Romance novel Susan Slade was acquired by Warner Brothers as a vehicle for two of their young stars Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens. In that respect it served them well as it made good box office and showed them well in what was the height of their careers.
In a part normally reserved for Sandra Dee, Connie Stevens plays the virginal daughter of Lloyd Nolan and Dorothy McGuire and they've all been living out in the Atacama desert area of Chile where Nolan is the chief mining engineer for Brian Aherne. For a job well done with efficiency that saved Aherne millions, Nolan has been given a real nice house in Aherne's neighborhood as a company bonus.
But on the way from Valparaiso to San Francisco, young Susan Slade who out at the mining camp was carefully sheltered was never given the facts of life talk by either parent gets seduced and pregnant by mountain climbing Van Williams. He'll marry her once he climbs Mount McKinley, but he's killed in the attempt.
Conventions being what they were and soap opera novels being what they are an elaborate scheme of McGuire claiming the baby for herself to preserve their social status is cooked up. Stevens also has two ardent suitors for her hand, Bert Convy the son and heir of Aherne and his wife Natalie Schaefer warming for her role as Mrs. Howell and Troy Donahue son of a man who embezzled money from Aherne's company and who runs a stable.
If you are a reader of this kind of literature I think you know where this one is going. If Connie who does acquit herself well in a role that had to have been written for Sandra Dee, Donahue is in the quintessential kind of role for him. The All American boy who is a noble fellow.
All this one needed was Ross Hunter producing and Douglas Sirk directing.
For those of us nostalgic for the early New Frontier years this is your film.
In a part normally reserved for Sandra Dee, Connie Stevens plays the virginal daughter of Lloyd Nolan and Dorothy McGuire and they've all been living out in the Atacama desert area of Chile where Nolan is the chief mining engineer for Brian Aherne. For a job well done with efficiency that saved Aherne millions, Nolan has been given a real nice house in Aherne's neighborhood as a company bonus.
But on the way from Valparaiso to San Francisco, young Susan Slade who out at the mining camp was carefully sheltered was never given the facts of life talk by either parent gets seduced and pregnant by mountain climbing Van Williams. He'll marry her once he climbs Mount McKinley, but he's killed in the attempt.
Conventions being what they were and soap opera novels being what they are an elaborate scheme of McGuire claiming the baby for herself to preserve their social status is cooked up. Stevens also has two ardent suitors for her hand, Bert Convy the son and heir of Aherne and his wife Natalie Schaefer warming for her role as Mrs. Howell and Troy Donahue son of a man who embezzled money from Aherne's company and who runs a stable.
If you are a reader of this kind of literature I think you know where this one is going. If Connie who does acquit herself well in a role that had to have been written for Sandra Dee, Donahue is in the quintessential kind of role for him. The All American boy who is a noble fellow.
All this one needed was Ross Hunter producing and Douglas Sirk directing.
For those of us nostalgic for the early New Frontier years this is your film.