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.
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.