Connie and Troy Find Love (Eventually) in "Susan Slade"

This third collaboration between writer-director Delmer Daves and teen heartthrob Troy Donahue lacks the youthful passion of A Summer Place and the entertaining subplots of Parrish. Still, it’s a diverting big-screen soap with all the elements of Daves’s polished formula: beautiful scenery (the Monterey coast line), first-time love, affluent people, well-developed relationships between young people and their parents, and a lovely music score by Max Steiner (though it’s not as memorable as the ones he did for the previous two films).

Connie Stevens (graduating from a supporting role in Parrish) plays the title character, a naïve young woman who has spent her teenage years in Chile with her parents. Her father, Roger Slade (Lloyd Nolan), has worked as a chief engineer for a mine company, earning his boss, Stanton Corbett, over $20 million. To show his gratitude, Corbett has bought a home along the Monterey coast for Roger’s family and provided a substantial pension.

Connie Stevens in the title role.

On the ocean cruise to California, Susan falls in love with rich playboy Conn White (Grant Williams), who climbs mountains in lieu of a job. It’s hard to tell initially if Conn (I love that name) truly cares for Susan, but he is physically attracted to her. Believing that she has found her true love, Susan gives in to Conn’s desires. As is inevitable in any good soap, Susan becomes pregnant. When fate intervenes to keep Susan and Conn apart, Susan’s mother devises an unintentionally cruel plan to protect the family from scandal.

Dorothy McGuire as Susan's mother.

A strong cast puts their all into this melodrama, especially Connie Stevens who is winningly vulnerable and believable in her best film role. As her mother, the ever-elegant Dorothy McGuire gets the picture’s juiciest part—her Leah Slade is a well-meaning parent whose motives for helping her daughter ultimately become questionable. Surprisingly, Troy’s role is pretty much a supporting one, a slight variation of the chip-on-his-shoulder young man he played in Parrish. Still, as in that film, he and Connie share a natural chemistry that brings a sweetness to their scenes together.

TV fans can also take delight in seeing Natalie Schafer giving what amounts to a dress rehearsal for her most famous role—as Mrs. Howell on Gilligan’s Island. Almost as rewarding is the opportunity to see future game show host Bert Convy as Wells (another great name), Susan’s snobby, stinking-rich suitor (you just know that he doesn’t have a chance).

After Susan Slade, Delmer Daves and Troy Donahue would pair up one last time. However, the travelogue romance Rome Adventure broke from the successful soap formula and, perhaps as a result, its boxoffice failed to match A Summer Place, Parrish, and Susan Slade. It could also be that—as always happens with teen heartthrobs—Troy’s popularity was beginning to fade. Still, Rome Adventure had one positive result for Troy: It introduced him to his wife Suzanne Pleshette.