After so much grandeur and heavy weaponry it’s good to see DW Griffith turn off the blockbuster superhighway and head off down a dust road. After Judith, George Washington and Lloyd George it’s good to meet Susie, a “plain” girl but with a heart of golden titanium. It’s Lillian Gish of course and her consummate skill, along with Billy Bitzer’s golden eye make this one of Griffith’s best looking and contemplative films: a pastoral symphony of tinted textures all run at the pace of a cow herd after a full day’s grazing…
Carol Dempster’s in it and, once again, she is not
Lillian but then few people are and Miss Gish (she would have no time for Ms I
suspect…) has few peers in terms of naturalistic control – many years later she confessed that she never
wanted to be caught “acting” – nor the range and commitment. King Vidor thought
he might lose her to self-imposed deprivation in La Boheme but here she comes across like Stan Laurel albeit with
really big, pretty eyes.
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| School days |
Lillian’s Susie follows her man like a love-struck puppy
in their school days with Gish perfecting a walk that so precisely explains her
character that you hardly need to see her face. At one point the two traipse
around the lanes after school and walking deep into the shot, Susie shakes her
foot to remove a stray twig, once, then twice... nothing will stop her from
following her sweetheart and these discomforts are so very minor when compared
to the years ahead.
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| Lillian Gish |
In less thoughtful hands, Susie might come across as a
pain but she’s hard-core: not just steadfast but operating on a strict set of
rules and self-restrained to the point of obstinacy but, and it’s a crucial
“but”, she isn’t after winning or losing and will deal with both those
imposters just the same.
This is a very Victorian stoicism but that’s the
director’s homeland and from the sound of it writer Marian Fremont too. But it’s not just being true it’s also
avoiding the pitfalls of flippancy, tight dresses and make-up. At one point
Susie’s aunt berates her for "trying to improve on the Lord’s work” as she
tries to apply some corn flower to enable her to compete with the “paint and
powder brigade”… an army of young women who seem intent on just enjoying
themselves and confusing men.
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| Definitely the “paint and powder brigade”! |
Susie doesn’t do that and from their earliest days at
school, she is faithful to her sweetheart William (Robert Herron), gently
propping him up in class as he struggles in spelling and walking slightly
behind him, a dutiful believer with that measured walk. Interestingly, Lilian
had recommended a “walk” for her sister in Hearts
of the World and the two were clearly students of physical acting from tip
to toes.
The pair carve their names on a tree but always just
about fail to kiss: timidity being next to goodliness whilst “prettier” girls
show an interest in William but he remains true to Susie.
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| How many prettier girls would sell their cow for a boy? |
William wants to go to college and yet his father (Wilbur
Higby) tells him they can’t afford it. A chance meeting with a self-promoting stranger
(George Fawcett), encourages the young man as the odd man says he sees something
in him and would like to help someday. An odd moment until Susie decides to
sell her prize cow and then anonymously donate the money to enable William to
go to school. Now that is loyalty.
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| William asks Susie if he should marry... the wrong end of the stick awaits. |
Susie is delighted but she hasn’t realised that he’s
moved imperceptibly onwards and that she is now repositioned as a friend
someone associated with where he has come from not where he is going.
 |
| Bettina bats her eyelids and blows Bill away... |
Susie’s hopes are sustained a while longer but soon
competition more closely aligned with William’s new objectives arrives from
Chicago: the painted and powdered Bettina Hopkins (Clarine Seymour). Bettina is
a good-time girl and a proto-flapper (the film is set in 1909) with pals with
names like Sporty Malone (Raymond Cannon) and a willowy best mate played by
Carol D. She’s not a bad person just someone carried away with her own life and
on the look out to settle down just that little bit too early…
 |
| The truth hits hard... |
Susie did not see Bettina coming and before she knows it
is helping her put on her bridal gown as she and William get married. Susie
takes this all in good grace and Gish transitions with real force through denial,
anger and acceptance – at the engagement she hides her tears behind a fan in
pieces but holding herself together for her pal: self-less Susie.
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| Surviving the engagement party |
Is that it then? Of course not… the path to true hearts is never as smooth as
it should be but Griffith and cast tell it with knowing wit and some style:
it’s good to see a Griffith romantic comedy. He can’t help himself preach a
little and you are left feeling a little confused by the idea that only one in
ten women get the chance to marry and yet men have a more open field?
  |
| The couple canoodle while Susie works - lovely composition |
My daughter Beth (17 and just finishing her A Levels)
watched the film with me and at the end asked when Hindle Wakes was written: comparing the women’s view of their own
choices. The British play was produced in 1910 (thanks Lucie D!) and does make
for an interesting comparison… one hoping for goodness to be recognised and the
other looking forward to an age of independence in which women’s destiny is
fashioned by their own hands not by who they marry.
That’s not to say I don’t like Susie: this is a lovely-looking
film superbly focused by director and with a performance of real greatness
from its lead. The irony is of course that Lillian might have been respectful
but she was also one of those very women who forged ahead – just like Fanny
Hawthorn in fact!
True Heart Susie
is available on DVD from Image and comes with a nifty score from the Mont Alto
Orchestra. It’s available direct or from Amazon.
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