Interlude *** (1957, June Allyson, Rossano Brazzi, Marianne Koch, Françoise Rosay, Keith Andes) – Classic Movie Review 6671

Douglas Sirk directs this heady 1957 four-hankie, majorly tear-jerking romantic melodrama, a remake of the 1939 hit When Tomorrow Comes, with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, based on the original story A Modern Cinderella by James M Cain, the author of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

This time it stars husky-voiced June Allyson as Helen Banning, an American librarian in Germany, working for the US Information Service in Munich. There meets handsome doctor Morley Dwyer (Keith Andes) but rejects him and then she falls in love with the formidable continental charmer and classical symphony conductor Tonio ‘Tony’ Fischer (Rossano Brazzi).

But, naturally, it turns out that Tony is a married man and cannot leave his wife Reni Fischer (Marianne Koch, billed as Marianne Cook), who is mentally ill, probably insane, or at least extremely emotionally damaged. So Allyson’s Helen abruptly ends the affair, only for fate to bring the couple back together again, but Reni begs Helen not to steal her husband away and later attempts suicide.

Interlude is of course highly sentimental, but Sirk brings a fresh eye to the romantic clichés, and the movie provides a delightful wallow in a finely honed romance.

Also in the cast are Françoise Rosay as Countess Irena Reinhart, Keith Andes as Dr Morley Dwyer, Frances Bergen as Gertrude Kirk, Jane Wyatt, Lisa Helwig, Herman Schwedt, Anthony Tripoli and John Stein.

Interlude runs 90 minutes, is a Universal film, is written by Daniel Fuchs, Franklin Coen (screenplay) and Inez Cocke (adaptation), is shot in CinemaScope and Technicolor by William H Daniels, is produced by Ross Hunter, is scored by Frank Skinner, and is designed by Alexander Golitzen and Robert Emmet Smith. Film editor: Russell F Schoengarth.

Interlude is based on the 1937 James M Cain novel Serenade, and Dwight Taylor’s original 1939 screenplay for When Tomorrow Comes. It is remade again as Interlude in 1968.

Cain had unsuccessfully sued Universal Pictures, scriptwriter Taylor and director John M Stahl for copyright infringement of his novel Serenade on the 1939 screenplay for When Tomorrow Comes, so there must have been a lot of patching up to do here.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6671

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