Susan and God **** (1940, Joan Crawford, Fredric March, Ruth Hussey, John Carroll, Rita Hayworth, Nigel Bruce, Bruce Cabot) – Classic Movie Review 5655

Joan Crawford takes over Gertrude Lawrence’s stage role of Susan, the gay Mrs Trexel (of the UK title), for director George Cukor’s 1940 comedy-drama movie based on Rachel Crothers’s celebrated 1937 stage play Susan and God.

Crawford plays Susan Trexel, a wealthy socialite who finds God and religion in a big way while on vacation in Europe, interfering with everything and judging everybody on her return to America. But that means the self absorbed Susan neglects her hard-drinking husband Barrie (Fredric March) and her dislocated teenage daughter Blossom (Rita Quigley).

Susan and God doesn’t notch up the magnetism or appeal of the same team of Crawford and Cukor’s The Women. But yet it still has a brittle attraction of its own. And Crawford is magnetically compelling in one of her archetypal selfish heroine roles. Anita Loos’s screenplay is an acid delight, and her impressive work represents a considerable embroidery on the original play.

Also in the starry cast are Ruth Hussey as Charlotte, John Carroll as Clyde Rochester, Rita Hayworth as Leonora, Nigel Bruce as Hutchie, Bruce Cabot as Michael, Rose Hobart as Irene Burroughs, Constance Collier as Lady Millicent Wigstaff, Rita Quigley as Blossom Trexel, Gloria DeHaven as Enid, Richard Crane as Bob, Norma Mitchell as Hazel Paige, Marjorie Main as Mary Maloney, and Aldrich Bowker as Patrick Maloney.

Also in the support cast are Dan Dailey, Joan Leslie, Herbert Evans, Don Castle, Oscar O’Shea, Claude King, Jane Drummond, Louis Payne, Sam Harris, Bobby Hale, Keith Hitchcock and Edward Gargan.

Susan and God is directed by George Cukor, runs 117 minutes, is made and released by MGM, shot in black and white by Robert Planck, produced by Hunt Stromberg, scored by Herbert Stothart and designed by Cedric Gibbons.

It is also known as The Gay Mrs Trexel, the GB title.

MGM paid $75,000 for the rights to the play, inspired by Dr Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group, a religious movement of the 1930s. MGM planned to star Norma Shearer but she refused to play a mother with a teenage daughter.

It was a surprise box office flop. Costing $1,103,000, it took $1,096,000 at the box office, resulting in a loss of $433,000.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5655

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