Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, September 27, 2010




And a Susan Slade Shall Lead Them











There's a petting party in Susan Slade that I think kind of redefined how teen sex would be addressed by movies. Before, and I mean in things like Peyton Place, such an episode was at the least prelude to disaster of Lana Turner flipping on lights to raise holy hell, if not cause for police intervention. That was 1957, of course. Now it's 1961 and we glide leisurely across a stateroom filled with snuggled-up couples, not so murkily lit as on furtive occasions before, enjoying each other (Susan Slade's first act takes place on an ocean liner) to accompaniment of Max Steiner's mating theme from A Summer Place. At the end of this smooch line is Connie Stevens with Grant Williams, she having lately taken receipt of a "first kiss" from him and now getting the process down. Teen screen lovemaking had never looked so assured. I'd draw a line of demarcation around Susan Slade and others of its cycle and call what came before Pre-Delmer Daves ... everything after was what his masterminding made possible. Here's the thing remarkable about Daves: He wrote, produced, directed the whole magillah of melodramas Warners released and everyone (save those around to enjoy them when new) eventually laughed at. But the cycle made oodles of profit and Delmer Daves retired to the desert with his fortune, so I'd say last yoks were his. Why do cineastes go on worshipping Doug Sirk with this truer auteur having been in our midst? Daves was a do-it-all-er who saw a trend coming and so customized it to his will. The man was well into fifties when he built A Summer Place, Parrish, Susan Slade, and Rome Adventure, but no one younger had the movies' most sought after demographic roped and tied like Delmer. As with other filmmakers with ears to a pop culture wall, he was raising a couple of kids at home. Were they tipping him off to what worked with peers the way Jim Nicholson's offspring and friends helped steer AIP? Remarkable how a veteran like Daves, in the business since silents, could read adolescent ticker tape better than picture folk more recently out of that age group. I'd assume Warners knew what a treasure they had in Daves, for he was the first director to make their contract youth look lush.















DD made taboo sex among youth romantic and accessible, more so as his profitable series carried forward. Harsh consequence of under-age lovemaking in A Summer Place gives way to comparative live-and-let-live of Susan Slade. Now instead of punitive Constance Ford for a mother, there is supportive Dorothy McGuire to ease pregnant and unwed Connie Stevens through the thicket. What a difference two years made, and how adroitly Delmer Daves recognized that his audience was past need of admonishment over ill-timed coupling. Parental outrage is the least of Susan Slade's concerns. Even as there is society's disapproval to contend with, she has reassurance of a birthday pony and luxury placement in a so-called "Monterey Dream House." Girls in trouble never had it so good. Dorothy McGuire was harbinger for permissive moms who'd not hit panic buttons when daughter came home knocked up, having "understood" in A Summer Place that youth must have its carnal fling. Susan Slade's roll-with-the-punches father Lloyd Nolan follows Place's Richard Egan for not judging nor raising a hand to errant offspring. These were dream parents unlike ones 1961 viewers contended with at home, another reason they loved basking in Susan Slade's comfort zone. Didn't she have enough problems with boyfriend/father of unplanned child falling off a mountain without mom and dad getting all in a moral twist over it?





































Delmer Daves' genius was reflected too in his letting youth stars drive stories. No more were deluxe model melodramas sole preserve to grown-ups. With teens buying a clear majority of tickets, why not tell facts of life from their point of view? The early sixties would see the Jane Wymans and Lana Turners making way (if reluctantly) for Connie Stevens, Sandra Dee, and kindred youth to topline vehicles worthy of that generation now supporting an industry in distress. Cheapies like Unwed Mother and Diary of a High School Bride had been reminder to kids of how little Hollywood valued them, while mainstream A's treated teens and their issues like spiders in a bottle, stressing trouble they caused for adults billed over the title like James Cagney and Barbara Stanwyck in 1956's outdated-when-it-was-new These Wilder Years. Delmer Daves realized ponytail patrons would not only support his merchandise, but study it, for these were long overdue women's pictures for young women, a till-now ignored customer base responding more loyally and in greater number than their mothers staying home to watch Queen For a Day. How many boyfriends were inveigled to carry dates to drive-in runs of Susan Slade and her Daves-generated cousins? ... I'll bet lots more than ever sat through Sirk mellers with over-hills Wyman and Lana. Classifying the Daves group as chick pics is a misnomer in any case. I've long guessed males enjoy these even if they won't admit it, and who among them would be so obtuse as to drag girlfriends to hardtop Gorgo runs when they could enjoy benefit of aphrodisiac spell Daves' films cast?





























That potion was mixed as much by composer Max Steiner as writing-directing Daves. What a late-career spike this was for been-around-an-eternity Steiner, who understood maybe best of all what got teen motors running. Warners had by now boosted their sound to world-class clarity, just in time, it seemed, for Steiner's final and epic assaults upon viewer emotions. His scores were essential to the Delmer Daves oeuvre, a common thread linking them all as much as repeating cast members. I still remember teenage neighbor girls playing their Rome Adventure albums till grooves wore smooth. Speaking of that one, my friend Geoff Rayle ran a 35mm IB Technicolor print a few weeks ago and dazzled his 2010 audience in ways undoubtedly similar to what a 1962 public experienced. Good as Warners' DVD set looks (including Parrish, Susan Slade, and Rome Adventure), there really is no substitute for the wondrous impact 35mm has with its Technicolored luminosity. Geoff reported his audience, all of them born a generation after Rome Adventure came out, being blown away by what looked to be a 3-D tour of Italy minus glasses ( ... and sharpness like I've never seen, said more than one). You can knock these pics for clunky narrative, snail pacing, and callow actors barely worthy of the name, but folks in the late 50's/early 60's with access to first-run prints knew something we don't ... when movies look and sound this good, and cast such romantic (if not outright erotic) glows ... the rest counts for little and matters less.

6 Comments:

Blogger Dugan said...

I'll take "Rome Adventure" over "Three Coins in the Fountain" anytime. I will agree with you that the pictures are a little clunky in that late 50's early 60's way. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know but Daves was a writer on McCarey's "Love Affair," and that has certainly been an influential picture. I always thought Daves "Jubal" was a very interesting western.

11:33 AM  
Blogger Jim Lane said...

I was a 'tweener when A Summer Place came out, but I noticed (even if I didn't fully comprehend) the aphrodisiac effect it had on high schoolers of the day. And I can attest from experience that Max Steiner's theme provided the background for more than one early-to-mid-'60s petting party in real life, just as in Susan Slade. I would extend Daves's run to include Spencer's Mountain; Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara may have had top billing, but it was James MacArthur and Mimsy Farmer who really sold teen tickets.

And by the way, it seems to me that while A Summer Place was certainly the Big Bang, the first rumblings of that detonation can be traced to Marjorie Morningstar, with a barely-out-of-her-teens Natalie Wood scouting the way for Connie Stevens, Sandra Dee and Diane McBain. Am I alone in this?

1:48 PM  
Blogger Christopher said...

Well...I was gonna skip this write up on those glossy old chick flicks,but now I want to run out and buy these films..that used to send me outside to vomit when the babysitter would turn them on...John ,you're a true SHOWMAN! ;o)

5:56 PM  
Anonymous ceelevel said...

jim lane, omg, wonderful comments!

10:17 PM  
Anonymous Chris said...

Tho too young have to seen the flicks first hand, I've been a huge fan of Delmer Daves from the first viewing of SUMMER PLACE.

ROME ADVENTURE is pure entertainment.

SUSAN SLADE is excellent, although suffers from the casting of Lloyd "The Sandman" Nolan as the father. On the other hand, it has the best baby-burning scene in the history of motion pictures.

I still haven't seen SPENCER'S MOUNTAIN ... been looking forward to that for a while now.

3:38 PM  
Blogger Linwood said...

Spencer's Mountain was Earl Hamner's template for The Waltons. It tells Clay Boy Spencer's story in under two hours. It took The Waltons five years to get John Boy off to college.

3:10 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024
  • April 2024
  • May 2024
  • June 2024
  • July 2024
  • August 2024
  • September 2024