User Reviews

This movie is obviously dated by today's standards and it's ultra-soapy in terms of plot. It is from the same director of A Summer Place, the other big hit of this era that takes on promiscuity and premarital sex.

A young, pretty Connie Stevens plays the naive title character Susan Slade. The Slade parents have sheltered their daughter while living in a foreign country and during their return to the U.S., Susan has a shipboard romance with a charming, worldly man who is off to Alaska to climb a mountain. She soon finds herself pregnant and tries in vain to reach her lover to give him the news. The movie makes it abundantly clear that they are very much in love otherwise this sex business would not be tolerated. Sadly, she is not able to reach him and he perishes on the mountain without ever knowing of her predicament. The rest of the movie is about the family leaving the country again for the birth of a son who is passed off as Susan's mother's child, and then finding Susan a good husband who can never know that she has fallen from grace.

In the U.S., she has two suitors Troy Donahue who knows something about life being unfair and Bert Convy, a wealthy young man looking for the right kind of girl. Do soap operas get better than this? The names of all the men in her life are perfect; the rugged and apparently hard to resist alpinist Conn White, the artistic and sensitive Hoyt Brecker, and the privileged dream choice of any mother, Wells Corbett.

Susan finally fesses up when the pressure of living a lie that her mother insists upon becomes too much for her. Director Delmer Daves shines a light on a situation that has happened throughout history and of course, gives it a Hollywood happy ending. Luckily for Susan Slade, she comes from money and has devoted parents so doesn't have to worry about how to get by which was not the case for most unwed, pregnant teenagers back then. And I doubt this movie did much to prevent girls from "ruining" their reputations since Susan gets not one but two handsome guys who adore her. Ah, the stuff of fairy tales. All in all, a good movie with nice performances across the board.

The third melodrama by Delmer Daves -who is best remembered for his distinguished westerns .If you do not like the genre ,that is to say if you don't like the two previous works ("a summer place" and " Parrish" ) you probably will not like "Susan Slade " for it's more of the same.Ironically (?) a small excerpt of the wonderful score of "a summer place" is heard during the voyage.

In "Parrish" Troy Donahue played the lead (title) and had three loves ,including Connie Stevens who got pregnant (but not by him) when she was not married .In "Susan Slade",Stevens plays the lead (title) and she has three loves ,including Troy Donahue whose time on screen is twice as short as hers ;he does not even appear in the first twenty minutes ;and Susan does get pregnant (but not by him) and of course she's unmarried .

Much more modest in scope and in ambition than ¨"Parrish" ,"Susan Slade" actually recalls those old melodramas of the two precedent decades in which Davis and De Havilland shone.She's not in their league ,it's to state the obvious to write this ,but she and Donahue are a nice couple.The actor is always wearing a red jacket ,a la James Dean ,and, as soon as he appears ,he is plunged in despair for his dad is sentenced to jail and the poor man hangs himself one minute later .He becomes a stable-boy but writing improves the mind and he works on a book .

They could not "remake" "Susan Slade " today :the bygone days of the unmarried moms who had to find a way to cope with a particularly tricky situation for a well-meaning milieu Susan lives in .The scenes in which Dorothy McGuire passes for the mother are a bit unintentionally funny .But in melodrama,it's the name of the game: it's virtuous Donahue (poor but with good prospects) who accepts Susan whereas the fortunate bourgeois son and his family turn their back on her.

Some elements of former westerns ("broken arrow" ,"the last wagon" " the hanging tree" ) seemed to indicate Daves' fondness for melodrama .And "Kings go forth " was a forerunner of these sentimental stories of the sixties .It would continue with such works as "Roman adventure" (Daves' fourth film starring Donahue) "Spencer's mountain" and 'the battle of the villa Fiorita".

Susan Slade is an engaging movie with a plot that differs, in a refreshingly creative way, from other films of this type.

The thing that drives me nuts is the amount of bone headed problem solving that is there for plot alone.

The first is when Susan gets pregnant and they call Conn's father. He's an old man, alone, and completely grief stricken at the death of his son. From what we can tell, they don't bring him into the loop at all! I'm sure he would have welcomed this grandchild - the last link to his son and could have helped Susan with her predicament, maybe without all the subterfuge and dislocation of her parents life.

The second is the cigarette lighter. The roughly 1 year old is completely obsessed with it, and won't leave it alone despite all the scoldings and completely unnecessary love taps from Dorothy McGuire. The answer is clear: KEEP THE LIGHTER OUT OF REACH! Put it on the very high fireplace mantel, not the coffee table and lamp stands that are tantalizing perfectly the same height as the baby! He is too young to understand, keep it way up, where he can't reach it - or better yet, put it away. It can't be the only lighter in the Bay Area that goes with their decor. I mean, how dumb can apparently smart people be?

Young innocent virgin Susan Slade (Connie Stevens) gets pregnant from her first sexual experience with Conn White (handsome hunky Grant Williams). He plans to marry her but he dies in an avalanche (seriously). She tells her parents Leah (Dorothy McGuire) and Roger (Lloyd Nolan) and Leah says she'll bring up the child as her own (!!!). Naturally abortion is never mentioned because it was still illegal in 1961. It leads to a "tear-jerking" ending that had me laughing out loud at how bad it was!

Laugh a minute soap opera. The basic plot is ridiculous by todays standards and is likely to make you smirk and not be horrified. It LOOKS great (dir/writer/prod Delmer Daves also did "A Summer Place") but it's terrible in every other department. Good actors Nolan, McGuire and Stevens seem at a loss on how to act. Donahue is even more bland than usual and his acting is just horrendous here. His attempts at emoting are just laughable. The complications in the script are handed in such a heavy-handed way that you're more likely to roll your eyes than find them clever. Worst of all it's slowly paced and boring! One of the few clever touches was to have the theme to "A Summer Place" play in the background when Stevens and Williams are romancing. This is basically a camp classic--full of bad acting and silly situations that will have you laughing out loud. I give it a 2 because it IS entertaining.

Okay, Troy Donahue is no Spencer Tracy. And Connie Stevens is no Katherine Hepburn. But if you can get past expecting top notch acting, and settle for "decent" acting, then this is a pretty enjoyable film. Yes, it's a bit dated, but if you don't think similar things happen today with unwed mothers, then you're naive.

There is one other problem with the film. The age of all the parents. The "kids" are all near 20 years old, but the parents are clearly well above 50. Not impossible in real life, but all of them are older? But I'm kinda glad they were cast that way because we get to see some wonderful older actors. Oh, there are 2 other little problems. First, some of the background music seems inane. Second, some of the cinematography is clearly out of focus, and it has nothing to do with the age of the film, it has to do with out of focus lenses. Neither of these is enough to make you not want to watch the film, but they are a bit annoying.

So, Connie Stevens has lived a rather sheltered life -- at least in terms of dating -- under adoring parents. On shipboard she meets a young man who gets her pregnant (we never really figure out whether he loved her or not). He's a mountain climber, and seems more attentive to that than to her...and then he dies in a climb. Given the era, her parents concoct a scheme to protect her reputation and that of the baby to be born by going to work in Guatemala for 2 years while the baby is born and then pretending it is the mother's (Dorothy McGuire) baby. Upon their return, it seems to be working, although Stevens resents the situation and slowly falls in love with a poor and somewhat disgraced Troy Donahue. Will she marry a rich boy (Bert Convy) or a poor boy; as if we didn't know.

Troy Donahue always reminded me of Howard Johnson's restaurants back in the day. You never got a bad meal. But you never got a particularly good meal, either. Sort of like Donahue's acting. He was "okay", and "okay" here. A little stiff in spots, but "passable". It's hard not to notice how tall he was (6'3"), particularly when kissing the short Stevens.

In terms of acting, Connie Stevens was another Howard Johnsons' type. "Passable".

On the other hand, Dorothy McGuire (Stevens' mother here) was always a wonderful actress, and rather shines here. As does Lloyd Nolan as Stevens' father. The same for supporting actor Brian Aherne, who was probably better in supporting roles than when he was given a starring role. Natalie Schafer (Mrs. Howell on "Gilligan's Island" is here as the mother of the rich boy and friend of the family, and Aherne's husband); it's actually nice to see her in a straight role, although let's face it, she was "odd". Bert Convy could act? Who knew? Although he was handsome as heck here.

This ain't Shakespeare, but it's a rather pleasant diversion. And it always amazes me how Delmer Daves (director) fell into these types of romantic stories after a career of totally different types of films; he seemed to do pretty well at both types.

I normally love Dorothy McGuire but she made a wrong choice with this crazy soap opera.

To start with the baby gets smacked for playing with a lighter that the stupid adults had left within his reach. Then to top it off ; they are further guilty of child neglect by deciding to give the poor little lad a second chance to set himself on fire which he duly does.

Never in my life have I seen such an inane plot development in a movie.

I will never be able to watch this dud again for fear of been put-off one of my favourite actresses ; the generally intelligent Dorothy McGuire.