What a goofy film with a unique premise. Lillian Harvey plays Suzanne, a woman who is supposed to be a ballet dancer from her costume and the exercises she is being put through, but it seems like novelty dancing she is actually doing, along with acts that are like Busby Berkeley in that they would HAVE to be filmed. For instance, she builds a snowman out of parts in a winter scene, the snowman comes to life, and then melts when she kisses him.
She is completely dominated by "Mama" the woman who trains her, and "The Baron" who really serves no purpose that I could see other than to bleed as much money from Suzanne as possible and keep her under his control by shaming her, criticizing her, and threatening to leave her, which she'd be the better for if she was mentally healthy. "Mama", on the other hand, does not seem to be that bad, but she does know what the baron is doing and doesn't stop him.
A young puppeteer (Gene Raymond as Tony) becomes interested in Suzanne, not so much for herself, but for making a sketch of her so he can make a puppet likeness of her. When the baron catches them together the Baron shames and coerces Suzanne into agreeing to marry him. Suzanne is desperately afraid of abandonment. But the night that the wedding is to occur, Suzanne is injured so badly in a fall during a performance that the doctors all say she will never dance again. The Baron exits stage left as his golden goose is now cooked. Tony takes Suzanne in, gets a specialist to help her walk again, and puts her to work in his puppet show.
Eventually, Tony asks her to marry him, and she agrees at first, but Tony pretty much admits that the puppets are his friends, and seems to love and relate to Suzanne the puppet more than Suzanne the person. Suzanne angrily shoots her puppet rival and then has a surreal dream in which she is tried by puppets for the murder of her puppet self.
Meanwhile, the Baron is having to roll his own cigarettes and drink beer instead of drinking fine wine and smoking cigars, with his new dancer being a no talent bust. When he learns that Suzanne is capable of dancing again, he goes to her with a whole new bag of manipulative tricks.
You really have to feel for Suzanne. The best thing she could probably do is break from puppet-obsessed Tony and the money-loving baron and declare "I am Suzanne" for the rest of her life. Both Tony and the Baron utter that same statement at different times during the film. This is not exactly a tale of female empowerment.
In the end this whole thing is a surrealist's dream, from puppet shows that are beautiful to look at but go on just a bit too long, to the pretty sets in which Suzanne performs more than she dances, to Gene Raymond as the somewhat neutered romantic lead with the figurine fetish, to the weird tinting the whole film takes on, as though this entire thing were a fairy tale to begin with.
I'd recommend it for the weirdness of it all. And the next time somebody tells you there is nothing new under the sun, show them a copy of this film.
She is completely dominated by "Mama" the woman who trains her, and "The Baron" who really serves no purpose that I could see other than to bleed as much money from Suzanne as possible and keep her under his control by shaming her, criticizing her, and threatening to leave her, which she'd be the better for if she was mentally healthy. "Mama", on the other hand, does not seem to be that bad, but she does know what the baron is doing and doesn't stop him.
A young puppeteer (Gene Raymond as Tony) becomes interested in Suzanne, not so much for herself, but for making a sketch of her so he can make a puppet likeness of her. When the baron catches them together the Baron shames and coerces Suzanne into agreeing to marry him. Suzanne is desperately afraid of abandonment. But the night that the wedding is to occur, Suzanne is injured so badly in a fall during a performance that the doctors all say she will never dance again. The Baron exits stage left as his golden goose is now cooked. Tony takes Suzanne in, gets a specialist to help her walk again, and puts her to work in his puppet show.
Eventually, Tony asks her to marry him, and she agrees at first, but Tony pretty much admits that the puppets are his friends, and seems to love and relate to Suzanne the puppet more than Suzanne the person. Suzanne angrily shoots her puppet rival and then has a surreal dream in which she is tried by puppets for the murder of her puppet self.
Meanwhile, the Baron is having to roll his own cigarettes and drink beer instead of drinking fine wine and smoking cigars, with his new dancer being a no talent bust. When he learns that Suzanne is capable of dancing again, he goes to her with a whole new bag of manipulative tricks.
You really have to feel for Suzanne. The best thing she could probably do is break from puppet-obsessed Tony and the money-loving baron and declare "I am Suzanne" for the rest of her life. Both Tony and the Baron utter that same statement at different times during the film. This is not exactly a tale of female empowerment.
In the end this whole thing is a surrealist's dream, from puppet shows that are beautiful to look at but go on just a bit too long, to the pretty sets in which Suzanne performs more than she dances, to Gene Raymond as the somewhat neutered romantic lead with the figurine fetish, to the weird tinting the whole film takes on, as though this entire thing were a fairy tale to begin with.
I'd recommend it for the weirdness of it all. And the next time somebody tells you there is nothing new under the sun, show them a copy of this film.