Movie Review - Indiscreet (1958)

By: Ugur Akinci
Submitted: 2007-01-17 10:59:23
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Rating:

 

A romantic comedy that takes place (like a few other Cary Grant pictures) in the world of British upper class, among well-bred and prosperous ladies and gentlemen whose chief anxiety is a good life lived alone, with no one worthy to share. That's when we forget that we are removed from this distant “parallel universe” by a class differential of galactic proportions and comfortably internalize the human drama at the core of the story regardless of our own socioeconomic background.

(Note: if you'd like to watch Cary Grant in his most aristocratic role ever, see GRASS IS GREENER (1960). Playing a British Lord must have been a gas for Grant who was born and raised in Bristol, England as the son of an utterly poor working class family.)

Stanley Donen directed this light fare story penned by Norman Krasna in which Cary Grant (as Philip Adams) and Ingrid Bergman (Anna Kalman) share the lead roles.

Coming together again before the camera 12 years after they've starred in NOTORIOUS (1946), Grant and Bergman this time bring to life a much more intimate story. The structural context of the spy rings and a world at peril in the NOTORIOUS is here replaced by the lovely backdrop of London -- a city photographed so beautifully both in the day and night scenes that it should have been billed in the credits as a romantic actor on her own. If you'd like to watch a guilt-free romance story taking place in a handsome city among two worthy and mature characters who really love one another, then don't miss the INDISCREET.

Philip Adams is a guy who owns the world. He is rich, handsome, well educated, a leading world authority on global currency transactions, and the British representative to NATO. Anna Kalman is no small change either. She is a famous stage actress who is stalked by her fans for an autograph wherever she goes. They are both doing blazing guns by worldly standards but they've got no one to share all their good luck with.

The basic premise is straight forward – how do two very famous, successful but lonely people fall in love with one another without the fear that it might all be too good to be true and that their love one day might deteriorate to a ho-hum routine of married life?

And the stakes seem to be higher for Anna from the get go because very early on Philip does not hide the fact that – oops -- he is a married man. Yet despite that Anna allows the relationship to flare up to a full octane romance, complete with romantic walks along the Thames at night holding hands and gazing at one another in awkward and pregnant silence across the breakfast table in the morning.

When Philip is appointed by the British Foreign Service to an overseas post, he prefers Paris because then he can visit Anna over the weekends and holidays. What follows is a number of gorgeous sequences where we watch with delight Philip and Anna enjoy the art galleries of London, go to theater, have romantic “pillow talk” conversations through telephone, and do all the other things two people in love do, short of... proposing one another. Philip's marriage is always the invisible 900 pound gorilla that sits between them and that's the heart of their dramatic conflict.

The crucial second plot point arrives when Anna, through his sister Margaret (who is married to Alfred Munson, a British Foreign Officer diplomat and a close friend of Philip) learns that Philip is not actually married at all! He made up the story in order to avoid a situation in the future when he would have to turn down the prospects of marriage since he says “I'm not the marrying kind.”

However, in an earlier scene Anna, in an emotional outburst, has apologized to Philip for letting down her guard and asking him to divorce his wife and marry her instead. Now she feels she lowered herself to the role of a whimpering and crying “mistress” for nothing. She rightfully feels that Philip put her through all that emotional turmoil and placed her in a morally compromising position for no good reason at all. It was all based on false premises, thanks to Philip's duplicity.

Thus she decides to get her revenge. He arranges her butler to step out of her bedroom at exactly midnight on her birthday as though he was her lover. That's also when her brother in law confides in her that, instead of leaving for New York to take up his new official post, Philip will pay her a surprise visit.

Philip does indeed show up as the clock rings midnight and he does indeed come nose to nose with another man briefly stepping out of and then again disappearing into her bedroom. But her plot to make Philip jealous and squirm backfires because Philip was there to propose marriage to her. Now he is upset that she has taken up with another man.

Anna breaks down in tears and confesses to the whole plot. At the last critical scene they both have to make a decision whether to break apart and leave one another for good, or... let bygones be bygones and join hands for a future full of love and goodness. You can easily imagine what they end up deciding. The Happy End.

Another feel-good romance by Cary Grant, unfolding graciously among the bow-tie set of the British upper crust. But the feelings and emotions are just right and that's why it's a delight to watch and spend a carefree 100 minutes with this one.

An 8 out of 10.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a Creative Copywriter, Editor, an experienced and award-winning Senior Technical Communicator specializing in fundraising packages, direct sales copy, web content, press releases, movie reviews and hi-tech documentation. He has worked as a Technical Writer for Fortune 100 corporations since 1999. He is the editor of PRIVATE TUTOR FOR SAT MATH SUCCESS web site http://www.privatetutor.us

In addition to being an Ezine Articles Expert Author, he is also a Senior Member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and a Member of American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI).

A true movie fan since he was a child, Akinci provides FREE MOVIE PLOT IDEAS every day of the year at SCRIPT BOILER. Visit http://scriptboiler.blogspot.com today.

You are most welcomed to visit his COPYWRITING WEB SITE http://www.writer111.com for more information on his multidisciplinary background, writing career, and client testimonials.

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