Interference (film)

Interference is a 1928 American drama film directed by Lothar Mendes and starring Clive Brook, William Powell, Evelyn Brent, and Doris Kenyon, all making their sound film debuts. In England when a first husband turns out not to be dead, blackmail leads to murder.[1][2]

Interference
Directed byLothar Mendes, (silent version)
Roy J. Pomeroy, (sound version)
Written byRoland Pertwee (play)
Harold Dearden (play)
Louise Long
Hope Loring (adaptation)
Ernest Pascal (dialogue)
Julian Johnson (titles)
StarringClive Brook, William Powell
Evelyn Brent
Music byW. Franke Harling
CinematographyHenry W. Gerrard
Farciot Edouart
J R. Hunt
Edited byGeorge Nichols Jr.
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • November 5, 1928 (1928-11-05) (New York City)
  • January 5, 1929 (1929-01-05) (US)
Running time
10 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Also silent version with English intertitles

Production

The film was originally produced as a silent which was directed by Lothar Mendes. However, after its completion, Paramount halted it release and decided to remake the film completely in sound.[3] The sound version was directed by special effects technician-turned-director Roy J. Pomeroy, as the basis for Paramount Pictures' first feature-length all-talking motion picture. Since Pomeroy lacked experience as a director, he was assisted by William deMille during the filming. It was based on the 1927 West End play Interference by Roland Pertwee and Harold Dearden. It was shot on a budget of $250,000[4] A silent version was also released to cater for theaters that had not yet wired for sound. While the sound version survives, the silent version is now lost.[5]

In 1935 it was remade by Paramount as Without Regret.

Synopsis

At a Remembrance Day service in London, Deborah Lane spots her former husband Philip Voaze who was supposedly killed during World War I. She discovers that he has actually survived the fighting and has been living under an assumed identity. Aware that his wife Faith is now remarried to Sir John Marlay, a famous heart surgeon, she begins to try and blackmail Faith by threatening to reveal her inadvertent bigamy.

Critical reception

The film was praised in the New York Times as "a specimen of the strides made by the talking picture". However, a Variety review was more negative, describing Interference as "indifferent entertainment".[6]

At the London premiere, Clive Brook's mother remembered a gaff during the screening that put the crowd in an uproar. In one scene, Brook receives a postcard, tears it up and says, "Another one of those damn postcards." The needle on the disk for sound got stuck and kept repeating, "Another one of those damn postcards," over and over again while Brook, on-screen, took his wife into his arms and kissed her.[7]

Cast

References
  1. Interference at silentera.com database (released in silent and sound versions)
  2. "INTERFERENCE". Table Talk (3168). Victoria, Australia. January 24, 1929. p. 27. Retrieved October 29, 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. Eyman, Scott (1999). The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 205–7. ISBN 0-8018-6192-6.
  4. Bryant p.54
  5. Bryant p.54
  6. Bryant p.54
  7. Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1997.

Bibliography
  • Bryant, Roger. William Powell: The Life and Films. McFarland, 2014.
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