105 Minutes – Drama
Language: English
Festival release date: September 9, 1980 (Festival of Festivals, Toronto)
Release date: September 18, 1981 (Finland)
Production company: RSL Films
Canadian distributor:
U.S. distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Suzanne is based on the book Snowlark by co-screenwriter Ronald Sutherland. It is set in a working-glass area of Montréal in the early 1950s. In an attempt to escape the endless reality of endless poverty, a young girl (Jennifer Dale), the title character, finds that she is endlessly attracted to men. She is used by them and then abandoned. Now pregnant as a result of one such brief encounter with a petty criminal, Suzanne gets involved with and marries a man she does not love so that her child will have a home and father.
Suzanne had its premiere screening at the 1980 Festival of Festivals in Toronto. It was re-edited and a shorter version was ultimately released to wildly divergent reviews. Some rhapsodized saying it was “robustly played and forcefully told, it is poignant without false emotion,” while others wrote, “the initial premises or concerns become trivialized by heavy, stock type melodramatizlng. So much so that by the end of the film we are immersed in a kind of turgid, ungenteel Harlequin Romance.”
Winston Rekert made his feature film debut in Suzanne, while it was Jennifer Dale’s first big starring vehicle.
The poster for Suzanne was scanned from an original in the Northernstars Collection.
Robert Lantos
Stephen Lantos
Stephen J. Roth
Ronald Sutherland
Robin Spry
Miklós Lente
Fima Noveck
François Cousineau
Vianney Gauthier
Louise Jobin
Jennifer Dale
Gabriel Arcand
Winston Rekert
Ken Pogue
Michelle Rossignol
Marianne McIsaac
Gordon Thompson
Gina Dick
Michael Ironside
Helen Hughes
Pierre Curzi
Yvan Ducharme
Marc Gélinas
Aubert Pallascio
Michele Scarabelli
Jean Archambault
Suzanne McDonald
Georges Laflamme
Nicky Callaghan
Andrew McDonald
Yvette McDonald
Kathy
Greg
Marilyn
Jimmy
Mrs. Callaghan
Pierre
Eddy
Restaurant Owner
Detective
Go-Go Dancer
East End Club Waiter
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First published as Northernstars.net February 1, 1998
ISSN 2563 4895