Susan Strasberg Movies
The daughter of renowned acting coaches Lee and Paula Strasberg, Susan Strasberg did not, as has often been assumed, attend her father's celebrated Actors Studio. She was, however, a close friend of several of her parents' most famous students--notably Marilyn Monroe, the subject of Strawsberg's affectionate 1992 memoir Marilyn and Me. While growing up, Strasberg harbored dreams of becoming a scientist like her idol Marie Curie, but many of her parents' friends urged the girl to give acting a try. Mildly curious, she made her off-Broadway debut in the 1952 production Maya. Two years later, she made her first television appearance as Shakespeare's Juliet, and shortly thereafter was cast as a regular on the Hume Cronyn-Jessica Tandy TV situation comedy The Marriage. At 17, Susan blossomed into full-fledged stardom when she played the leading role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play The Diary of Anne Frank. By 1957, she was being tagged as "Helen Hayes' successor" by several influential critics. Her first film appearances in The Cobweb and Picnic (both 1955) also bode well for a long and lasting stardom. Unfortunately, Susan's ardent supporters began turning on her when she starred in Stage Struck, the 1957 remake of Morning Glory (1933). Her over-the-top rendition of the role that had won Katharine Hepburn an Oscar back in 1933 was almost universally drubbed by the critics, prompting Strasberg to flee the U.S. and resettle in Europe. In the early 1960s, director Franco Zeffirelli persuaded her to return to Broadway in his production of Dumas' Lady of the Camelias. Alas, this effort also proved disastrous, forcing her to grasp at straws to revive her reputation. Her best effort during this awkward phase of her career was the Yugoslav-Italian film Kapo (1960), in which she played a concentration camp survivor. Such excellent opportunities were rare indeed; for the most part, Strasberg was mired in such tripe as Psych-Out (1967) and The Name of the Game is Kill (1968). In 1973, Susan returned to television as co-star of the detective series Toma. She has since continued to accept character roles of fluctuating quality in both U.S. and Canadian productions. In 1980, Susan penned her autobiography Bittersweet, which detailed her brief marriage to actor Christopher Jones, the heart defect that long imperiled the life of her daughter Jennifer, and the debilitating burden of being too famous too soon. Reflecting on her career in 1974, Susan Strasberg compared her teen-aged stardom to "trying to play a violin before it's finished." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1966
This story of love and espionage focuses on political turmoil as a small nation struggles to free itself from colonial rule, and one man tries to serve both justice and his own heart. In the late 1950s, the island of Cyprus is under the political control of Great Britain, but groups of Cypriot activists are fighting for the country's independence. Maj. McGuire (Dirk Bogarde) is an English military leader who is on the trail of Haghios (George Chakiris), a terrorist leader who guides the struggle for freedom in Cyprus. Juno Kozani (Susan Strasberg) is an American student of archeology who visits friends on the island, only to discover that they're helping to hide Haghios from the police and the British military. McGuire is convinced that Kozani knows Haghios' whereabouts, but while she has told McGuire nothing, Haghios is convinced that Kozani has turned him in and threatens to kill her. Desperate, Kozani seeks protection from McGuire, who allows her to hide out in his apartment. Put into close contact, McGuire and Kozani fall in love, but when his superiors find out that he's been keeping her in hiding, McGuire is transferred to Greece. Kozani follows him there, only to discover that a mysterious man has been following them. The High Bright Sun has also been released under the titles McGuire Go Home! and A Date with Death. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, George Chakiris, (more)
- 1966
Released theatrically in Europe, Cosa Nostra, Arch Enemy of the FBI originated as "The Executioner", a two-part episode of the weekly TV series The FBI. The series' usual stars Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Philip Abbott and Stephen Brooks are joined on this occasion by guest artists Walter Pidgeon, Celeste Holm, Telly Savalas and Susan Strasberg-and, way down on the cast list, Robert Duvall. The story concerns double-crosses within the inner circles of La Cosa Nostra. The story concludes as mob boss Pidgeon orders the death of witness Holm-with the victim's nephew Savalas as the hit man! "The Executioner" first aired on two consecutive Sundays: March 12 and 19, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Four Kings is a 60-minute World War II drama starring Peter Falk, Robert Strauss, Vito Scotti and Than Wyenn as four prisoners serving life sentences. They are pulled out of jail by the US military and given an opportunity for a pardon. The "brass" isn't asking for much: all the four lifers are expected to do is sneak into Germany and steal the secret plans for the V2 missile. Four Kings was originally telecast in 1963 on NBC's Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre. When it was rerun in early 1972, the closing credits had to be readjusted to reflect the fact that supporting player Hans Gudegast had changed his name to Eric Braeden. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1962
The "official" title of this film is Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man; its screenplay is adapted from semi-autobiographical "Nick Adams" stories written by Ernest Hemingway. Played by Richard Beymer (West Side Story), Nick Adams is a young Michigan boy who sets out in the early 1900s to learn about life and to pursue a journalistic career. No sooner is he on his way than he gets his first taste of "real life" by being thrown off a train by a railroad agent. He attempts to secure newspaper work, but is laughed out of the office due to his inexperience. He gains valuable insight on the human condition while serving in the Italian army during World War One, where (in Farewell to Arms fashion) a star-crossed romance develops between Nick and a Red Cross nurse (Susan Strasberg). Nick returns to America determined to pursue his destiny by writing of his now-vast experiences. Long and somewhat poky, Adventures of a Young Man is enlivened by the cameo appearance of Paul Newman as a pathetic, punch drunk boxer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Beymer, Diane Baker, (more)
- 1962
Disorder was a French/Italian co-production, released as Le Desordre in France and Il Disordine in Italy (somebody was in a rut). This leisurely paced modern fable stars Renato Salvatore as a poor young man, struggling to pay for his mother's medical bills. Virtually everyone whom Salvatore approaches for help fails him: An industrialist reneges on a promise, a well-to-do friend laughs in his face, and a priest is defrocked before he can do any good. When the young man is finally able to raise the necessary money, he discovers that the ex-priest has sold all his possessions in order to help Salvatore's mother. Thus it is the film's one Good Samaritan whose life ends up in "disorder." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Renato Salvatori, Louis Jourdan, (more)
- 1961
The British writer/director team of Jimmy Sangster and Seth Holt was never satisfied unless it scared the bejeepers out of its audience. Scream of Fear stars Susan Strasberg as the crippled daughter of Ann Todd, whom she meets for the first time during a vacation on the Riviera. There's something unsettling about Strasberg's surroundings and her mother's behavior. But when Strasberg insists that she's seen the dead body of her father, it is she who is considered off the beam, while everyone else is treated as normal. Perhaps the authorities are right; perhaps Strasberg is merely neurotic and overwrought. And perhaps there's more than one plot twist ahead of us as we draw nearer and nearer the truth. Scream of Fear was originally released in Great Britain as Taste of Fear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, (more)
- 1959
The French/Italian/Yugoslav concentration camp drama Kapo stars Susan Strasberg, who several years earlier had originated the title role in the Broadway production The Diary of Anne Frank. Here, Ms. Strasberg is once again a European Jewish teenager victimized by the Nazis. Interred in a concentration camp, Strasberg is befriended by the camp's kindly doctor, who helps her hide her true identity and work as a camp guard, or "kapo." Unfortunately, Strasberg's new found power goes to her head, and her abuse of that power is very nearly on the same level as the Nazis. Brought down to earth by the death of a close friend, Strasberg spearheads an escape attempt, sacrificing her own life in the process. Nominated for a best foreign picture Oscar in 1960, Kapo nonetheless did not find an American distributor until 1964. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Didi Perego, Gianni Garko, (more)
- 1957
This remake of Zoe Akins' Morning Glory stars Susan Strasberg as Eva Lovelace, the role that won Katharine Hepburn her first Oscar back in 1933. Fresh from the midwest, the starry-eyed Eva arrives in New York, convinced that she has what it takes to be Broadway's greatest actress. Armed with more chutzpah than talent, Eva proves fascinating to big-time producer Lewis Easton (Henry Fonda) and playwright Joe Sheridan (Christopher Plummer, in his film debut). But the realization of her girl remains just outside of Eva's reach until she replaces temperamental star Rita Vernon (Joan Greenwood) on the opening night of Sheridan's newest play. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Henry Fonda, Susan Strasberg, (more)
- 1955
William Gibson's novel The Cobweb was brought to the screen by MGM with an impressive, hand-picked cast. Richard Widmark plays the head of a posh psychiatric clinic. Widmark's wife Gloria Grahame jockeys for the honor of selecting new drapes for the hospital's library. One wouldn't think that such a trivial decision would spark so much melodrama; but thanks to those drapes, we are allowed to probe the disturbed psyches of martinet business affairs director Lillian Gish, philandering doctor Charles Boyer, lonely activities director Lauren Bacall, and suicidal patient John Kerr. Oscar Levant, who spent most of his life in and out of "little white rooms", is ideally cast as a neurotic musician, while Fay Wray has a superb cameo as Boyer's long-suffering wife. Cobweb served as the screen debuts for both John Kerr and Susan Strasberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, (more)
One of the biggest box-office attractions of the 1950s, Picnic was adapted by Daniel Taradash from the Pulitzer Prize-winning William Inge play. William Holden plays Hal Carter, a handsome drifter who ambles into a small Kansas town during the Labor Day celebration to look up old college chum Alan (Cliff Robertson, in his film debut). Hoping to hit up Alan for a job--or a handout--Hal ends up stealing his buddy's fiancee Madge Owens (Kim Novak). Hal also has a catnip effect on spinster schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney (Rosalind Russell), so much so that Rosemary makes a fool of herself in front of the whole town, nearly driving away her longtime beau Howard Bevans (Arthur O'Connell). Persuaded by his friends and family that Hal is no damn good, Madge is prepared to break off her relationship. As anyone who remembers the film's famous overhead closing shot knows, however, Madge is ultimately ruled by her heart and not her head. For a film set in Kansas, there's an awful lot of New York talent in the supporting cast (Susan Strasberg and Phyllis Newman come immediately to mind); still, the Midwestern ambience comes through loud and clear, especially during the perceptively detailed Labor Day picnic sequence. Broadening the film's appeal is its George Duning-Steve Allen title song, a variation of the old standard "Moonglow". Two sidebars: The original Broadway production of Picnic starred Ralph Meeker and Paul Newman; for the film version of Picnic, William Holden was obliged to shave his chest, lest his hairy torso cause the female moviegoers to conjure up impure thoughts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William Holden, Rosalind Russell, (more)
