Married New York City lawyer with Southern roots returns to his hometown in Georgia strictly on business, managing to dig up secrets from the past as well as rekindling a distant romance. Despite some flashbacks near the beginning, a lean and straightforward adaptation of Hamilton Basso's book (its inelegant title changed to "Secret Interlude" overseas). The film manages to skirt overwrought melodrama with help from a literate screenplay by Philip Dunne, who also directed. However, with themes of interracial relations and extra-marital intimacy, the picture really shouldn't be so plodding. The performers are well-cast (and their divergent accents aren't a big distraction), but the blaring music by Elmer Bernstein seeks out more intensity on the screen than what we're getting, especially during the romantic clinches. Handsome film is well-produced, yet the plot is merely routine. ** from ****
11 Reviews
Does anyone really ever escaped from their past?
mark.waltz14 February 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The world is filled with secrets and each resident other through its long history has enough of a storyline to cover several Broadway plays. The narration here by handsome Richard Egan has him confronting a past his left lung behind and finding that while you can go home, it's not always best to expect the past to welcome you with open arms. When he left his Southern home years ago to go to New York to become a lawyer, he never thought he'd have to confront those memories, but a case involving the law firm he works with has him forced to return and confront his past as well as learn long kept secrets about other people involving the case.
Dana Wynter co-stars as the young girl who was in love with him who has grown up to be a beautiful woman and has reclaimed her family home which she lost after the death of her parents by marrying the man who bought it. it's not a good marriage for her to Cameron Mitchell, and as a matter of fact, it's a lousy one based only on her need to be in her childhood home, so her intentions of running away with Egan and with him deciding to divorce his wife (Dorothy Patrick), they must confront the truth about who each other is and what their true desires are.
The case he must visit his old home of Pompey's Head regards the blind writer (Sidney Blackmer) whose wife (Marjorie Rambeau) insists sue the firm Egan works for over money she claims they stole from her husband. This too is not a marriage based on love, but on false beliefs and a paternity secret that Blackmer is hiding. each detail involving both plots becomes a bit convoluted here and there but the way it is presented is very entertaining and almost epic in scope. the gorgeous color photography and lavish settings are also attractions which makes this interesting.
I've always felt that Richard Egan was a very underrated actor and while he does not have extreme star magnetism, he is subtle and that is what this part requires to avoid becoming overly melodramatic. Wynter goes from young girl to work, and it's like watching Gigi grow in front of your eyes. Mitchell's Southern accent feels forced, so he's one flaw among the cast. Blackmer and Rambeau provide riveting characterizations in supporting parts and get the high praise, with Blackmer building in tension and Rambeau erupting like a volcano from the start. Well worth seeing if you can find the full widescreen version rather than a pan and scan, which if that is the case, skip it and hope it shows up in its released format.
Dana Wynter co-stars as the young girl who was in love with him who has grown up to be a beautiful woman and has reclaimed her family home which she lost after the death of her parents by marrying the man who bought it. it's not a good marriage for her to Cameron Mitchell, and as a matter of fact, it's a lousy one based only on her need to be in her childhood home, so her intentions of running away with Egan and with him deciding to divorce his wife (Dorothy Patrick), they must confront the truth about who each other is and what their true desires are.
The case he must visit his old home of Pompey's Head regards the blind writer (Sidney Blackmer) whose wife (Marjorie Rambeau) insists sue the firm Egan works for over money she claims they stole from her husband. This too is not a marriage based on love, but on false beliefs and a paternity secret that Blackmer is hiding. each detail involving both plots becomes a bit convoluted here and there but the way it is presented is very entertaining and almost epic in scope. the gorgeous color photography and lavish settings are also attractions which makes this interesting.
I've always felt that Richard Egan was a very underrated actor and while he does not have extreme star magnetism, he is subtle and that is what this part requires to avoid becoming overly melodramatic. Wynter goes from young girl to work, and it's like watching Gigi grow in front of your eyes. Mitchell's Southern accent feels forced, so he's one flaw among the cast. Blackmer and Rambeau provide riveting characterizations in supporting parts and get the high praise, with Blackmer building in tension and Rambeau erupting like a volcano from the start. Well worth seeing if you can find the full widescreen version rather than a pan and scan, which if that is the case, skip it and hope it shows up in its released format.
Still remember after 44 years !
Sunny-4428 April 1999
I saw this movie when I was 11 years old. It was a love story that has never left me. When Dana Wynter says, "Oh Sonny, I loved you so," I just cried and cried. I felt then, I would have some sort of sadness in my love life and later on, I did!
Found this movie
Ffloydew24 March 2004
I found this movie in the UK. It is UK named "Secret Interlude" I have ordered it in 8MM and will transpose to CD. This is a movie made in Brunswick, Georgia with Richard Egan. My Father was in the movie and it is the only real live memory of my Dad. He passed when I was a baby.
I cannot wait to get it, it has scenes from St. Simons Island, GA and Jekyll Island, GA, Brunswick, GA. Also featuring the old Oglethorpe Hotel Built in 1888 and destroyed in 1959.
Anyone interested, email me.......ED Floyd
I cannot wait to get it, it has scenes from St. Simons Island, GA and Jekyll Island, GA, Brunswick, GA. Also featuring the old Oglethorpe Hotel Built in 1888 and destroyed in 1959.
Anyone interested, email me.......ED Floyd
A stronger leading man would have made this better
jjnxn-128 May 2016
Lush soap opera with many signatures of the big budget 50's studio era, beautiful locations and production design, Cinemascope and an eye for detail..there's a scene where Egan pulls up beside a house and the colors of his suit, car interior & exterior and house all compliment each other and and his complexion and he's in a ghetto! Where it misses is in the casting of the leading man.
Richard Egan was a reliable journeyman actor but he wasn't strong enough to carry this sort of film. His character, who to put it mildly has many conflicts, required the intensity of a Richard Burton or the movie star charisma of a Rock Hudson to make him work, Egan possesses neither. Dana Wynter, Cameron Mitchell and Marjorie Rambeau all provide the requisite punch to their characters but with Egan's bland reliability failing to give them a spark to ignite off of the film never pulls the audience in.
It's not an awful film just empty.
Richard Egan was a reliable journeyman actor but he wasn't strong enough to carry this sort of film. His character, who to put it mildly has many conflicts, required the intensity of a Richard Burton or the movie star charisma of a Rock Hudson to make him work, Egan possesses neither. Dana Wynter, Cameron Mitchell and Marjorie Rambeau all provide the requisite punch to their characters but with Egan's bland reliability failing to give them a spark to ignite off of the film never pulls the audience in.
It's not an awful film just empty.
The view from now
tomsview12 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
New York Lawyer, Anson Page (Richard Egan), travels back to his Southern hometown to investigate the misplaced royalties of famous author, Garvin Wales. The journey reveals a secret and also reunites him with his former love, Dinah (Dana Winter), although they are now married to other people.
Although his short stay in Pompey's Head exposes all the class and racial bigotry he had left behind, the story also centres on his nostalgia for the place and the rekindling of the affair with Dinah.
For all the location filming, the film struggles to fully engage. Some have blamed Richard Egan and Dana Wynter for being too stiff, but I mostly blame the direction. The flashbacks are poorly conceived with no feeling of being in the past, and the meeting after many years between Anson and Dinah has little build up; the direction is pedestrian.
Narration can be a lazy way of telling a story on film; it can work, but I think it stopped screenwriter/director Philip Dunne from working harder visually and creatively to involve us in Anson's sense of what had been lost and could not be regained. Compare it to another film shot on location in the South a few years later, Elia Kazan's "Wild River", where there is real feeling for the people and the place.
A wince-inducing aspect of the story was the revelation that the big secret Garvin Wales wanted kept was that his mother was coloured. Sadly, the script didn't confront the issue head on. Anson's response that Garvin Wales should have been accepted for who he was and what he had achieved, sidestepped the fact that his mother should never have been ostracised in the first place. Hollywood always trod carefully around the subject back then.
Powerfully-built Richard Egan and beautiful Dana Wynter weren't quite right. He was too controlled, and Dana seemed overly conscious of her Southern accent, she was better in scenes when it actually slipped.
Even the score by Elmer Bernstein, who had composed such emotive works as "Summer and Smoke" and "To Kill a Mockingbird", seemed less inspired here.
It may be seen as a film of its time, but too many things worked to dull "The View from Pompey's Head".
Although his short stay in Pompey's Head exposes all the class and racial bigotry he had left behind, the story also centres on his nostalgia for the place and the rekindling of the affair with Dinah.
For all the location filming, the film struggles to fully engage. Some have blamed Richard Egan and Dana Wynter for being too stiff, but I mostly blame the direction. The flashbacks are poorly conceived with no feeling of being in the past, and the meeting after many years between Anson and Dinah has little build up; the direction is pedestrian.
Narration can be a lazy way of telling a story on film; it can work, but I think it stopped screenwriter/director Philip Dunne from working harder visually and creatively to involve us in Anson's sense of what had been lost and could not be regained. Compare it to another film shot on location in the South a few years later, Elia Kazan's "Wild River", where there is real feeling for the people and the place.
A wince-inducing aspect of the story was the revelation that the big secret Garvin Wales wanted kept was that his mother was coloured. Sadly, the script didn't confront the issue head on. Anson's response that Garvin Wales should have been accepted for who he was and what he had achieved, sidestepped the fact that his mother should never have been ostracised in the first place. Hollywood always trod carefully around the subject back then.
Powerfully-built Richard Egan and beautiful Dana Wynter weren't quite right. He was too controlled, and Dana seemed overly conscious of her Southern accent, she was better in scenes when it actually slipped.
Even the score by Elmer Bernstein, who had composed such emotive works as "Summer and Smoke" and "To Kill a Mockingbird", seemed less inspired here.
It may be seen as a film of its time, but too many things worked to dull "The View from Pompey's Head".
Disappointing!
JohnHowardReid27 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Copyright 1955 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 4 November 1955. U.S. release: November 1955. U.K. release: 2 July 1956. Australian release: 17 May 1956. Sydney opening at the Regent. 8,716 feet. 97 minutes. U.K. and Australian release title: SECRET INTERLUDE.
SYNOPSIS: Garvin Wales (Sidney Blackmer) is the most famous writer published by John Duncan (Howard Wendell) of New York. Wales is now living in isolation on an island in the deep South, his talent failing, going blind. When Duncan receives not from Wales but from his dominating wife, Lucy (Marjorie Rambeau), who keeps Garvin virtually her prisoner, a letter demanding $20,000 in royalties stolen, she asserts, by Philip Greene, the Company's editor who was until his recent death not only Wales' editor but his best friend, Duncan dispatches young Anson Page (Richard Egan) to Pompey's Head, the refuge of the Waleses, to unravel the mystery. The choice is not accidental. Anson Page, though a transplanted New Yorker with an adoring wife, Meg (Dorothy Patrick Davis), a family and a life in New York now, is originally from Pompey's Head.
NOTES: Fox's 43rd CinemaScope film gained no critical plaudits or awards. Despite an extensive advertising campaign centering on the phenomenally bestselling (at least in the United States) Hamilton Basso novel, the movie returned only a modest profit to the studio. Lack of star power as well as lukewarm-at-best reviews (in many of which the movie was unfavorably compared to the book) contributed to the general lack of public enthusiasm. In England and Australia, where the novel was little known, the movie did so little business, I doubt if it recovered its advertising and distribution costs.
I could never figure out what it was but I suspect Richard Egan must have projected at least one star quality. Certainly Fox executives pulled out all stops in their efforts to promote him as a major star. That he didn't succeed wasn't for lack of studio enthusiasm. But what did Egan have to offer? That's what I'd like to know. Just look at him! And don't think the stills cameraman has caught him unawares. No, that's Dick Egan all right, typically stiff as a board. The other players at least look more relaxed and more in character. But not our Dick. I wonder why Fox persisted with him for so long. Maybe he had a good agent. Goldstone-Tobias, to be exact.
As for the movie itself. Well the combination of the zombie-like Egan with an impeccably dull scriptwriter/director like Philip Dunne is not exactly calculated to generate much fire. And just to make doubly sure the picture never lifts off, Dunne has reduced the many- stranded plots of the novel to just two: an incredibly boring I-met- my-adolescent-love-again-but-nothing-happened romance between Egan and the appropriately-named, frosty Miss Wynter; and a slightly more interesting tale of a blind author, his shrewish wife and a missing $20,000. (Or at least it would have been a slightly more interesting tale if you hadn't already read the solution to the mystery in the newspaper advertisements or on the posters outside the theater). Sidney Blackmer is reasonably forceful as the author, Marjorie Rambeau is perfectly cast as the demanding wife.
SYNOPSIS: Garvin Wales (Sidney Blackmer) is the most famous writer published by John Duncan (Howard Wendell) of New York. Wales is now living in isolation on an island in the deep South, his talent failing, going blind. When Duncan receives not from Wales but from his dominating wife, Lucy (Marjorie Rambeau), who keeps Garvin virtually her prisoner, a letter demanding $20,000 in royalties stolen, she asserts, by Philip Greene, the Company's editor who was until his recent death not only Wales' editor but his best friend, Duncan dispatches young Anson Page (Richard Egan) to Pompey's Head, the refuge of the Waleses, to unravel the mystery. The choice is not accidental. Anson Page, though a transplanted New Yorker with an adoring wife, Meg (Dorothy Patrick Davis), a family and a life in New York now, is originally from Pompey's Head.
NOTES: Fox's 43rd CinemaScope film gained no critical plaudits or awards. Despite an extensive advertising campaign centering on the phenomenally bestselling (at least in the United States) Hamilton Basso novel, the movie returned only a modest profit to the studio. Lack of star power as well as lukewarm-at-best reviews (in many of which the movie was unfavorably compared to the book) contributed to the general lack of public enthusiasm. In England and Australia, where the novel was little known, the movie did so little business, I doubt if it recovered its advertising and distribution costs.
I could never figure out what it was but I suspect Richard Egan must have projected at least one star quality. Certainly Fox executives pulled out all stops in their efforts to promote him as a major star. That he didn't succeed wasn't for lack of studio enthusiasm. But what did Egan have to offer? That's what I'd like to know. Just look at him! And don't think the stills cameraman has caught him unawares. No, that's Dick Egan all right, typically stiff as a board. The other players at least look more relaxed and more in character. But not our Dick. I wonder why Fox persisted with him for so long. Maybe he had a good agent. Goldstone-Tobias, to be exact.
As for the movie itself. Well the combination of the zombie-like Egan with an impeccably dull scriptwriter/director like Philip Dunne is not exactly calculated to generate much fire. And just to make doubly sure the picture never lifts off, Dunne has reduced the many- stranded plots of the novel to just two: an incredibly boring I-met- my-adolescent-love-again-but-nothing-happened romance between Egan and the appropriately-named, frosty Miss Wynter; and a slightly more interesting tale of a blind author, his shrewish wife and a missing $20,000. (Or at least it would have been a slightly more interesting tale if you hadn't already read the solution to the mystery in the newspaper advertisements or on the posters outside the theater). Sidney Blackmer is reasonably forceful as the author, Marjorie Rambeau is perfectly cast as the demanding wife.
Lushly-Beautiful; Nearly a Great Movie; Absorbing and Memorable
silverscreen8883 August 2005
For fifty years, this film which I consider to be near-miss try at a classic drama of ideas has been one of my favorite films. Philip Dunne wanted the world to appreciate lovely and talented Dana Wynter, his leading lady as writer and director on the film; and he also wanted to solve the problem of how to develop its powerful story-line to its fullest. In my judgment, he came close on both counts; there are five parts in the film that really matter, and Wynter has one of them which she does very well. And the film is good, well-liked, well-remembered. But neither the lady nor the project achieved exactly what Dunne had wished. The novel by Southerner Hamilton Basso which was the springboard for the interesting and lushly-photographed screenplay I find to be well-thought out, filled with interesting vignette characters and strong in its praise and condemnation of the South, its peoples' racism at the time and its social mores and ways. The novel has a convoluted style, which involves flashbacks to various periods in the central character Anson Page's life in a Carolina town and in New York. The basic plot device is that he is sent back to his home town for a very important reason by the book publishing company for whom he works in New York City. He is restless, at odds with his Northern wife, and frankly unprepared for how deeply Pompey's Head will affect him. "Time is a treacherous thing," he notes. His assignment is to find out why his now-dead editor, a man who had helped him to write "Shinto Traditions in the American South"--about ancestor worship mostly--has been accused of embezzling thousands of dollars from another' house author', Garvin Wales. He cannot believe his friend and mentor Philip Schuyler would steal; but he has no other explanation for the money, sent off in checks under Schuyler's name to Anna Jones. But the wife of the famous author, a Deveraux from an old family, is demanding money. So he goes home, to a bitter mystery and a dangerous mid-life crisis. The worst danger he faces, other than gossip, running into old friends and classmates and the investigation he must conduct comes seeking him. It is Dinah Blackford, his old sweetheart, now married to Michael "Mico" Higgins, CEO of "Peppo" beverages and a man trying to buy his way into the exclusive society of the town whose poor channel-born son he once was--and in the eyes of the traditional upper class still is. Over time, Page, played by powerful Richard Egan, realizes why he left the South in the first place, over racism and over the power games played by its long-time residents against those newer to wealth, the land and its ways. He finally even finds Dinah shallow, without deep honesty or an interest in ideas; she cannot leave her abusive husband because she wants the wealth of her family's ancestral plantation which she had lost but which he bought for her again with the money from his beverage business. And at the last, he also discovers the truth about the mysterious Anna Jones. Wales is by now a blind, embittered man who had nothing to do with the suit; his wife, Lucy Deveraux Wales began it...and what he finds out causes her to give up the suit and pretend her wrath had always been a silly misunderstanding. Page notes that someday soon she will even believe her own lie...and that that sort of postmodernist-Neanderthal behavior is why he must go back to his life in New York. The direction and the script by scenarist Dunne are far-above- average; in dialogue, beautiful imagery and memorable scenes this is a high-quality motion picture effort. The cinematography by Joseph MacDonald is diamond-like; the art direction by Leland Fuller and Lyle R. Wheeler is unforgettable, filled with location footage. The set decorations by Paul S. Fox and Walter M. Scott are professionally fine as are the music by Elmer Bernstein and the costumes by Charles Le Maire. In the five leads, everyone does very well. Cameron Mitchell brings energy and craft to his portrayal of Mico Higgins; Egan makes a good leading man; and in the role of Lucy Deveraux Wales Marjorie Rambeau is award-caliber, as is Sidney Blackmer as Garvin Wales, in the scenes the script allows him. Dana Wynter is lovely, talented and does a fairly good Southern accent; she is every bit the lovely aristocrat stuck mentally in the 1850s the author painted her to be. What the viewer takes away from this powerful film of personalities and ideas is a strong sense of the Carolina landscape and the magnetic pull of the past upon the lives of those in the present. All those in the film's smaller roles from De Forest Kelley as a hotel clerk to the New York firm's heads are played with intelligence. This is nearly a great film, and one of the most hauntingly memorable, by my lights, of all time...
Excellent CinemaScope Picture
donwc199615 February 2011
In 1955 when this early CinemaScope film was released and came to the Tucson Fox Theater, I was thirteen years old and I recall vividly sitting entranced in the large movie house utterly captivated by Richard Egan and Dana Wynter, who have to be one of the most stunning couples ever to grace the silver screen. Talk about perfect casting. The director, John Dunne, certainly had an eye for putting together the perfect male/female combo, with Egan's rugged tanned looks and Wynter's porcelain skin and breathtaking beauty, what's not to like! The story took backseat to the CinemaScope spectacle of Egan and Wynter and although not a complete disaster, the story, thankfully, never got in the way of Egan and Wynter. But it was interesting enough to keep me going and the nice thing about having the DVD is that I could take breaks which actually helped make the film move a bit more quickly.
Is this movie available in video?
Earthrider22 May 2000
I saw this memorable movie when I was 15, 45 years ago. It made an indelible impression on me, especially Dana Wynter, and, as I remember, a powder blue Ford convertible. I have been trying for several years now to find out if it's available in video.So far, no luck. Does anybody know if it can be had, if so how?
Engrossing and Memorable
serafindeocampo-7435213 June 2020
After several attempts at watching blurry copies, I finally found a decent copy with satisfactory sound and was then able to view the entire film. I found this film to be quite absorbing and beautiful. The performances were very convincing. Richard Egan as usual is a very powerful and engrossing presence here always balancing restraint and erotic tension. Dana Wynter is lovely but could have been more impetuous. I read that Jean Simmons was considered for the Dana Wynter role. Perhaps she would have added that fiery impetuousness that was lacking in Ms. Wynter's performance. The acting accolades go to Marjorie Rambeau who was truly commanding in every scene. Sidney Blackner and Cameron Mitchell contribute very strong performances as well. Visually, the production is stunning. The colours, light, shadows and scenery were extremely lush and well thought out. The farewell scene at the train station for me ranks as one of the most beautiful "train station" scenes ever, along with " A Man and a Woman", "Love in the Afternoon" and dare I say, "Brief Encounter." It is unfortunate that a fully and meticulously restored version of this film is still unavailable. I can only imagine what the experience of watching this film must be like on the big screen. I should also not neglect to mention Elmer Bernstein's sweeping music score and moving love theme.
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