Leslie and Ingrid’s Bargaining Chips

Intermezzo is famous for a couple of reasons. Leslie Howard agreed to play Ashley Wilkes if David O. Selznik would agree to greenlight Intermezzo, plus the film marks Ingrid Bergman‘s Hollywood debut. As it turned out, the 1939 film was advantageous for everyone, although the movie itself is a quiet one.

It opens at the end of Holger Brandt’s (Leslie Howard) latest tour. His accompanist, Thomas (John Halliday) is all set to stay home and give music lessons because he’s getting on and touring is strenuous. Even though Holger is sorry to see Thomas go, he’s glad to be going home and seeing his wife, Margit (Edna Best) and two kids, Eric (Douglas Scott) and Ann Marie (Ann E. Todd).

Holger gets home to find that Ann Marie has a new piano teacher, Anita Hoffman (Ingrid Bergman), and after hearing her play at a party one night he’s completely bowled over. Holger and Anita have dinner one night after they meet up at a concert and sparks fly. They start seeing each other at out-of-the-way bars and cafes and Holger invites Anita to be his new accompanist, but she thinks she should stay and keep studying for the Jenny Lind scholarship in Paris.

Anita has scruples about her dalliance with a married man and makes plans to go see relatives in Denmark, but Holger, who’s just told the suspicious-but-resigned Margit about his liason, stops her. They end up going on tour together which is so successful they do several encores every night, always ending with Holger’s original number, “Intermezzo.”

Once the tour’s over, Holger and Anita go to Italy, where they bill and coo away their days sailing, picnicking, and mingling with the locals. Anita, however, realizes Holger misses his family and she starts feeling more scruples. When she gets a letter informing her that she won the Jenny Lind scholarship she makes up her mind. So does Holger after a visit from Thomas and another whole year away. I won’t ruin anything, but suffice it to say, everyone ends up where they’re supposed to and fences get mended.

Intermezzo is an almost shot-for-shot remake of a 1936 Swedish film of the same name that also starred Ingrid Bergman as Anita, although Selznik’s version sported camerawork by the amazing Gregg Toland. Bergman even wears some of the exact same costumes in the Selznik version as she did in the original. I guess Selznik was banking on no one noticing, and anyway, Gone WIth the Wind was his prestige movie of the moment, so he probably figured he could cut a few corners.

Selznik was, however, banking on Bergman, whose films in Sweden had already been getting better and better in her short career. Selznik knew that if he didn’t snap Bergman up someone else would, and he even paid Bergman $2,500 a week, which was more than Vivien Leigh was making as Scarlett O’Hara. He also wanted to give Bergman the glamour treatment, which she flatly refused. If Selznik didn’t accept Bergman as she was, she would head back to Sweden.

Selznik not only backed off but presented Bergman to the public as a saintly, wholesome paragon of virtue, so it’s ironic that Bergman’s first American film was about a passionate extramarital affair. Ironically enough, Bergman’s newfound stardom and her numerous real-life affairs with her costars and directors would put a strain on her marriage to her first husband, Petter Lindstrom, with whom she would part ways with in 1950.

Speaking of strain, Intermezzo started filming during delays with Gone With the Wind, and there were points at which both films were shot at the same time. Leslie Howard seems to have powered through it, though, because he famously hated playing Ashley. Howard thought he was too old and not enough of a pretty boy to be believable as a dashing young plantation heir, and he was continuously late to the set and messing up his lines.

Intermezzo was definitely more Howard’s style, although he was not a violin player, so a professional violinist, Al Sack was used as a hand double, kneeling behind Howard and reaching around him to play. It’s mostly unnoticeable, except that Holger appears to have three hands in some scenes. For the long shots, Sack, who looked enough like Howard to pass for his double, stood in for him.

As for Bergman, she wasn’t a piano player, and was taught the fingering for her closeups, although her hands still don’t quite show proper form. Back then the hands were held very high, but then again, it takes a lot of time and training to be able to maintain that form for an extended period, especially for the level that Bergman’s character was supposed to be playing.

Bergman and Howard both made a fine showing, and Intermezzo was a success, although very much overshadowed by Gone With the Wind.  As it turned out, Intermezzo would be Howard’s penultimate American film, as the Second World War had started and Howard shifted into working for the war effort. He died in 1943 under mysterious circumstances when his plane was shot down over the Atlantic.

Seen today, Intermezzo feels a little brushed aside, still overshadowed for Howard by Gone With the Wind, and for that matter, by Casablanca for Ingrid Bergman. For those who happen upon it, though, it lives up to its name as a pleasant, if bittersweet little interlude in the lives and careers of two remarkable actors.

Another review is on the way tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and have a good one…

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Intermezzo is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon, as well as available to stream on Tubi. The original Swedish film is also available on DVD from Amazon.

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Bibliography

Bartel, Paulina.  The Complete Gone With the WInd Trivia Book. Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2014.

Santas, Constantine and James M. Wilson. The Essential Films of Ingrid Bergman.  Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.

Smit, David. Ingrid Bergman: The Life, Career, and Public Image. Jefferson, North Carolina: MacFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2012.