Intermezzo (1939) was Ingrid Bergman’s American debut, as Anita Hoffman, a young piano teacher who falls in love with a married violinist.
Bergman had played the same role in the Swedish film Intermezzo in 1936, and producer David O. Selznick brought her to Hollywood to remake it with Leslie Howard. Her performance was fresh and natural, and American audiences took her to their hearts at once.
The film launched her Hollywood career. Anita’s quiet sincerity became a hallmark of Bergman’s early work, and Intermezzo remains the film that introduced her luminous screen presence to the world.
Image: Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bergman_%26_Bogart_Casablanca_still.jpg