STRANGE INTERLUDE is a strain to watch and listen to. It's an obviously dated piece by a great playwright who put his actors through an ordeal of a melodrama that depends for effectiveness on letting us in on the character's real thoughts as opposed to what they actually say.
It doesn't work well as melodrama, especially since all of the performances bear the earmark of silent screen technique combined with early talkie films style. Furthermore, the story is more soap opera than anything else.
Shearer is a woman who loves unwisely, and then manipulates the men in her life (as the neurotic Nina), including CLARK GABLE, RALPH MORGAN and Alexander KIRKLAND, as well as her grown son ROBERT YOUNG and his sweetheart MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN (in a tiny role). She hides the fact that she has chosen to bear Gable's son (rather than her husband's), because insanity was rampant in Kirkland's family. This, of course, leads to a never-ending series of scenes in which the cover-up becomes more and more a strain on all concerned.
It's also a strain on the viewer to watch such an outdated production from MGM in the early '30s. All concerned do what they can with the wordy script and demands of voice over technique to register their ever-changing expressions, but none of the melodrama seems the least bit convincing or worthy of Eugene O'Neill.
This is one better left to the archives.
It doesn't work well as melodrama, especially since all of the performances bear the earmark of silent screen technique combined with early talkie films style. Furthermore, the story is more soap opera than anything else.
Shearer is a woman who loves unwisely, and then manipulates the men in her life (as the neurotic Nina), including CLARK GABLE, RALPH MORGAN and Alexander KIRKLAND, as well as her grown son ROBERT YOUNG and his sweetheart MAUREEN O'SULLIVAN (in a tiny role). She hides the fact that she has chosen to bear Gable's son (rather than her husband's), because insanity was rampant in Kirkland's family. This, of course, leads to a never-ending series of scenes in which the cover-up becomes more and more a strain on all concerned.
It's also a strain on the viewer to watch such an outdated production from MGM in the early '30s. All concerned do what they can with the wordy script and demands of voice over technique to register their ever-changing expressions, but none of the melodrama seems the least bit convincing or worthy of Eugene O'Neill.
This is one better left to the archives.