SUZY (Fitzmaurice, 1936)

Metro-Goldywyn-Mayer / Dir. George Fitzmaurice
90 mins.

Production: April 6, 1936 — May 29, 1936 (retakes shot in early July)
Release date: July 22, 1936 (Grauman’s premiere) and July 24, 1936 (general release) (IMDB and David Stenn’s Bombshell list a release of July 20, but this is incorrect; AFI cites July 24, and various period press and trade paper items support this date)
Release status: Available to watch free online and on DVD.

Cast: Jean Harlow (Suzanne ‘Suzy’ Trent), Franchot Tone (Terry Moore), Cary Grant (Andre Charville), Lewis Stone (Baron Charville), Benita Hume (Madame Diane Eyrelle), Reginald Mason (Captain Barsanges), Inez Courtney (Maisie), Greta Meyer (Mrs. Schmidt), David Clyde (“Knobby”), Christian Rub (“Pop” Gaspard), George Spelvin (Gaston), Una O’Connor (Landlady), Dennis Morgan* (*as Stanley Morner, Lt. Chabrey)

Summary: Suzy Trent (Jean Harlow), an American showgirl in Paris on the eve of the Great War, finds herself unexpectedly attracted to down-on-his-luck aviation tinkerer Terry Moore (Franchot Tone) after losing her job in a café. But when Terry turns up feared dead, dashing French ace Andre Charville (Cary Grant) shows up in his stead.

Trivia:

• Harlow’s first film with the natural head of hair she was growing out from overbleached blonde beneath the ‘brownette’ wigs she used in her first two releases of 1936, Riffraff and Wife vs. Secretary, to establish her new post-platinum image. The rest of her films would only showcase her natural hair and would not rely on wigs.

• Harlow’s only film with Cary Grant, who reportedly wanted her for the role of Marion Kerby opposite him in Topper (1937); this didn’t come to fruition, as the film was produced just before Harlow’s death with Constance Bennett in the lead. In later years, Grant was said to cry when shown scenes of him and Harlow in this film.

• Cary Grant did not like his role in this film and had to be cajoled into accepting it.

• All of the dogfight and other midair aviation scenes were not shot expressly for the film, and were in fact made up of extra unused footage from Harlow’s Hell’s Angels (1930) bought off Howard Hughes by MGM.

• Location scenes for Suzy were shot in Carpinteria, California, in between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Harlow had her portrait taken with her “gang”–her best friend, her hairdresser, her makeup artist and maid–in her portable dressing room on this location.

• Virginia Verrill, who had previously dubbed for Harlow in Reckless, repeated the job for Suzy. She performed the film’s theme, titled “Did I Remember?”, reprised by Harlow in the film.

• One long black velvet gown designed by Dolly Tree for Harlow in Suzy didn’t make it into the final film. Instead, it reappeared on Claudette Colbert in her 1940 film, Boom Town. It was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2014 and is now held in a private collection.

• According to a few period publicity items, Harlow ended up as an extra in Joseph Santley’s We Went to College (1936) which featured her friend, Una Merkel, during a ‘two hour break’ from Suzy (the films were being produced concurrently). The items assert that Harlow found a football scene being filmed on the backlot and simply sat down to watch, accidentally becoming an extra in the process. Upon review, there is a woman in the crowd of a football scene who does very much resemble Harlow, but like the Scarface situation, it will probably never be conclusively confirmed.

Stills and ad art: