Intermezzo: A Love Story

1939
6.6| 1h10m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 06 October 1939 Released
Producted By: Selznick International Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A concert violinist becomes charmed with his daughter's talented piano teacher. When he invites her to go on tour with him, they make beautiful music away from the concert hall as well. He soon leaves his wife so the two can go off together.

Genre

Drama, Romance

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Director

Gregory Ratoff

Production Companies

Selznick International Pictures

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Intermezzo: A Love Story Audience Reviews

Lawbolisted Powerful
Actuakers One of my all time favorites.
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
miss_lady_ice-853-608700 This is a nice little film about Holger (Leslie Howard), a married concert violinist who falls in love with Anita, his daughter's young piano teacher (Ingrid Bergman, in her US debut).The two go on tour together and true to the old lyric: "music leads the way to romance", the two musicians begin an affair. But can they ignore their duties to family and career? The film is a re-make of the Swedish film 'Intermezzo' (which also starred Bergman) and it retains the Swedish names. As none of the cast are Swedish except Bergman, they might as well have changed the names and location to suit a British setting as the film isn't shot in Sweden anyway.The film is very short- only 70 minutes long- and so even if it wasn't your cup of tea, you could still give it a go. It's an entertaining old-fashioned melodrama. It would have been nice if the characters could be fleshed out slightly more, but Intermezzo is a thoughtful study of adultery. If you liked Brief Encounter, this is worth a shot too.
James Hitchcock At only 70 minutes "Intermezzo" is short even by the standards of the thirties. The story is simple and its moral equally so. Holger Brandt is a famous Classical violinist who falls in love with Anita Hoffman, his daughter's attractive young piano teacher. Holger leaves his wife and family for Anita, and they tour Europe together, with her acting as his accompanist. Anita, however, has a guilty conscience about having been responsible for splitting up Holger's marriage. She leaves him so that he can return to his family, who forgive him. The message is that individual happiness cannot be based upon the unhappiness of others.One contributor on this board states that he would not normally approve of a film about adultery, in which case his choice of viewing matter must be rather limited. His choice of reading matter must be even more limited, as adultery has always been one of the great themes of literature. The great literary chroniclers of adultery, however- Flaubert, Tolstoy, Fontane, Hardy, Balzac, Alas, Lawrence- treated the subject with much greater frankness, and with much greater depth, than do the makers of this film. (Perhaps because those writers had no Production Code to worry about). "Intermezzo" presents us with a rather sanitised version of adultery, in which at the end of the day no-one gets hurt and there is a happy ending for everyone- even for Anita, whose renunciation of the man she loves is presented as a noble gesture which will enable her to live in future with a clear conscience. The film has been described as a "weepie" or a "tear-jerker", but it seemed to me that there was precious little in it to shed tears over.Most literary treatments of adultery (Anna and Karenin, Emma and Charles, Sir Clifford and Lady Chatterley) paint a portrait of a deeply dysfunctional marriage; this film, however, paints a highly idealised one. The opening scenes of Brandt, his adoring wife Margit and their two children could be taken straight from an advert depicting the ideal family. There is no attempt to suggest any marital discord which might have contributed to Brandt's infidelity; adultery is simply presented as "one of those things that happen", like an accident.This is not Ingrid Bergman's greatest film, but her vibrant, lively personality shines through and she does enough to show why she was to go on to become a major Hollywood star. (Ironically, her career was to be damaged ten years later when she herself became involved in an affair with a married man, Roberto Rossellini). Leslie Howard, however, seems too much the perfect gentleman with no suggestion of a passionate nature below the surface. One cannot really imagine him as the sort of man who would jeopardise a seemingly idyllic marriage for a guilty fling.This film is a remake of a Swedish film of the same name, made three years earlier in 1936. The main purpose of the remake was to allow David O. Selznick to introduce to the American public his big new star, Ingrid Bergman, who had also starred in the Swedish version. Tom Cruise did something similar recently when, wanting to introduce to the American public a big new star, Penelope Cruz (who also happened to be his girlfriend), he produced, under the title "Vanilla Sky", an English-language remake of her previous Spanish hit "Abre los Ojos". There is, however, a difference. Cruise's film transferred the action from Spain to America and included several well-known Hollywood stars, including himself. The American version of "Intermezzo" by contrast, kept the Swedish setting of the original film. Moreover, none of the leading actors were American. Apart from Bergman, the two leading roles are played by British actors, Leslie Howard and Edna Best. Clearly, in 1939 there was no automatic assumption on the part of Hollywood filmmakers, as there is today, that American audiences took no interest in countries other than their own.It might, in fact, have been easier if the action had been transferred to America, as it would have spared the filmmakers the dilemma of how to refer to the European political situation. The film was made at a time when Europe was threatened by war, and actually opened a few days after war was actually declared. The view of Europe in 1939, however, is as sanitised as that of the Brandts' marriage. We see a continent at peace, with no reference to Nazism or the approaching conflict, beyond one brief allusion to "the time when Vienna was a happy city". This has been taken as a reference to the Anschluss in the previous year, although Vienna was probably not a particularly happy place under the authoritarian pre-1938 Dollfuss/Schuschnigg regime.In style the film is a romantic melodrama, complete with lush Classical music playing in the background. It is reasonably well made, but I was rather unhappy with its treatment of its subject-matter. In one of a number of musical metaphors, Anita says that she was just an intermezzo in Brandt's life. Most extra-marital affairs in real life are rather more than that. If only the damage done by infidelity could be repaired as easily as it is in this film. 6/10
bennicks Standard, typical tear-jerker - highly-renowned concerto artist deserts family to take off with his child's piano teacher. They cavort around Europe until she finally throws him out and resumes her music career.The ladies in the audience use up three handkerchiefs apiece with their weeping. The men wonder at the idiot male who gives up the luscious Bergman to return to sleep with his wife who is stupid enough to take him back.The plot is straight out of East Lynne and told dozens of times on stage and in screen. Two star-crossed lovers finally come to their senses when they are reminded about the lives they are ruining with their carrying-ons. So they cry on each others shoulders and go their separate ways. A stinker of a movie.
preppy-3 A world famous violinist Holgar Brandt (Leslie Howard) falls in love with his child's piano teacher, Anita Hoffman (Ingrid Bergman). The problem is he's married with two children. When he asks Anita to join him on a world tour things start to unravel.Bergman's first English language film (she had done previous ones in Denmark). It's not a deep meaningful film (the story is very familiar) but it is a well-done and very moving love story. Also the movie is only 70 minutes long--it never wears out its welcome and moves along quickly and easily. The acting is all good but Bergman and Howard especially are superb in their roles. They bring their characters to life and make their romance look believable. It does get a little overdone at the end but it still works. A quick, moving romance and Bergman's first American film. What more could you ask for? I give it an 8.