Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Movie Review

Dream a Little Dream

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 18, 2016

The 1954 screwball confection Susan Slept Here has impeccable comic credentials. The director, Frank Tashlin, began his career directing Warner Brothers cartoons like Scrappy Happy Daffy and Porky Pig's Feat—and you can spot the Looney Tunes touch in some of Susan's slapstick. Screenwriter Alex Gottlieb was best known for producing the films and TV show of Abbott & Costello. Star Dick Powell had spent much of his career as a light-hearted song-and-dance man, and co-star Debbie Reynolds had made a musical comedy splash two years earlier flanked by Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain. Add in such reliable supporting players as Alvy Moore (best known today for TV's Green Acres), Glenda Farrell (Lady for a Day) and, as the film's villainess, a memorably vampish Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet)—and then just stir the pot.

The Warner Archive Collection is taking a short break from thrillers and film noir to add Susan Slept Here to its Blu-ray collection. It was WAC that originally brought Susan to DVD in 2010, but the Blu-ray is sourced from a new master that displays the film's festive holiday palette to best advantage.

Gottlieb's screenplay, adapted from a play he co-wrote with Steve Fisher, announces its utter lack of serious intention by having Susan narrated by an Oscar statue (voiced by an uncredited Art Gilmore). A member of a large family, this particular Oscar belongs to screenwriter Mark Christopher (Powell), who won fame and fortune for a comedic script that has hung around his neck like an albatross every since. Like the hero of Sullivan's Travels, Mark wants to do Serious Drama, and his continued refusal to take profitable comedy assignments from the studio prompts consternation by his long-time secretary, Maude Snodgrass (Farrell), and his friend and majordomo, Virgil (Moore), an old Navy buddy.

On Christmas Eve, Mark is prepared to take break from slaving over his screenplay to make an obligatory appearance at a society party hosted by his imperious girlfriend, Isabella Alexander (Francis). One gets the sense that much of Isabella's appeal for Mark is that he doesn't really like her, which eliminates any temptation toward the altar. But Mark's plans are interrupted by the arrival of an L.A. cop, Sgt. Sam Hanlon (veteran character actor Abe Vigran), who knows Mark from a technical consulting job for the movies. Hanlon and his partner, Sgt. Monty Maizel (Horace McMahon), have arrested 17-year-old Susan Landis (Reynolds) for bashing a sailor over the head with a beer bottle, but Hanson doesn't want to throw the kid in jail for Christmas. Maybe Mark can keep her for a day to "research" her story for a script?

The premise is no more absurd than a talking Oscar, and neither is the further development that finds Mark and Susan warming to each other, despite their mutual suspicion. Before you know it—and I mean that literally, because it happens so fast—Mark has agreed to a sham marriage with Susan that will keep her out of jail. Don't think too hard about the legal technicalities. Leave it all to Mark's lawyer, Harvey (Les Tremayne), just as Mark does.

Naturally Isabella is outraged by this turn of events, which she learns through the famous gossip columnist Louella Parsons, playing herself on the telephone (her daughter, Harriet, produced the film). Naturally there are quibbles and scruples over who sleeps in what bed. Susan may be a spitfire with a temper, but she's also a good girl; the screenplay goes out of its way to confirm that she's a virgin. Only a star of Reynolds' caliber could have transformed this impossible plot function into a credible presence. Bouncing hyperkinetically through Mark's apartment, talking non-stop and changing moods faster than you can say "teenage hormones", Reynolds' Susan works her charm on both Mark and the audience to the point where, by the end of the film, a romantic relationship between the 17-year-old ingenue and the 35-year-old bachelor doesn't seem so inappropriate. The dream sequence dance number helps, and it's also director Tashlin's best set-piece, a live-action cartoon in which Mark, Susan and Isabella whirl, clash and repel each other like some rom-com version of Babes in Toyland.

Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Susan Slept Here was shot by Nicholas Musuraca (Out of the Past) in the era just before Kodak introduced the problematic Eastmancolor stock that has provided so many challenges for film preservation because of its pronounced yellow fade. Susan's negative, from which the Warner Archive Collection has sourced a new master for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, suffers from no such flaw. Its vibrant Technicolor palette, meticulously color-corrected by Warner's MPI facility, remains vivid across the entire spectrum, which encompasses the omnipresent reds and greens of Yule decor, as well as the frequent deep blues (no one wears a black tuxedo) and the intense pink background against which Susan dreams of Mark. Even the gold of Mark's Oscar, the film's narrator, has a pleasing shine. Detail is plentiful in this artificial world constructed by production crews and costume designers, and the film's grain pattern has been finely rendered. Consistent with its usual mastering standards, WAC has placed the 98-minute film on a BD-50 with an average bitrate just below 35 Mbps. It's hard to imagine a better image.

WAC has formatted Susan at 1.66:1, which is the ratio of the original theatrical release. The film was released during the U.S. transition from Academy Ratio to widescreen, when a variety of proposed ARs were vying for preference and first-run venues had to be equipped for multiple options. The 1.66:1 ratio enjoyed a longer life in Europe than it did here, but Susan was one of the films released that way.

Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Susan's mono soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0, with identical left and right channels, and it's one of the best-sounding mono tracks among recent WAC releases. Not only is the dialogue clear and distinct, but the musical score by Leigh Harline (Pinocchio) plays with clarity and a smooth top end that is never fatiguing. Susan has two original songs: the title track by Jack Lawrence, which is sung over the opening and closing credits; and the Oscar-nominated "Hold My Hand" by Lawrence and Richard Myers, sung by Don Cornell. Both sound great.

Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only extra is a trailer (480i; 1.33:1; 2:17), which has not been remastered in 1080p, because Warner's library of RKO Radio Films library does not contain an original element.

Susan Slept Here Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Susan couldn't be made today. Even the greatest actress could not pull off Reynolds' combination of naïveté and incipient womanliness in a contemporary setting, and her "sham" marriage with a 35-year-old would immediately be denounced as inappropriate (or worse). Tashlin's comedy belongs to a more innocent time, and it uses that innocence to transform what might otherwise be a sordid tale into a cheerful holiday picture suitable for the whole family. Highly recommended.