This movie is obviously dated by today's standards and it's ultra-soapy in terms of plot. It is from the same director of A Summer Place, the other big hit of this era that takes on promiscuity and premarital sex.
A young, pretty Connie Stevens plays the naive title character Susan Slade. The Slade parents have sheltered their daughter while living in a foreign country and during their return to the U.S., Susan has a shipboard romance with a charming, worldly man who is off to Alaska to climb a mountain. She soon finds herself pregnant and tries in vain to reach her lover to give him the news. The movie makes it abundantly clear that they are very much in love otherwise this sex business would not be tolerated. Sadly, she is not able to reach him and he perishes on the mountain without ever knowing of her predicament. The rest of the movie is about the family leaving the country again for the birth of a son who is passed off as Susan's mother's child, and then finding Susan a good husband who can never know that she has fallen from grace.
In the U.S., she has two suitors Troy Donahue who knows something about life being unfair and Bert Convy, a wealthy young man looking for the right kind of girl. Do soap operas get better than this? The names of all the men in her life are perfect; the rugged and apparently hard to resist alpinist Conn White, the artistic and sensitive Hoyt Brecker, and the privileged dream choice of any mother, Wells Corbett.
Susan finally fesses up when the pressure of living a lie that her mother insists upon becomes too much for her. Director Delmer Daves shines a light on a situation that has happened throughout history and of course, gives it a Hollywood happy ending. Luckily for Susan Slade, she comes from money and has devoted parents so doesn't have to worry about how to get by which was not the case for most unwed, pregnant teenagers back then. And I doubt this movie did much to prevent girls from "ruining" their reputations since Susan gets not one but two handsome guys who adore her. Ah, the stuff of fairy tales. All in all, a good movie with nice performances across the board.
A young, pretty Connie Stevens plays the naive title character Susan Slade. The Slade parents have sheltered their daughter while living in a foreign country and during their return to the U.S., Susan has a shipboard romance with a charming, worldly man who is off to Alaska to climb a mountain. She soon finds herself pregnant and tries in vain to reach her lover to give him the news. The movie makes it abundantly clear that they are very much in love otherwise this sex business would not be tolerated. Sadly, she is not able to reach him and he perishes on the mountain without ever knowing of her predicament. The rest of the movie is about the family leaving the country again for the birth of a son who is passed off as Susan's mother's child, and then finding Susan a good husband who can never know that she has fallen from grace.
In the U.S., she has two suitors Troy Donahue who knows something about life being unfair and Bert Convy, a wealthy young man looking for the right kind of girl. Do soap operas get better than this? The names of all the men in her life are perfect; the rugged and apparently hard to resist alpinist Conn White, the artistic and sensitive Hoyt Brecker, and the privileged dream choice of any mother, Wells Corbett.
Susan finally fesses up when the pressure of living a lie that her mother insists upon becomes too much for her. Director Delmer Daves shines a light on a situation that has happened throughout history and of course, gives it a Hollywood happy ending. Luckily for Susan Slade, she comes from money and has devoted parents so doesn't have to worry about how to get by which was not the case for most unwed, pregnant teenagers back then. And I doubt this movie did much to prevent girls from "ruining" their reputations since Susan gets not one but two handsome guys who adore her. Ah, the stuff of fairy tales. All in all, a good movie with nice performances across the board.