"Strange" Is Definitely the Word For It
This weekend's review: Strange Interlude.
I was kind of recommended this movie by klia back in 2013, wherein they pitched it as an experimental older movie that hadn’t aged well but was still watchable in a “so bad it’s good” way. For better or for worse, I had forgotten that conversation by the time I actually got around to watching it all these years later, so I wound up surprised by just how odd the movie was. Now that I’ve had some time to recalibrate my brain, though, I don’t think it’s as bad as klia made it out to be. It’s not great, certainly, but I’d be more inclined to call it an interesting failure.
The story is a series of scenes that take place over multiple years in the lives of the main characters. As the story opens shortly after the end of WWI, Charlie Marsden (Ralph Morgan) has returned to America from Europe, where he meets with Professor Leeds (Henry B. Walthall) and his daughter Nina (Norma Shearer). Charlie has feelings for Nina but doesn’t have the courage to express it, while Nina is mourning her childhood sweetheart Gordon, who died in the war. Over the course of this scene, Nina wants to become a nurse at a rehabilitation home for returning soldiers, and though her father objects, he’s eventually convinced to let her go. We then jump ahead several years, when the professor dies and Nina arrives too late to say goodbye. She’s accompanied home by two men; Sam Evans (Alexander Kirkland) an earnest young man who’s already expressed an interest in her, and Ned Darrell (Clark Gable) a doctor who’s somewhat attracted to Nina but wants to focus more on his career. Ned prescribes stability for Nina to help her deal with her father’s death and her lingering pain for Gordon, so Charlie reluctantly encourages Nina to marry Sam, which she does. This is when things take a weird turn-shortly after the marriage, Sam’s mother (May Robson) bluntly informs Nina that there’s a history of madness in the Evans family, meaning that not only should Nina not have children despite both her and Sam wanting them, she can’t divorce Sam because that might trigger the insanity (Sam is completely unaware of his family history). Feeling trapped and somewhat resentful/pitying of Sam, Nina eventually confesses the situation to Ned, who comes up with a solution. To keep Sam happy, Nina will have a baby…it just won’t be Sam’s baby. Did I mention this was a Pre-Code film?
This movie is kind of an interesting relic of a unique time in Hollywood’s history. There’s no question that the major plot thread in this movie could not have existed under the Hays Code (at least not without the characters getting severely punished), but I actually don’t think it would be made today, either. I could see individual elements being a plot point in a modern movie, but not all at once, and certainly not in this way (the story is based off a Eugene O’Neill play). The only way it might get made was for Oscarbait reasons, and even then, it doesn’t tick the boxes that the Academy seems to look for. Though it might net some acting nominations…
Anyway, ignoring the historical context and focusing on the execution, I’d say it’s interesting but ultimately flawed. At least half the movie revolves around Nina and Ned keeping the parentage of the baby a secret from Sam, while also being in love with each other and tempted to give the game away so they can be together. First one, then the other comes right to the brink of confessing, but then circumstances conspire to make them keep their mouths shut. It’s relatively engaging while you’re watching, especially since there’s some variety in the various circumstances, but once the movie’s over, you realize you spent a lot of time watching the same basic situation play out in subtly different ways, which may make it subconsciously feel repetitive. The characters are also very hit and miss. Depending on the scene, they fluctuate between being sympathetic and unpleasant, which may make them more nuanced but also makes it difficult to root for them. Charlie suffers the most in that regard; despite the fact that he’s initially set up to be one of the main characters, he ultimately feels like an afterthought (one potentially huge moment with him goes nowhere), and he very quickly comes across like the sort of guy the internet has a lot of terms and buzzwords for. And this is all before we get to the most unusual aspect of this movie.
As I said, this movie was based on a play. Not only does that lead to the static feel that a lot of movie adaptations of plays suffer from, it borrows a conceit from the play that kind of works and kind of doesn’t. Said conceit is that, in between the characters talking, we’re privy to their true thoughts via voiceover, interrupting the flow of the conversation and giving us more insight into the situation and the characters. It’s a little off-putting initially, but I did mostly get used to it. And at least they put up an intertitle to explain things at the start of the movie, so audiences won’t be blindsided. This technique, however, is very much responsible for my ambivalence towards the characters, not to mention adding to the repetitive nature. Oh, and a lot of the thoughts are pretentious and in no way similar to how people actually think or speak. That being said, I can’t help but feel like this trick works better in movie format than it would on the stage. A voiceover is less distracting than all the action stopping or a character stepping out to address the audience about how they’re feeling. Then again, I haven’t seen the play performed on stage (nor do I particularly want to), so maybe it works better than I think. All I can say is that I think the filmmakers adapted the idea about as well as they could.
I don’t think I’d recommend this movie except to a very select handful of film lovers. The Pre-Code nature of the movie and the unusual storytelling element of the internal thoughts may be worth checking out if you like more unconventional movies, but the actual content ranges from mediocre to off-putting. If you want stories about screwed up relationships and conflicted heroes, I’d stick with noir instead; sure, they couldn’t get away with quite as much, but they got that sort of thing down to an art form.
I was kind of recommended this movie by klia back in 2013, wherein they pitched it as an experimental older movie that hadn’t aged well but was still watchable in a “so bad it’s good” way. For better or for worse, I had forgotten that conversation by the time I actually got around to watching it all these years later, so I wound up surprised by just how odd the movie was. Now that I’ve had some time to recalibrate my brain, though, I don’t think it’s as bad as klia made it out to be. It’s not great, certainly, but I’d be more inclined to call it an interesting failure.
The story is a series of scenes that take place over multiple years in the lives of the main characters. As the story opens shortly after the end of WWI, Charlie Marsden (Ralph Morgan) has returned to America from Europe, where he meets with Professor Leeds (Henry B. Walthall) and his daughter Nina (Norma Shearer). Charlie has feelings for Nina but doesn’t have the courage to express it, while Nina is mourning her childhood sweetheart Gordon, who died in the war. Over the course of this scene, Nina wants to become a nurse at a rehabilitation home for returning soldiers, and though her father objects, he’s eventually convinced to let her go. We then jump ahead several years, when the professor dies and Nina arrives too late to say goodbye. She’s accompanied home by two men; Sam Evans (Alexander Kirkland) an earnest young man who’s already expressed an interest in her, and Ned Darrell (Clark Gable) a doctor who’s somewhat attracted to Nina but wants to focus more on his career. Ned prescribes stability for Nina to help her deal with her father’s death and her lingering pain for Gordon, so Charlie reluctantly encourages Nina to marry Sam, which she does. This is when things take a weird turn-shortly after the marriage, Sam’s mother (May Robson) bluntly informs Nina that there’s a history of madness in the Evans family, meaning that not only should Nina not have children despite both her and Sam wanting them, she can’t divorce Sam because that might trigger the insanity (Sam is completely unaware of his family history). Feeling trapped and somewhat resentful/pitying of Sam, Nina eventually confesses the situation to Ned, who comes up with a solution. To keep Sam happy, Nina will have a baby…it just won’t be Sam’s baby. Did I mention this was a Pre-Code film?
This movie is kind of an interesting relic of a unique time in Hollywood’s history. There’s no question that the major plot thread in this movie could not have existed under the Hays Code (at least not without the characters getting severely punished), but I actually don’t think it would be made today, either. I could see individual elements being a plot point in a modern movie, but not all at once, and certainly not in this way (the story is based off a Eugene O’Neill play). The only way it might get made was for Oscarbait reasons, and even then, it doesn’t tick the boxes that the Academy seems to look for. Though it might net some acting nominations…
Anyway, ignoring the historical context and focusing on the execution, I’d say it’s interesting but ultimately flawed. At least half the movie revolves around Nina and Ned keeping the parentage of the baby a secret from Sam, while also being in love with each other and tempted to give the game away so they can be together. First one, then the other comes right to the brink of confessing, but then circumstances conspire to make them keep their mouths shut. It’s relatively engaging while you’re watching, especially since there’s some variety in the various circumstances, but once the movie’s over, you realize you spent a lot of time watching the same basic situation play out in subtly different ways, which may make it subconsciously feel repetitive. The characters are also very hit and miss. Depending on the scene, they fluctuate between being sympathetic and unpleasant, which may make them more nuanced but also makes it difficult to root for them. Charlie suffers the most in that regard; despite the fact that he’s initially set up to be one of the main characters, he ultimately feels like an afterthought (one potentially huge moment with him goes nowhere), and he very quickly comes across like the sort of guy the internet has a lot of terms and buzzwords for. And this is all before we get to the most unusual aspect of this movie.
As I said, this movie was based on a play. Not only does that lead to the static feel that a lot of movie adaptations of plays suffer from, it borrows a conceit from the play that kind of works and kind of doesn’t. Said conceit is that, in between the characters talking, we’re privy to their true thoughts via voiceover, interrupting the flow of the conversation and giving us more insight into the situation and the characters. It’s a little off-putting initially, but I did mostly get used to it. And at least they put up an intertitle to explain things at the start of the movie, so audiences won’t be blindsided. This technique, however, is very much responsible for my ambivalence towards the characters, not to mention adding to the repetitive nature. Oh, and a lot of the thoughts are pretentious and in no way similar to how people actually think or speak. That being said, I can’t help but feel like this trick works better in movie format than it would on the stage. A voiceover is less distracting than all the action stopping or a character stepping out to address the audience about how they’re feeling. Then again, I haven’t seen the play performed on stage (nor do I particularly want to), so maybe it works better than I think. All I can say is that I think the filmmakers adapted the idea about as well as they could.
I don’t think I’d recommend this movie except to a very select handful of film lovers. The Pre-Code nature of the movie and the unusual storytelling element of the internal thoughts may be worth checking out if you like more unconventional movies, but the actual content ranges from mediocre to off-putting. If you want stories about screwed up relationships and conflicted heroes, I’d stick with noir instead; sure, they couldn’t get away with quite as much, but they got that sort of thing down to an art form.