Long-suffering womanhood – the turf of Ruth Chatterton - is NOT what I want from a Garbo film. And to hear her called Susie – good grief – this is Garbo, not Janet Gaynor. In this sob-sister story, Susan is a character who rises above victimhood to become a woman in control of herself and her life. And Rodney is the impetus for her transformation. But, like Robert Montgomery's Andre in Inspiration, Gable's Rodney spurns Susan because she's been unfaithful. Unfaithful – how much better and more evocative that title would have been than Susan Lenox, Her Fall and Rise.
In this on-again off-again love story, Garbo is convincing as a woman who spends years chasing after Rodney, who repeatedly rejects her, because, she says, "I know he loves me." Amazingly - or not so amazingly since this is Hollywood - as it turns out, Susan is right. He does love her. During the years that's she's been rising from the gutter and he's been falling into the male version of the gutter – alcohol and laboring in steamy tropical jungles – he's loved her. Gable was well-cast and is convincing as a man who knows how to love a woman, but has difficulty forgiving.
Although the script is as faulty as the story, and despite the paucity of jaw-dropping costumes, any film Garbo appears in is worth seeing. And adding Gable is frosting on the cake. 2 months after Susan Lenox arrived in theatres, Mata Hari was released. Now THAT's a story fit for Garbo.
In this on-again off-again love story, Garbo is convincing as a woman who spends years chasing after Rodney, who repeatedly rejects her, because, she says, "I know he loves me." Amazingly - or not so amazingly since this is Hollywood - as it turns out, Susan is right. He does love her. During the years that's she's been rising from the gutter and he's been falling into the male version of the gutter – alcohol and laboring in steamy tropical jungles – he's loved her. Gable was well-cast and is convincing as a man who knows how to love a woman, but has difficulty forgiving.
Although the script is as faulty as the story, and despite the paucity of jaw-dropping costumes, any film Garbo appears in is worth seeing. And adding Gable is frosting on the cake. 2 months after Susan Lenox arrived in theatres, Mata Hari was released. Now THAT's a story fit for Garbo.