Another big British favourite from the seventies , Susan was born in Manila in 1949 but returned to Cornwall with her family aged 6. She trained at the Webber Douglas Academy for Dramatic Art.
1. Say Hello To Yesterday (1970 )
This was Susan's first film though she's only in one scene and has no dialogue. She plays a girl on the train that the lead character passes over in favour of a much older woman.
Leonard Whiting, fresh from his success in Romeo and Juliet, plays an unemployed and feckless young man from suburban Cobham. It's his 22nd birthday and after winding up his Dad hops on a train to London from a fiver his mum gave him. His eye is caught by a middle aged housewife ( Jean Simmons ) and he pursues her all over London, in a way that would definitely be considered stalking today, until he ends up in bed with her. Two people with too much time on their hands end up together temporarily. That's pretty much the plot.
It's described as a romantic comedy drama and there are a few laughs here and there such as when the young man follows his mark to her mum's and she's totally accepting of her daughter having a toy boy ( a good performance by Evelyn Laye ) but many of the other scenarios in the pursuit are contrived and unlikely and Whiting's charm wears very thin. In the bedroom scene, Simmons was so concerned to keep everything under wraps, her modesty had to be referred to in the script.
I enjoyed the glimpses of the lost world of my childhood and Mark Wynter's theme song but otherwise this one didn't do much for me I'm afraid.
2. Private Road ( 1971)
Susan went straight from being an extra to the lead female role in this little drama directed by Barney Platt-Mills.
Susan plays Anne, an introverted receptionist at a publishing company who gets swept off her feet by Peter ( Bruce Robinson ) an apparently promising young writer and moves in with him. It turns out that neither of them is really mature enough to handle an adult relationship and it slowly unwinds as the film progresses
This has great charm as a period piece and it won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival but it's a bit slow paced for modern tastes and some of the acting is a bit stilted. What is interesting is the rustic interlude where Anne and Peter rent a basic cottage in Scotland; I thought of Withnail And I before I learned that Robinson actually wrote that. Peter's initial domestic situation in a small flat with a junkie loser played by Michael Feast rings the same bells. You can't really care what happens to any of these characters until they've grown up a bit which I guess is the point the film's making.
Peter's other friend is played by George Fenton who found much more success as a TV composer though probably not on the back of this as the score, co-composed with Feast and David "Jeans On" Dundas is pretty dreadful.
Susan pouts and sulks but doesn't really elicit much sympathy here ; on the plus side she's bra-less throughout and there's a brief glimpse of bush in one of the bedroom scenes.
3. Under Milk Wood ( 1972 )
Susan was part of the enormous cast for this film adaptation of hard-drinking Welsh poet Dylan Thomas's radio play, completed just before he died. It concerns 24 hours in the life of a small Welsh fishing village Llareggub ( Buggerall backwards ), both awake and asleep.
The formidable task of bringing it to the big screen was undertaken by Andrew Sinclair, a friend of Peter O Toole, who brought Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on board alongside many famous Welsh faces. Burton plays the first voice , who isn't a character so Sinclair just has him wandering round the village with another bloke until they stop to have sex in a shed with some random woman who appears for the purpose ( I didn't get that bit at all ).
There's absolutely no plot at all, the focus shifting continually between different characters' perspectives , a fair proportion of whom are certifiable loonies so it often seems like an extended episode of League of Gentlemen. The biggest part went to O Toole as Captain Cat, a blind old sea captain living in a ship-shaped house, who takes over some of the narration when he's not pining for the deceased whore Rosie ( Taylor, who insisted on filming her few scenes in London and never set foot in Fishguard where the rest of it was filmed ). Among the myriad of familiar faces are David Jason as a randy idler and Angharad Rees as the village schoolteacher and object of lust for Sinbad the publican.
Susan plays Rose Mae Cottage, a teenager in a see-through dress craving for sex. This is expressed through drawing lipstick circles round her young nipples and fondling her breasts, a wonderful scene. You also get a topless scene from Ruth Madoc who wouldn't make my wishlist but they're nice enough.
4. No Sex Please We're British ( 1973 )
5. Miracles Still Happen ( 1974 )
Susan got a trip to Peru to star in this Italian film telling the remarkable story of Julianne Koepcke, a German teenager who survived falling from a plane two miles above the ground and then eleven days scrambling through the Amazon jungle without eating any of the other passengers.
In some respects, the film plays a bit loose with the facts. Koepcke's injuries were significantly worse than depicted and, at 23, Susan was a bit old to be playing someone still at school. However, Susan , the actors playing her parents and the people on board the plane are the only professional actors in the film, with the other roles filled by locals who were actually involved in the events.
The film has good and bad points. The effects, including people carving worms out of Susan's body, are pretty impressive for a low budget film but the wooden acting soon grates and the interest level drops like a stone every time it cuts away from Susan's ordeal to the rescue effort.
Though heavily influenced by Walkabout , the jungle scenes are the meat of the film. While you can't go too far wrong with a pretty girl wandering around in a flimsy, soaking wet dress, Susan's is a good physical performance. Her swimming scenes look much less fun than Jenny Agutter's. Most of her dialogue though comes in the form of a clumsy inner monologue and you're never convinced that these childish ramblings match up to the woman on screen.
7. The Confessional ( 1976 )
Susan had the lead female part in this one although it doesn't always seem like that as she's largely absent from the climax.
Director Peter Walker kept the British horror film alive, in the mid-seventies almost single handed as the output from Hammer and Amicus sputtered to a halt. This one ( also known as House of Mortal Sin ) stars Anthony Sharp as a crazed Catholic priest , Father Melldrum who becomes fixated on Jenny Welch ( Susan ) after she blunders into his confessional, looking for another priest , Bernard ( Norman Eshley ) a former boyfriend of her sister Vanessa ( Stephanie Beacham ) . Meldrum starts murdering the people who get in his way, usually in highly unlikely ways involving Catholic implements but of course no one believes Jenny's insistence that he's a psychopath.
Walker's films were generally entertaining, if verging on the exploitative, but this one's not one of his best. For one thing it's too long, padded out with dreary sub-plots. There's also too much of Sharp whose overripe performance starts to aggravate. Susan is the best thing in it although Eshley, Beacham and Sheila Keith as Meldrum's sinister housekeeper give good support. Susan appears briefly nude from behind.
8. Nasty Habits ( 1977 )
9. The Uncanny ( 1977 )
This British-Canadian horror picture has the same structure as those Amicus portmanteau films from earlier in the decade although it is a touch nastier all round.
The three stories are linked by writer Wilbur Gray ( Peter Cushing ) trying to persuade his publisher ( Ray Miland ) to publish his claims that cats are supremely sentient beings responsible for a number of horrific events. Two of the stories are period pieces set in London; they bookend a story set in modern-day Quebec which is completely different in tone.
Susan is the star of the first one where she plays Janet , maid to an invalid spinster who proposes to leave her fortune to her army of cats. Janet conspires with the disinherited heir ( Simon Williams ) to thwart her plan but the cats have other ideas. Susan plays against type as a villainess who comes to a sticky end but she's very good.
The second story is about a young orphan Lucy who comes to live with an unsympathetic aunt and sadistic cousin Angela ( Chloe Franks ). When Angela moves against her cat Wellington, they enact a truly ghastly revenge.
The third one stars Donald Pleasence as a ham actor in the thirties who murders his wife for a younger model ( Samantha Eggar ). The dead woman's cat is the agent of retribution. It's not a bad story but it's marred by over-camp performances by the two leads.
10. Soldier of Orange ( 1977 )
11. Leopard in the Snow ( 1978 )
6. The Land That Time Forgot ( 1974 )
Having survived falling out of an aeroplane in her previous film, Susan has to contend with being blown out of a ship by torpedo in this Amicus adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs 1918 novel about a volanic island where evolution has gone a bit haywire. I remember great disappointment when illness prevented me going to watch it at the cinema in Rochdale with my friend's family.
The story is set during World War One. A small party of survivors, mostly crew, from a torpedoed British ship manage to commandeer the U-boat that sank them. Handily, one of the two civilian survivors, Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure ) is a submarine expert and takes charge. The German Captain, Von Schoenhorst (John McEnery) is a humane and learned man but his lieutenant Dietz ( Anthony Ainley) is a villain whose interference with the ship's compass sends them to the semi-legendary island of Caprona where dinosaurs roam.
The film is an enjoyable piece of hokum, reasonably faithful to the source novel, energetically directed by Kevin Connor who throws plenty of action the viwer's way. Pace takes precedence over narrative coherence and the pseudo-science is hard to follow although to be fair Burroughs' alternative evolution theories were developed over three novels and the film only covers the first. The dinosaur models look a bit rubbery now but are OK for the time. McClure acts mainly with his limbs. McEnery is more expressive but his dialogue was actually dubbed (not that you can tell) by Anton Diffring because his German accent was dodgy.
Susan' s is the only speaking female role and is somehat unusual for the time. She plays Lisa a biologist whose main purpose is to try and flesh out the science behind what's happening. Though she looks attractive in a navy sweater, it's a pretty sexless role and it's not even clear whose love interest she is until the last 20 minutes.
Unlike McClure, Susan was not invited back for the 1977 sequel The People That Time Forgot which diverged much further from the source material and is chiefly remembered for Dana Gillespie's boobs. Susan had the last laugh on Amicus as they went belly up during the film's production and it had to be completed by their American partners.
7. The Confessional ( 1976 )
Susan had the lead female part in this one although it doesn't always seem like that as she's largely absent from the climax.
Director Peter Walker kept the British horror film alive, in the mid-seventies almost single handed as the output from Hammer and Amicus sputtered to a halt. This one ( also known as House of Mortal Sin ) stars Anthony Sharp as a crazed Catholic priest , Father Melldrum who becomes fixated on Jenny Welch ( Susan ) after she blunders into his confessional, looking for another priest , Bernard ( Norman Eshley ) a former boyfriend of her sister Vanessa ( Stephanie Beacham ) . Meldrum starts murdering the people who get in his way, usually in highly unlikely ways involving Catholic implements but of course no one believes Jenny's insistence that he's a psychopath.
Walker's films were generally entertaining, if verging on the exploitative, but this one's not one of his best. For one thing it's too long, padded out with dreary sub-plots. There's also too much of Sharp whose overripe performance starts to aggravate. Susan is the best thing in it although Eshley, Beacham and Sheila Keith as Meldrum's sinister housekeeper give good support. Susan appears briefly nude from behind.
8. Nasty Habits ( 1977 )
Spark's 1974 novella was a satire on the recent Watergate scandal and the film came out three years later. Confusingly, although a British film, the setting was moved from Crewe to Philadelphia and made with a mainly American cast. Most of the chracters are based on real life figures involved in the Watergate saga.
The Nixon figure, Sister Alexandria ( Glenda Jackson ) is hoping to succeed the dying Hildegarde ( Edith Evans ) as abbess of a richly-endowed, unconventional convent in Philadelphia, Her main rival for the position is young Felicity ( Susan ), a proponent of free love who practices what she preaches by getting it on with a young Jesuit priest at every opportunity. Despite this obvious chink in her opponent's armour, Alexandria has the whole convent wired up to eavesdrop on Felicity and plot against her with the aid of three other nuns including the dimwitted Gwendolen ( Sandy Dennis ). She also frequently seeks advice from a globetrotting fellow nun Gertrude ( Melina Mercouri ) who is otherwise uninvolved in the action. Though successful in the election, Alexandria's actions quickly unravel in the aftermath.
I haven't read the book but can confidently say that anyone unfamiliar with the events of Watergate would find this silly, over-cynical and confusing. There are no sympathetic characters to root for and the plot seems contrived and clumsy. Stick with All The President's Men.
The cast is better than the film deserves with Jackson in fine form as the icy amoral abbess. and Dennis better than expected in a comic role. Everyone else including Susan ( who's also too young for the part ) is a bit too arch and Mercouri is as unwatchable as ever despite limited screen time.
9. The Uncanny ( 1977 )
This British-Canadian horror picture has the same structure as those Amicus portmanteau films from earlier in the decade although it is a touch nastier all round.
The three stories are linked by writer Wilbur Gray ( Peter Cushing ) trying to persuade his publisher ( Ray Miland ) to publish his claims that cats are supremely sentient beings responsible for a number of horrific events. Two of the stories are period pieces set in London; they bookend a story set in modern-day Quebec which is completely different in tone.
Susan is the star of the first one where she plays Janet , maid to an invalid spinster who proposes to leave her fortune to her army of cats. Janet conspires with the disinherited heir ( Simon Williams ) to thwart her plan but the cats have other ideas. Susan plays against type as a villainess who comes to a sticky end but she's very good.
The second story is about a young orphan Lucy who comes to live with an unsympathetic aunt and sadistic cousin Angela ( Chloe Franks ). When Angela moves against her cat Wellington, they enact a truly ghastly revenge.
The third one stars Donald Pleasence as a ham actor in the thirties who murders his wife for a younger model ( Samantha Eggar ). The dead woman's cat is the agent of retribution. It's not a bad story but it's marred by over-camp performances by the two leads.
10. Soldier of Orange ( 1977 )
11. Leopard in the Snow ( 1978 )
Susan had the leading role in this romantic drama, the first venture into film for Mills and Boon and its Canadian parent, Harlequin.
Susan plays Helen, a young rich girl from London driving away from her father's expectations.
She manages to drive into a blizzard and while wandering around in the countyside encounters a leopard. Fortunately, it turns out to be tame, a pet of Dominic ( Keir Dullea ), an injured, guilt-ridden racing driver living as a recluse with his mechanic-turned-housekeeper Bolt ( Jeremy Kemp ). The snow keeps Helen there a week as a semi-captive during which time she falls for Dominic.
That pretty much tells you the whole story and the ending is utterly predictable. This is an old fashioned romance working on the deferred gratification principle in which minor details like how the leopard was tamed or Helen's constant changes of outfit while snowbound in an all-male housebound aren't really important.
On the plus side the film is blessed with a better cast than the matrial deserves. Susan is very charming throughout and there's good support from Kenneth More as her father and Billie Whitelaw as her stepmother. There's also a nice little cameo from Dynasty's Gordon Thomsen s her unwanted fiance. Dullea unfortunately is a bit wooden and evinces little sympathy or sense that Helen has picked the right man.
12. Patrick ( 1978 )
Susan has the lead role in this Australian horror film where she plays Kathie, a nurse looking after a seemingly comatose patient called Patrick ( Robert Thompson ).
Patrick is being kept alive artificially, three years after killing his mother. His doctor Roget ( Robert Helpmann ) is studying him for metaphysical enquiry, aided by highly-strung matron Cassidy ( Julia Blake ). Kathie soon finds out that Patrick has telekinetic powers and that he's taking an interest in her love life.
It's a very good central performance from Susan , who looks great throughout, but that doesn't make Patrick a great film. The motivations of the medical personnel remain cloudy throughout, it's too long and simply not very scary.
13. Top Dog ( 2014 )