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I have never seen Strange Interlude on the stage, so I don't know if it works for today's audiences, but the idea of hearing the characters' thoughts is contradictory to the whole idea of motion (not even talking) pictures. Alfred Hitchcock once gave the example, showing how economical film is, of a man surprised when police burst into his room. Then there is a shot of a drawer in which we have previously seen a gun. So we know that the man is thinking of trying to get to the drawer and use the gun.

With such fluency and economy in the film medium itself, as well as the closeups of the actors' faces and gestures, hearing the characters' thoughts is redundant. So, when we do hear them, it is laughable--imagine a character wrinkling his nose at someone and then hearing him think "I don't like him." Instead of being psychologically revealing, the device is rather like the sweet-talking villain in a Victorian melodrama turning aside and telling the audience: "She little guesses my fell purpose!"

And when one of the characters is a big lunk like Clark Gable--did anyone imagine that Clark Gable HAD any inner thoughts?

Bob Hope has never been milder than in his portrayal of a hypochondriacal cartoonist--he makes Jack Lemmon look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over 50, he's a bit embarrassing as a nervous failure and a contender to reclaim his ex-wife. But, surprisingly, he takes the acting honors--Eva Marie Saint looks and acts like a prim librarian's boring sister and George Sanders's suave personality doesn't fit the gauche and corny lines he is given. However, he does have (I think) the best line in the movie, one that in ordinary circumstances would have been given to Hope: "If I weren't in makeup I'd strike you." It was Hope who, in real life, responded to a heckler with "You wouldn't dare say that if I had my writers with me."

The boy actor who the following year played the name part in Leave it to Beaver is an orphan who, again untypically, shows Hope to be a splendid father figure. He is bearable. But no child deserves the really nasty way that Sanders talks to him, a disturbing note in what is supposed to be a comedy.

A few musical numbers are very extraneous but they certainly liven things up--Pearl Bailey purring a couple of songs and Hope and Saint cutting loose with the title tune. The shabbiness of the material, however, is clear when she says that, back in their hometown, she admired him in the high-school play. She wouldn't have been born yet.

Okay, Monicelli is no Fellini--this is a very Fellini subject--but he acquits himself very well in this story of small-time, grubby, fly-by-night show people. Or in one case, fly by day--a comic highlight is moth-eaten impresario Aldo Fabrizi's ducking a hotel bill, first with doubletalk, then with a con trick, and finally a bravura impersonation and triumphant getaway.

But even this bum can inspire love and loyalty, and from the star of the show, Gina Lollobrigida of all people, looking unrecognizably mousy this early in her career. Two other women have love troubles as well--one has a fiance whose father won't hear of his marrying a chorus dancer, the other has turned her back on the gorgeous Marcello Mastroianni (also at the beginning of his career--his name is even misspelled in the credits!) to marry a millionaire gargoyle and is having regrets.

Oddly, though Gina and Marcello went on to stardom, the one who seems like the best bet for it is Tamara Lees, as the gold-digger, who is far better looking than Gina, indeed very similar to the ravishing Gene Tierney, counterpointed with a quiet intensity. Go figure!

You can see this movie on the website rarefilmm (note the two m's).