By Richard Harland Smith
One Night at Susie's
Brief Synopsis
A boarding house keeper's gangster tenants step in to help when her son is framed for murder.
Cast & Crew
Read More
John Francis Dillon
Director
Billie Dove
Mary
Douglas Fairbanks
Dick
Helen Ware
Susie
Tully Marshall
Buckeye Bill
James Crane
Houlihan
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Release Date
Oct
19,
1930
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the short story "One Night at Susie's" by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan (publication undetermined).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 25m
Sound
Vitaphone
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
5,760ft
(8 reels)
Synopsis
Susie, a friend to gangsters and ex-convicts, rears Dick Rollins, son of a dead convict, making certain that he steers clear of underworld elements, and gets him a job as a press agent. When he brings home Mary, a chorus girl, and announces their engagement, Susie is infuriated. Hayes, the producer of Mary's show, gives them an engagement party, but at the last minute Dick has to work; later, he discovers that Mary killed Hayes to escape from his advances and assumes the blame himself. Despite Mary's protests, Dick is convicted of manslaughter. Although Susie regrets the turn of events, she places hope in Mary's future with Dick. While in prison, Dick writes a play for Mary; unable to obtain a producer for it, Mary accepts the offer of Drake to stage the play if she is included in the deal. Houlihan, who has unsuccessfully pursued Mary, learns of her relations with Drake and informs Susie. After denial, Mary confesses the truth to Susie; Susie promises not to tell Dick, and the lovers are reunited upon his release.
Director
John Francis Dillon
Director
Cast
Billie Dove
Mary
Douglas Fairbanks
Dick
Helen Ware
Susie
Tully Marshall
Buckeye Bill
James Crane
Houlihan
John Loder
Hayes
Claude Fleming
Drake
Crew
Videos
Movie Clip
Trailer
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Release Date
Oct
19,
1930
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the short story "One Night at Susie's" by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan (publication undetermined).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 25m
Sound
Vitaphone
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
5,760ft
(8 reels)
Articles
One Night at Susie's -
Though all but forgotten today, Billie Dove was once considered such a threat to the career stability of silent film stars Marion Davies, Clara Bow, and Mary Pickford that Pickford insisted on doubling Dove in her love scenes for The Black Pirate (1926), lest her rival's leading man - Pickford's husband Douglas Fairbanks - get any ideas. The first Hollywood actress to receive a Technicolor screen test, Dove retired at the height of her career (following a three-year tryst with Howard Hughes). One of her last projects was the early talkie One Night at Susie's (1930), a First National-Warner Brothers crime melodrama that suggested to Depression era moviegoers that randy Broadway producers were as great a threat to the moral fabric of the nation as racketeers, mobsters, and bootleggers. Dove plays a chorus girl who kills her boss (John Loder) during an attempted rape and allows her lover (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to take the fall; in prison, Fairbanks writes a sure-fire hit play that could make Dove a star, if she can only excite the interest of a new producer. Dismissed by the critics of the day, One Night at Susie's did little to advance the careers of its players but director of photography Ernest Haller would establish himself as a top-flight cinematographer, shooting such prestige pictures for Warners as Captain Blood (1935), Dark Victory (1939), Mr. Skeffington (1944), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
One Night at Susie's -
Though all but forgotten today, Billie Dove was once considered such a threat to the career stability of silent film stars Marion Davies, Clara Bow, and Mary Pickford that Pickford insisted on doubling Dove in her love scenes for The Black Pirate (1926), lest her rival's leading man - Pickford's husband Douglas Fairbanks - get any ideas. The first Hollywood actress to receive a Technicolor screen test, Dove retired at the height of her career (following a three-year tryst with Howard Hughes). One of her last projects was the early talkie One Night at Susie's (1930), a First National-Warner Brothers crime melodrama that suggested to Depression era moviegoers that randy Broadway producers were as great a threat to the moral fabric of the nation as racketeers, mobsters, and bootleggers. Dove plays a chorus girl who kills her boss (John Loder) during an attempted rape and allows her lover (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to take the fall; in prison, Fairbanks writes a sure-fire hit play that could make Dove a star, if she can only excite the interest of a new producer. Dismissed by the critics of the day, One Night at Susie's did little to advance the careers of its players but director of photography Ernest Haller would establish himself as a top-flight cinematographer, shooting such prestige pictures for Warners as Captain Blood (1935), Dark Victory (1939), Mr. Skeffington (1944), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.
By Richard Harland Smith
