ‘happy’ recoupling looks like a wrong turn.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Adrian’s outfits for Crawford are the one amusing element. You could make a basketball net out of one of her face veils; and her final number makes her look like she’s been roped at a cattle show.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Does anyone work in these plays? Hayworth & Carroll are job-hunting stage actors, but no one else does anything but socialize, proselytize or ride horses.
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