Tag: May Robson

Strange Interlude (1932)

The Original Peep Show

Strange Interlude is a movie for the patient viewer. I had difficulty getting through it on first viewing but due to my amour of Clark Gable and a soft spot for old mental illness melodramas with stories of bad blood and insanity passed through genes (scientific validity?) plus that creaky charm you get from pre-code films, on rewatching I did find new appreciation for Strange Interlude. The original 1928 play by Eugene O’Neil was a staggering 6 hours long; the film condenses that to below two hours whether for better or worse. – I struggle myself to imagine watching a 6-hour version of this story.

The plot of Strange Interlude requires a bit of setting up but after Nina (Norma Shearer) marries the naive Sam (Alexander Kirkland) then the ball gets rolling and the tension escalates when she is told by Sam’s mother (May Robson) that mental illness runs in her family and father’s a child with Dr. Ned Darrell (Clark Gable) without her husband’s knowledge. Also thrown into what makes a love square plot is the nihilistic, miserable excuse for a human being in the form of Charlie (Ralph Morgan). It’s some quality melodrama full of classic hallmarks including a house by the sea with crashing waves, a pleasing New England aesthetic and some fine fashions by Adrian. One area where the production does go wrong is with the overdone aging makeup on the four main cast members, turning them geriatric in 10 years – At least Gable’s drawn on mustache looks legit.

Granted I am a Gable die hard but I will passionately argue why the man is underrated as an actor. The role of Dr. Ned Darrell is one of his finest acting achievements; in particular when he interacts with his biological, spoiled brat of a child who doesn’t know he is his real father. Norma Shearer likewise shows shades of a Garbo-esque drama queen, verging on over the top without crossing into laughable territory.

The unique selling point of Strange Interlude is the voice-overs in which the viewer can hear the character’s thoughts in an attempt to replicate the original play’s use of soliloquy – a technique in which characters speak their inner thoughts to the audience. This experiment is clearly a product of filmmakers trying to adapt to the early days of sound and the opening title explains the technique to the audience and even the first line delivered in this manner alludes to it (“Queer things, thoughts, our true selves, spoken words are just a mask, to disguise them”). It is necessary, however? – I can’t say is. The body language of the actors and the cinematic form allow for this sort of information to be conveyed to the audience which Strange Interlude does anyway any many cases. None the less it doesn’t ruin the film by means and is at least a commendable experiment.

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Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Screwball Comedy on Steroids

I make it no secret that the screwball comedy is my favourite genre of film. I can never get tired of these films – to me, this is the most anti-boring genre. Whenever I watch a great screwball comedy I’m on Cloud 9 and when it’s concluded I’m always left hungry for more (sometimes I even wish my life could play out like a screwball comedy!). Bringing Up Baby is the quintessential daffy dame/stuffy gentleman movie (a formula often imitated but never topped) and I find it endlessly fascinating this premise of how this woman constantly infiltrates this man’s life and she just won’t go away despite his best efforts. You think it would be easy that he could avoid her but the manner in which she keeps coming back into his life is comedic brilliance. Like many great comedies, the jokes present in Bringing Up Baby always take me by surprise no matter how many times I see it. Howard Hawks seems to have a distinctive style of slapstick comedy which separates his screwball comedies from others but why this is I can’t put my finger on – Hawks’ screwball simply has a distinctive electrically energy to it. Bringing Up Baby was produced at RKO studios, of whom I can’t help but notice their films have a distinctive imperfection of a grainy image quality and the use of soft lighting which is very easy on the eyes; the days when movie studios had their own distinctive styles.

I don’t think Katharine Hepburn ever looked more staggeringly beautiful than she does in Bringing Up Baby, displaying a girlish, Carole Lombard-like charm (I even find myself infatuated with the outfits she wears and her hairstyles in the film). Unlike other films of the genre, however, the romance is largely secondary to the rest of the story; with Susan (Hepburn) falling for David (Cary Grant) but not the other way around. Even with David eventually proclaiming his love for Susan I get the impression the two only remain (unlikely) friends. Likewise, the common screwball comedy theme of a crisis of masculinity is really played up here to the full with Grant wearing a woman’s dressing gown an even proclaiming in a fit of rage to be ”gay all of a sudden”.

David’s wild goose chase to obtain a dinosaur bone known as an ‘intercostal clavicle’ (a nonexistent fossil created for the movie) to complete the museum’s Brontosaurus skeleton, it’s eventual destruction at the hands of Susan as well as her treatment a leopard as a pet is all perfectly in tune with the character’s defiance of the natural order of things. Bringing Up Baby is the only screwball comedy I can think of which involves it’s cast interacting with a dangerous animal; I’m unsure why this never became a common screwball trope, I guess studios wouldn’t allow their cast and crew to be placed in such danger. My review title may sound hyperbolic but I’d pair Bringing Up Baby with You Can’t Take It With You as the most over the top, steroidal, off the wall offering in the screwball comedy genre. Watching Bringing Up Baby is like watching a movie with the fast-forward button turned on; the film is over before you know it. Old movies are slow and boring? Whoever came up with such nonsense?

ie) to complete the museum’s Brontosaurus skeleton, it’s eventfully destruction at the hands of Susan (Hepburn) as well as Susan’s treating a leopard as a pet is all perfectly in tune with the character’s defiance of the natural order of things. Bringing Up Baby is the only screwball comedy I can think of which involves it’s cast interacting with a dangerous animal; I’m unsure why this never became a common screwball trope, I guess studios wouldn’t allow their cast and crew to be placed in such danger. My review title may sound hyperbolic but I’d pair Bringing Up Baby with You Can’t Take It With You as the most over the top, steroidal, off the wall offering in the screwball comedy genre. Watching Bringing Up Baby is like watching a movie with the fast-forward button turned on; the film is over before you know it. Old movies are slow and boring? Whoever came up with such nonsense?