Strange Interlude (1932) is the weirdest movie where people won't stop whispering

If you have two hours to spare and want to see Clark Gable look incredibly uncomfortable while a voiceover reveals his deepest secrets, then yes, Strange Interlude is absolutely worth your time.

People who love wacky, experimental pre-code cinema will probably find this fascinating. But if you get annoyed by characters constantly pausing mid-sentence to stare blankly at a wall, you will hate every second of it. 😬

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Strange Interlude (1932) through its definitive frames.

The Gimmick That Won't Quit

This movie is based on a Eugene O'Neill play, and they decided to keep the play's main trick. The characters literally freeze in place, and we hear their inner thoughts played over the soundtrack.

It is so incredibly awkward.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Strange Interlude (1932) through its definitive frames.

One second Norma Shearer is talking about her husband, and the next second she stops, her face goes totally blank, and we hear her voice whispering: "I must hide the truth from him..."

It feels like someone is playing a giant game of freeze tag with the actors.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Strange Interlude (1932) through its definitive frames.

The plot itself is totally wild. Nina (Shearer) marries this nice but boring guy, then her mother-in-law tells her that insanity runs in the family so she shouldn't have his baby.

So what does she do? She decides to have a "scientific" love child with a handsome doctor played by Clark Gable, then lets her husband think the kid is his.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Strange Interlude (1932) through its definitive frames.

It has the kind of bizarre logic where a woman does whatever she wants—sort of like the silent era plot in Whatever She Wants—but here, it is treated like a heavy, dark tragedy.

Gable looks so out of place here. He still has his boyish charm, but his ears look massive in some of these close-ups, and you can tell he is struggling to figure out how to stand still during the voiceovers.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Strange Interlude (1932) through its definitive frames.

At times, the movie feels less like a story and more like a very long, very dramatic therapy session where everyone is lying to each other out loud but telling the truth to the ceiling.

Odd little details I noticed:

• The makeup they use to make the characters look older in the second half is... not great. They just put some grey powder in Gable's hair and called it a day.
• At one point, a character stands next to a bookshelf and just stares at a book for what feels like three minutes without actually touching it.
• The sound quality on the inner thoughts has this weird, echoey bathroom reverb.
• Norma Shearer's dramatic hand gestures deserve their own spin-off movie.

There is a scene near the end on a boat where everyone is just thinking at each other. No one is actually talking.

It is just four people sitting in silence while their pre-recorded voices argue. It is hilarious.

I kind of love how brave this movie is for trying something so silly. It does not work at all, but at least it is not boring.