TOWN HALL TALKIES

Patea Mail, Volume LIII, 23 July 1934, Page 4

TOWN HALL TALKIES

.FEUDAL NORMA SHEARER AXU CLARK GABLE IX ‘ ‘ STRANGE INTERLUDE. ’ ’ Science has agiin triumphed in the development of motion picture production •in making audibly the nocr'et thoughts of every player. “Strange Interlude” brings this amazing innovation to you. Liston to the voices that tell you the thoughts that dare not be spoken, the voices that reveal the inmost feelings of every player' in this magnificent picture. “Strange Interlude,” Eugene O’Neill’s famous drama in which spoken' words and unspoken thoughts arc woven into an intense romance, and which, on the stagey proved one of the most revolutionary plays in the history of modern drama, is 1 seen on the screen in talking picture form at the Town Hall, with a presentation that makes it far more convincing than the stage form that astounded theatre-goers. Norma Shearer is seen as Nina Leeds, the super-emotional heroine whose life is occupied by three men. The odd complexes and the psychological explorations of the stage drama arc made more striking o:r the screen, where, by moans of a. “double sound track,” as it is called at the studio the unspoken thoughts come from the characters without the unnatural “asides” made necessary by the limitations of the stage. Startlingly new is this method of presentation-; as startlingly new as (he amazing drama itself. . Misa Shearer is as astounding as both, in a role that starts her as a young woman and finishes with the brilliant star cloaked in the disguise of old age, through the witchery of make-up ami camera handling. Clark Gable, teamed with Miss Shearer for the first time since “A Free Soul,” is compellingly real as the doctor, Ned Darrell, and the other “men in her life” arc played by Ralph Morgan and Alexander Kirkland. Robert Young, who plays the son in- his young manhood, has another self in the person of Tad Alexander, who looks strikingly like him, and Gable, like Miss Shearer, covers a multitude cf years by means of disguise ami effective interpretation. Robert Z. Leonard’s deft direction makes a glowing, living piece of entertainment out of the remarkable draiv.ii. IVlieu one considers the difficult technical details involved in the making of the picture the work of the director must draw a deep appreciation. A notable cast appears, including May Robson, Maureen O’Sullivan, Henry B. Walthall, Mary Aide'll, and others, all ideally cast , in the incidental roles of the picture'. »■