Susan Slade (1961)

A young teenage girl (Connie Stevens) has her first taste of love with a mountain climber (Grant Williams) aboard a ship sailing from Chile to San Francisco. When he is killed in an accident before they can marry, she finds herself pregnant. In an effort to avoid a scandal, her mother (Dorothy McGuire) will declare the child as her own. Based on the novel THE SIN OF SUSAN SLADE by Doris Hume and directed by Delmer Daves (3:10 TO YUMA). Movies about the "shame" of unwed mothers go all the way back to the days of silent cinema. This rather creaky effort seems quite archaic in the 21st century. Delmer Daves directed a string of excellent westerns in the 1950s but after the box office success of A SUMMER PLACE (1959), Warners made him the godfather of romantic soap operas aimed at the young crowd. Films like PARRISH, ROME ADVENTURE and this one. There's not much to be said about a movie like this. It's handsome to look at, cinematographer Lucien Ballard makes excellent use of the Monterey locations but its predictability limits its interest. I love melodrama but not even Douglas Sirk could do much with this material. With Troy Donahue, Lloyd Nolan, Brian Aherne, Bert Convy, Kent Smith and Natalie Schafer.