In spite of presumed expertise at the peak of his Hollywood prestige, producer David O. Selznick couldn’t find a decent followup for breakout contractee Ingrid Bergman after he remade her Swedish hit INTERMEZZO in 1939. Three loan-outs in 1941 (ADAM HAD FOUR SONS, this James Hilton adaptation, and the Spencer Tracy JEKYLL & HYDE), none doing justice to Bergman’s incandescence. ADAM barely an A-list pic, while even Selznick’s own INTERMEZZO far weaker than the Swedish original Bergman made in 1936. No doubt, this project sounded promising: from a James Hilton novel after GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS hit big (even grabbing Best Actor Oscar for Robert Donat over Clark Gable in Selznick’s GONE WITH THE WIND); top helmer ‘Woody’ Van Dyke on Christopher Isherwood’s debut script; and solid co-stars in Robert Montgomery & George Sanders. Yet almost nothing works in this looney tunes suspenser. There’s a single twist you’ll guess right at the start, long before former college chums Montgomery & Sanders make for the Montgomery family manse & meet Bergman, Mama’s new social secretary. It’s love all around, but Bergman impulsively (and inexplicably) takes up with Montgomery who promptly falls apart trying to run the family steel foundry. As Bergman’s affections shift, Montgomery’s mental instabilities multiply and tragedy (served with revenge) looms. Nobody on screen has much luck selling any of this twaddle, and Van Dyke hasn’t the visual flair to give it the necessary doom-laden psychological pull. Though it's fun to see young Ingrid given the full M-G-M polish.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/LINK: Bergman stayed at M-G-M for JEKYLL AND HYDE, but campaigned to swap leading lady roles with co-star Lana Turner who took on ‘good girl’ to Ingrid’s naughty tart. A smart tactic that might have worked here with Montgomery playing gentle savior to Sanders’ tortured, paranoid creep. Not enough to save it, as was the case in J&H, but an improvement, anyway. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/08/dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-1941.html
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Montgomery seems ‘off’ here. That’s ‘off’ as an actor, not as the character. See him tackle this sort of unhinged fellow to fine effect in the unsettling thriller NIGHT MUST FALL/’37. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/12/night-must-fall-1937.html
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