1942 – Susan Peters
Random Harvest
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Susan’s performance in this movie. There were times where she looked perfectly natural, like she belonged on the big screen. But there were other times when she looked… off, somehow. Almost like she was trying too hard to play the part right. She was very beautiful, though it was an unconventional beauty. There was something in the shape of her mouth that was both unusual and interesting at the same time.
But I don’t know if I would have nominated her for the Best Supporting Actress award, and here’s why. The first time she is on the screen, she is supposed to be playing a girl of around fourteen or fifteen, named Kitty, the male lead’s step niece. She has an instant attraction to him and within minutes, she starts making plans to marry him when she is old enough. OK, we can blame the script for that one, but the way she played the starry-eyed teenager was just a little creepy. There was an aggressive hunger in her eyes that was almost crazed, and I found it just a little disturbing. She was like an instant stalker, and I don’t think I was supposed to see her in that light. Like I said, part of that was the script, but part of that was Peters.
But I think what she did very well came later. Once she was out of school, she approached him, and the scene where she sneaks into his office to wait for him was played pretty well. She is still a very young girl, but she is trying to make herself seem older, like a better match for Charles. Peters put just the right petulance and childishness combined with calculated maturity into that scene, and I thought she did a fine job. She was good, because despite the airs she was attempting to put on, she allowed us to see the immaturity that was still there. Well done, Peters.
And her final scene was very well-played, too. She ends up leaving Charles the day before their wedding. She finally stops deceiving herself into believing that he was really in love with her. That must have been a difficult scene to shoot, but Peters really sold the idea that Kitty had a real revelation, not about Charles, but about herself. I didn’t particularly like the character until that moment. She finally showed some real maturity, but then her part in the film came to an abrupt close.