I Am Suzanne!
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Rowland V. Lee
Lilian Harvey
Gene Raymond
Leslie Banks
Georgia Caine
Murray Kinnell
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
When only seven people come to the Theatre des Marionettes in Paris, puppeteer Tony Malatini visits the theater on the corner to see why crowds are attracted to his competitor. After viewing a performance by the popular dancer Suzanne, whose decisions are all made by her manager, called the Baron, Tony secretly meets Suzanne backstage and gets her permission to make a puppet based on her. The Baron, who imperially proclaims "I am Suzanne," finds Tony there, and after castigating Suzanne, threatens to turn her free. Terrified of being on her own, Suzanne quickly agrees to marry the Baron if he will stay with her. During her performance, Suzanne goes into the audience and Tony implores her not to marry the Baron. Greatly upset, Suzanne falls into the orchestra pit and injures herself. Weeks later, as the prognosis on whether she will dance again is pessimistic, the Baron prepares to make another dancer into a star. Tony convinces a doctor to help Suzanne, and as she goes through a vigorous exercise program with Tony's assistance, she also learns to be a puppeteer. They become close, and Tony explains his somewhat unusual attitude towards his puppets: they are his true friends, he says, he talks to them and still reveres the puppet of his first love, a chorus girl. When he then tells Suzanne resignedly that he will still have the puppet he has made of her when she leaves him, she is perplexed. After Suzanne is able to walk again, Tony kisses her, but immediately apologizes. Although confused and jealous of Tony's puppet of her, Suzanne helps Tony put on a vastly successful show with puppets look like celebrities, but when Tony, during a celebration, has his puppets announce that he is going to marry Suzanne, she forcefully states "I am Suzanne!" and says that she will no longer be anyone's puppet. She then shoots the puppet that resembles her. Although broken in spirit, Suzanne goes back to dancing for the Baron, and Tony's show faces failure. After a theatrical manager hires both Tony's puppets and Suzanne for a show in which they will compete against one another, Suzanne, who cannot dance because of her mental anguish, has a dream in which the puppet community puts her on trial as an unbeliever. She wakes as she is being strangled in a spider's web and then apologizes to Tony, saying that she did not mean to hurt the puppets. Tony confesses his love for Suzanne and vows to show the world that a puppet is nothing but a lump of wood. Their combined show, in which Suzanne's puppet transforms into Suzanne, is a huge success.
Director
Rowland V. Lee
Cast
Lilian Harvey
Gene Raymond
Leslie Banks
Georgia Caine
Murray Kinnell
Geneva Mitchell
Halliwell Hobbes
Edward Keane
Lionel Belmore
Crew
Jack Boland
Forman Brown
Louis De Francesco
Lee Garmes
Frederick Hollander
S. Hurok
Rita Kaufman
Jesse L. Lasky
Rowland V. Lee
Sammy Lee
Edwin Justus Mayer
Max Parker
Harold Schuster
Winfield R. Sheehan
E. C. Ward
Yale Puppeteers
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
A 35mm copy of this film survives at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A 16mm copy is held by Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
Notes
Working titles for this film were Puppets and Puppet Show. The print viewed was tinted. International Photographer described the marionettes in the film as "The Mussolini sponsored Piccoli Marionettes, Italy's greatest theatrical troupe, nearly two hundred years old." According to information in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Theater Arts Library, Fred M. Herzig and Hector Turnbull wrote a story entitled Puppet Show, which they sold to Fox, and S. N. Behrman produced a continuity based on the story, but none of that material was used for this film. Some reviews and the copyright entry list the title without the explanation point. According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, Lilian Harvey broke her toe after a fall from a tightrope during pre-production. Because of this, the puppet show was shot at the beginning of the shooting schedule rather than at the end. According to Daily Variety, a preview on December 15, 1933 in Westwood Village was 115 minutes. In New York, the Radio City Music Hall showings beginning January 18, 1934 were 99 minutes, according to Variety, and Harrrison's Reports lists the film's running time as 100 minutes. Later in January 1934, the Motion Picture Herald release chart lists the running time as 85 minutes.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1933
Released in United States 1978
Released in United States 1933
Released in United States 1978 (Shown at FILMEX: Los Angeles International Film Exposition (Special Programs - Treasures From the Museum of Modern Art Film Archives) April 13 - May 7, 1978.)
