INTERMEZZO: A LOVE STORY (1939) **1/2 Sympathy For the Adulterer. Couldn't have been an easy sell in those days. Impossible if not for the soulfully understated performance of Leslie Howard. Caught myself thinking, early on, that he'd make a great Sherlock Holmes, only to realize his uncanny resemblance to the greatest Holmes of them all: Ronald Howard, whom it turns out is Leslie's son. I suppose the setting of this assault upon decency (fornication, not Holmes)-the classical music world-may have made it all more palatable, somehow more respectable, to some, and the pieces (Heinz Provost, Grieg, Tchaikovsky) are placed skilfully and relatively sparingly, considering. Other than the fact that she plays piano beautifully (as Leslie does violin) and happens to be Swedish, it's difficult for me to understand why Ingrid Bergman is in the film. She doesn't exhibit anything like the range necessary for her role, to the point of more often being mildly humorous...well, and never particularly moving. I'm not saying that she's never good, that would be wrong, but I can't quite account for how wildly popular she was: it's as if the film industry was desperate to find a replacement for Greta Garbo as the Swedish totem (nod of recognition to Gore Vidal and Myra Breckenridge). She does play beautifully though, there's no denying that, and the script writers don't play it safe down the stretch.
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