A friend just sent me a great copy of this film. It is black and white, but primarily sepia-colored when the stage performances are shown.From the first I felt an empathy for poor Suzanne who practiced for hours and was forced by her manager (well-played by Leslie Banks) to isolate from fans or friends. Her helper, "Mama", was in sympathy, but was out for what she could get. She tirelessly keeps Suzanne practicing her ballet steps.When Suzanne meets Tony the puppeteer, her manager throws him out, as he fears she will leave the act. He is jealous in a personal sense as well. Even when Tony explains he wants to sketch a puppet of Suzanne, The Baron gets angry. Though he never appreciates her fine singing voice and her lovely stage dancing, he is quick to pocket a lot of Suzanne's earnings. He also uses psychology on Suzanne to get her to marry him. Hinting that she will be without her act if she does not, Suzanne is afraid to give up her dancing and singing. She almost tearfully asks "the Baron" to marry her and it is arranged.When Suzanne (beautifully portrayed by Lillian Harvey) sang and did her stage performances, I felt pleasantly surprised by the lovely intertwining harmonies supplied by the puppeteers, who had their people sing and dance with lovely precision. The singing voices are reminiscent of the haunting harmonies of the voices in Merrie Melodies cartoons of the 30s and also films I love of the early 30s.When Suzanne is doing her act "flying through the air" from the audience to the stage, Tony begs her not to marry the Baron. Thus, she recognizes feelings for him which cause her to miss-step. As she falls and ends up in hospital, Suzanne is encouraged by the doctor and Tony daily. Tony helps with her exercises and Suzanne is recovering. She does not wish to marry the Baron and tells him so.I have not seen many puppet performances, but these are superb! The dancers are perfect replicas of Tony and Suzanne and dance beautifully in time to the music. I do like The Puppet People and a film with Lionel Barrymore where he wreaks vengeance on people, shrinking them to doll size. These are skillfully done, but show the real people in close-ups as well as the puppets.In I Am Suzanne, we see more close-ups of the puppets. AS reviewers have already pointed out, Suzanne is confused about Tony's feelings when he proposes to her through the life-like puppet he has made of himself (and her). Later he explains that she, as a star, was an ideal to him. He never thought he would be close enough to propose marriage to her.I will not spoil the denouement of the film for others. I think it is time well spent.

Tony (Gene Raymond) is a poor but likable puppeteer. While his marionettes are charming, his audience is tiny. One day he sees the vivacious Suzanne (Lillian Harvey) performing on stage and he's enchanted...so enchanted that he wants to design a puppet after her. However, her manager won't allow Tony or anyone to get close to his protégé and this is because he carefully manipulates her and degrades her talent in order to keep her believing she needs him to be a success! This guy, the Baron (Leslie Banks), is a real jerk and when he asks her to marry him, you assume it's not out of love but more a business proposition to keep her under his wing. Tony is convinced the Baron doesn't love Suzanne and tells her...at which time her concentration is disrupted and she takes a terrible fall during the show.For the next several months, Tony takes care of Suzanne and nurses her back to health...even though it appears she'll never dance again. Slowly, very slowly, she begins to recover--during which time she learns puppetry from Tony. Sadly, during all this time the Baron never sees her. After all, she's no longer of use to him. But when he learns she's recovering, this manipulative jerk springs into action...and does his best to sow seeds of discord in the blossoming relationship between Suzanne and Tony. Tony himself doesn't help it any when he starts to take it for granted that Suzanne no longer wants a life on the stage but with him and his marionettes. What's next?This is a very charming picture and your heart aches for poor Suzanne. After all, she never is allowed by anyone to choose what she wants. Plus, she's so neglected and mistreated by the Baron-- and this is a sharp contrast to the amazing and very sweet marionette shows throughout the film. My only quibble is some of these sequences go on a bit too long. Still, it's an unusual film and somewhat reminiscent of both "Svengali" and "Lili". Well worth seeing...and oddly, a very pink movie since someone thought it was a good idea to tint this black & white film!

You have probably never seen a movie like "I Am Suzanne!" Read the summary and you will get a feel for it, and it will save me from trying to explain why this is such a rewarding, heartwarming film - and those are adjectives I seldom use. I just wonder where the idea came for this picture - 'original' is hardly the word to describe it.I think it is basically a love story and would be rated 'G' today, as it would have great appeal to children; think "Hans Christian Andersen" (1953) but minus puppets, and that would approximate the depth of the plot. The principals are childlike, and behave like children would think adults behave. Bland 30's leading man Gene Raymond is the puppeteer who thinks his marionettes are almost real, and Lilian Harvey is an unhappy dancer. They fall in love, although she is a greater success than he; few come to see his puppet shows and she is a celebrity.Special mention should be made of the Yale Puppeteers, the real stars of the piece. When they are on-camera they steal the show, as much as possible for dolls on strings. So good are the Puppeteers that the dolls come to life in the several different set pieces they are in. I always thought puppeteers just stood above the puppet stage, but here they have intricate walkways to follow the movements of the puppets. The whole novel effect of the picture is fascinating and might have been better with a replacement for Raymond. Also if Fox spent a few more dollars on the production.This one is worth it if you can find it. It comes in one-strip color but my copy was slightly blurry. Find a good movie pirate and buy it.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an old VHS documentary about the famed - in the puppetry world - Yale Puppeteers and their Turnabout Theatre. The documentary discussed how, in the early thirties, they had been asked to create a marionette sequence for a Hollywood film. The tape also showed a few scratchy but tantalizing scenes from the movie that included an elaborately staged musical sequence, some sort of trial run by Satan and some cameos by marionette versions of the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin. Having an interest in puppetry . . .I needed to find that film. After an exhausting thirty seconds of google-ing, I found the name of the film, the stars and the fact that it seemed to have fallen into public domain and out of print. Luckily, some enterprising gentleman - and there seem to be many - had managed to get what appeared to be an old VHS copy of the film burned onto a DVD and was selling it on Ioffer. I offered and it arrived a few days later. I would have preferred that the quality of the DVD had been better, but I was able to watch it. Obviously a "B" picture, but still very enjoyable. As has been noted by other reviewers, Miss Harvey plays Suzannne, the main dancer and star attraction in a Paris theater. She is, in most ways, the puppet of her manager who tells her what and when to do everything and controls every aspect of her life, even attempting to control who and how she loves. Tony is a puppet-master at a failing, small theater nearby. Tony's whole life revolves around puppets to the point that it is the only way he can deal with people: as puppets. He even resorts to using a puppet to get to know Suzanne after he becomes smitten with her.When an accident changes circumstances for Suzanne, she develops a closeness to Tony and, at one point, becomes his puppet. But, after a fun little dream sequence and a sort of puppet trial, Suzanne manages to sever the strings but maintain the connections and Tony learns that people aren't puppets. As one would expect since its 1933, all ends well.The film suffers from the limited budget, a script that is never quite as good as its concept and themes and by a lead actress who is decent, but not great. There are, though, some fascinating dance sequences where Miss Harvey is thrown around the stage like a puppet. The marionette work is lots of fun with glimpses of performances, the puppeteers in action and even some of the puppet construction. It is, in many ways, a rare and wonderful glimpse at the power and popularity that puppetry had at one time.