Cinema: The New Pictures: Oct. 26, 1931

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). In searching for a story which would suitably exhibit the stoic fascinations of Greta Garbo, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stumbled upon an extraordinary novel. Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise is the work of David Graham Phillips who wrote best-sellers 25 years ago, when best-sellers were even more likely to be trash than they are now. But Susan Lenox, though it contains cliches which make Theodore Dreiser seem epigrammatic, is no trash. Its story of hardships, financial and amorous, in the career of a woman who becomes a celebrated actress, might have seemed to a lay observer wholly suitable to the cinema. The producers of the picture thought otherwise. Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) now differs from Author Phillips' story in almost all particulars, including the name of the heroine (Helga, later Susan) inserted to account for her Swedish accent. But, even as Author Phillips' honest eagerness raised the book above its manner, so the inferior story of the cinema gains validity from the impersonations of Greta Garbo and, to a smaller degree, Clark Gable.

Susan Lenox runs away from a crude, elderly farmer to whom she is to be married by an uncle. She happens into the garage of a young engineer, Rodney Spencer, who feeds her, befriends her, falls in love with her. When her uncle comes to take her back, she runs away, gets on a carnival train, joins the show. By the time she sees Rodney (Clark Gable) again, she has been forced into a compromising situation with the carnival proprietor. Misunderstandings occur, but Susan Lenox is pretty enough to get along. She becomes mistress to a rich politician, has a friend find Rodney and bring him to dinner one night so she can humiliate him. When he leaves, she finds she has humiliated herself instead, goes off to find him. What follows is a fairly routine sample of what 1931 cinema heroines do when looking for 1931 cinema heroes. Susan Lenox hunts for Rodney in cafes in St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco, finally finds him in a cabaret in South America. This time, she succeeds in convincing him that she is a good girl at heart, that they really love each other. Good shot: Garbo registering almost childishly complete happiness when, while fishing with Gable, she pulls in a small, slippery trout.

Two years ago, when reputations were being rescaled for sound pictures, it appeared that Cinemactress Garbo was losing ground to several rivals—Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton. It is now clear that, in a sense, she has no rivals. The fact that she has made comparatively few pictures for the last two years has helped her to retain an independent popularity, to thrive on the flattery of imitation. Once a soaper of chins in a Stockholm barbershop, she has already selected the island near Stockholm where she will live when retired from cinemacting. Her contract expires next year and Cinemactress Garbo, whose reluctance to become a member of Hollywood "society" baffles Hollywood, has not yet revealed her plans.