Watch Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) For Free

Pretty Good

A Masterpiece!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

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.

I had to watch SUSAN LENOX - HER FALL AND RISE several times because I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. It's such an odd film, mostly because it was obviously cut here and there, down to a paltry 75 minutes long film, and because what occurs in the movie is such a smorgasborg of melodramatic situations squeezed in in such a brief amount of time, that the film becomes truly surreal.The film starts broodingly enough, with the illegitimate birth of Helga (soon to be Susan Lenox, of Lenoxville) seen in shadows. We see her grow in her miserable life in shadows and the next thing we see is Helga is sent to live/marry a man she doesn't know. She runs away from the creepy ugly man and ends up with Rodney (Clark Gable) and the two fall in love overnight(!). When Rodney leaves for a business trip, Helga comes across her evil family and runs away from town, only to end up in circus, where Helga becomes known as Susan Lenox, is forced to work as a performer (a belly dancer of sorts) and is under the control of the circus boss Burlingham. After an ill-fated meeting with Rodney at the circus, Holga runs away (yes, again) and becomes a socialite in New York. After another ill-fated meeting with Rodney at a party, the two fight and separate again. Holga still goes after him, all the way down to South America(!) where she works in a seedy bar (keeping men company)and where she waits for him.Got that? Anyway, the movie is like one of those action packed serials, but instead of showing a hero going from one pitfall to another, SUSAN LENOX is a melodramatic serial, where our heroine goes from one melodramatic pitfall to another, with very little time to digest one situation from the next.The fast pace and wonky style is actually endearing, keeping the sometimes questionable subject matter light and airy. Notice the scene when Garbo undresses at the circus when she meets Rodney again, with the kooky music, giving a cartoony feel to the whole moment.If there was a theme in SUSAN LENOX, it's how women are constantly used and abused in society. But the film never becomes too depressing because Garbo gives weight and importance to a character that's not easy to play, a character forced to do unpleasant things. Susan is hopelessly naive yet determined, all this beautifully played by Garbo.Gable is good too but his character is a little too dense to be likable. I don't hate Rodney but he should have been a bit more understanding about Susan's circumstances or her background.There are some great bits of dialogue in SUSAN LENOX. My favorite line (and one of my favorite lines in any movie)is uttered by Garbo: "This hurt we have inflicted upon each other. It's become a bound. Nothing can break it. We're just like two cripples. Twisted. Only together can we ever become straight." Brilliant. That lines basically surmises the whole movie: two beautiful losers, miserable in the company of others and only happy with each other, yet they can't seem to be able to live together because of wonky circumstances.And to think that the two only met each other for one night. Arf! Is SUSAN LENOX a great movie? No, it's not. But in its odd way (sorta like Susan and Rodney), it's infinitely watchable and endearing.I'm usually against remakes but I believe they should remake SUSAN LENOX. Obviously, no one can top Garbo as Susan Lenox of Lenoxville, but this odd story, in the hands of a director like David Lynch, would be amazing.(update: I recently read the Taschen book Icon series on Garbo and according to it, this film had 21 writers! No wonder it's so wonky!)

This film could be summarized as 'just another Garbo redemption yarn'... well, it is and it isn't. If you're familiar with the Garbo films (silents & talkies), you'll find yourself knowing the script before it happens onscreen, so, yes, indeed, Garbo will fall first then unwillingly rise from the gutter, sit on top of the world, then fall again, willingly or not. Some have written very intelligent lines on the subject (Mick Lasalle in 'Complicated Women' for instance) so I won't ad lib on this.But this particular film adds another element: its photography. Splendid throughout all of Susan's cahotic life, the images crafted by Bill Daniels are simply amazing and on par with any Sternberg film - yes, that good. I can't remember precisely at the moment but the film was almost entirely redone before being released, either by R.Z. Leonard or by somebody else and R.Z. kept the credit...Whatever. If script-wise quite predictable, this film should be seen if only for the sake of its images. Also, Garbo gives a performance worthy of the one she had in Grand Hotel - glimpses of eternity perhaps.Too bad the big guys think this one's not worth more than a crappy VHS - photography on this level IS art... And Garbo's face eludes all possible descriptions.

Just look at the scene in which she and him go fishing, and look at what she does with the fish she catches , and then just laugh!laugh!laugh!Maybe it was done without malice but, if otherwise, it couldn't have come out funnier than it did!