While he was an undergraduate drama major at Yale, Paul Preuss ’66 made suppose (1964), an adaptation of e.e. cummings' poem of the same name. On the first day of an acting class with instructor Stella Adler, Preuss met fellow student Stacy Keach, whom he later cast as Death in the film. The performance is Keach's earliest known film credit. 

 

Upon its completion in 1964, the film typically screened with live narration of cummings’ poem, alongside the recording of the original score on the print by Peter Schlosser. In order to complete this restoration project and include the narration again, Preuss enlisted Stacy Keach himself to record a reading of the poem in 2022, bringing full-circle this film, more than 60 years after it was made.

 

Preuss donated the only existing film element, a composite reversal positive, to the Yale Film Archive in 2019. The element was scanned and digitally cleaned by Colorlab, with audio restoration and mixing of the original score and new narration by Audio Mechanics. Thanks to Paul Preuss and Mona Helen Preuss Renney, the digital restoration of suppose was completed in 2024.