Strange Interlude

Horrid. Truly, stultifyingly, wretchedly horrid. The "idea" (of having the inner thoughts of the characters spoken aloud for the audience) is a stilted one which doesn't work on stage either. But in a movie, where the voice-overs are added later, it forces the actors to create responses to feelings they are not having, and also prompts the actors into providing rather charmless and ugly facial "clues" to their inner thoughts. It makes for a bad cinematic experience. The story itself - adapted by Eugene O'Neill from a Greek play)is the purest "eternal triangle" tripe, and tripe which never really explores any true psychological impetus, but only deals with the thinnest of human motivations, so being "let in on" these great human secrets is no grand privilege. Norma is at her worst here; stagy and melodramatic, and most of the cast comes off equally badly. An experiment gone horribly wrong. I felt - at times - like slapping any or all of the characters, just to awaken them from their banal self-pity and deep delusions. And the only fun to be gotten from it is to replace the "inner speech" with phrases of your own. Otherwise, a very bad film.

Trying to bring any Eugene O'Neill story to the screen is probably challenging; such is the case with "Strange Interlude" released by MGM in 1932. The actors thoughts are voice-overs, forcing the actors to pause on screen, sometimes with odd looks on their faces. This was probably pretty daring stuff by 1932 standards, with sound films still relatively new. Anyway, Norma Shearer is the lead character, Nina, and she brings out all of her theatrical mannerisms to the role. The story is basically of three men who are in love with Nina. The most compelling is a doctor, played nicely by Clark Gable. The story is complicated, to say the least, with Shearer marrying a man she later realizes she is not in love with, has a baby by Gable, but never tells her husband it is not his baby, and on and on. Pure soap opera for sure. Still, although the story is tough to swallow, I must say in particular I liked Clark Gable in this role. This is easily one of his best early performances. Norma Shearer is always good, even if the story is lacking. It is easy to see why this film flopped in 1932; it was likely too different (or perhaps too sophisticated) for audiences of that era.

On stage, "Strange Interlude" was a nine-act "triple play", with time to leave for supper (and a nap). It was a success, and won the 1928 "Pulitzer Prize" for drama. Writer Eugene O'Neill used a Greek gimmick to nice effect - the characters would speak their "true thoughts" in asides, while the rest of the cast froze...

For this movie version, Robert Z. Leonard has the performers reveal their "inner thoughts" in voice-overs. You will recognize the technique, which is not unusual (in smaller doses). In this film, the voice-overs are a distraction - for the most part, they reveal nothing the cast can't reveal through cinematic acting. Mr. Leonard should have considered aborting the spoken asides. Obviously, Norma Shearer (as Nina Leeds) and her stellar co-stars are capable of revealing their "inner thoughts" in close-up - so, the voice-overs are superfluous.

The film is about Shearer's love for four different men: the idealized "Gordon Shaw" (an unseen World War casualty), darkly passionate Clark Gable (as Ned Darrell), popular and successful Alexander Kirkland (as Sam Evans), and ever unrequited Ralph Morgan (as Charlie Marsden). The men have exquisitely trimmed moustaches. Shearer marries one of them - but, fearing heredity insanity will befall her child, she gets herself pregnant by another. The film does not explicitly reveal that "Nina" aborted her first pregnancy.

Photographer Lee Garmes, art director Cedric Gibbons, and the MGM crew make the production look first class all the way. Henry B. Walthall (as father Leeds), May Robson (as mother Evans), Tad Alexander (as young Gordon), Robert Young (as older Gordon), and Maureen O'Sullivan (as Madeline) offer outstanding support. Just try to edit out the "strange interludes" in your mind...

******* Strange Interlude (12/30/32) Robert Z. Leonard ~ Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Alexander Kirkland

I don't know exactly why, but I really got caught up in this movie. At first hearing everyone's thoughts is kinda strange, but it really helps you understand the characters and their motivations. By the end of the movie, you feel sorry for just about everyone in it, that they all lied and deprived themselves of happiness so that Sam could be happy. The great thing about this movie, is that you keep waiting for the payoff at the end where everyone finds out the truth of the strange 4 way love triangle (I guess that would be a love square). But it never really fulfills itself and not all the characters learn the truth.

I guess the thing I like about this movie the most is that the suspense is like a pot of boiling water. You keep waiting for it to overflow and have a kind of epiphany when it does overflow. But the movie never gives that epiphany because Sam and Gorden never find out the truth and I think the movie is better for it.

This movie was panned back in 1932 when it came out, and I just don't get it. It's a very intelligent and emotionally moving film. I wish Hollywood of the modern era could make films like this instead of all the cardboard junk with a happy ending that they have these days.

I guess most people just don't get it. But those that do will be gratetful for films like this.

Great acting all around, especially for Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, and all the main characters. The kid Tad Alexander who played young Gordon was great. Ahh he's 77 years old now. MAN

I've never seen a Norma Shearer movie that I didn't adore. Ha, all those old Hollywood Queens are nothing compared to Norma.

Eugene O'Neill's 4 and a half hour 1927 play brought to the screen in less than two hours. The play's combination of symbolic dialogue and gothic melodrama hasn't aged very well and the cast has some difficulty with it, especially Norma Shearer's Nina and Ralph Morgan's Marsden. Clark Gable as Ned Darrell comes off better but mostly because his is a gruff character not given to the philosophical musings of the others which better fits Gable's range. Once the plot settles down to the love quadrangle and the audience adjusts to the voiceover asides the film does become more enjoyable. The technique used here for the asides is another problem. On stage the action froze while the actors spoke their thoughts to the audience. Here they're done as voiceovers. You'd think that would work better but since the action no longer freezes the actors are forced to pause speaking and grimace at the camera to match the emotions in their thoughts. Plus it's difficult for any movie buff to watch this film and not think of Groucho Marx's hilarious parody version in "Animal Crackers." Added to these drawbacks are some cuts made for censorship reasons (Nina's promiscuity is soft-peddled and there is no mention of her getting the abortion that is more central in the play) and a wretched score (uncredited) that sounds like background music to a turn-of-the-century weepie. O'Neill called this film "a dreadful hash of attempted condensation and idiotic censorship," and although "Strange Interlude" is nowhere near as great as his later "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night," it certainly deserved better than this.