MonsterPerfect
Good idea lost in the noise
ActuallyGlimmer
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Helllins
It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.
Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Phillim
Director Stanley Donen hates tension, hates high stakes. His films depend on glamour and performer charm, and an at-least-mildly-compelling script, as with 'Two for the Road'.'Indiscreet' by its casting suggests something akin to Hitchcock's 'Notorious'. Nope. Here, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant are charming and skilled, but the script is hack Broadway comedy of manners -- what they used to call a 'sex comedy'. 'Indiscreet' is full of tedious, repetitive exposition and explanation, in lieu of anything like action. On stage that can succeed with electrifying performers; on film, it's a no-go -- a fact known from the time of the early talkies.Bergman plays a stage actress, and makes the madly intelligent choice to play her without a speck of artifice. Bergman's marvelous technique of presenting authentic behavior, suggests a real, fleshy, smart and worldly human -- hers is a performance miles beyond the material, a performance timeless in its honesty. Particularly effective are scenes where she handles constant autograph seekers at the most inconvenient moments -- Bergman's ambiguous dark/polite responses are profound.Cary Grant is Cary Grant, which goes a long way, but quickly wears out its welcome with a script too tired to even get started. Everybody's wealthy, commute casually by jet, live in palatial suites and go to expensive places, wear evening clothes, are smooth with each others' contented servants, carefully talk about the weather in front of elevator operators -- it's a poor child's fantasy of wealth and sophistication.I guess in 1958 unmarried people having sex was considered a spicy enough subject to require burial in blandness. This movie's big daring moment: its famous split-screen effect showing the sexy couple talking to each other by phone in their respective beds, as if side by side -- a cheeky way to circumvent Production Code restrictions against a man and a woman sharing a bed. At one point Grant fiddles with his bedding on the right side of his frame, making *virtual* contact with Bergman's hiney on the left side of her frame -- both are directed to giggle at the precise moment. Cute gimmick, admirable for its tawdriness, but not enough to sustain the other creaky 99 minutes.The color is garish like the old Sunday funnies -- over-saturated primary colors everywhere. Grant and Bergman's faces look like rouged oranges. I was certain it was horrible 1980s digital colorization -- later research proved the film was indeed shot in Technicolor. Post-WWII and into the 1950s, British film producers paying for expensive Technicolor liked to get their money's worth. Masters like Michael Powell used strong colors to spectacular effect, e.g., 'The Red Shoes', 'Black Narcissus'. Inferior product like 'Indiscreet' reminds us not to take our real cinema artists for granted.
SnoopyStyle
Anna Kalman (Ingrid Bergman) comes home early from vacation. She's a single London actress who can't find love. Her sister Margaret (Phyllis Calvert) and her diplomat husband Alfred Munson (Cecil Parker) is on their way to a hard currency dinner. Philip Adams (Cary Grant) comes up before going to the dinner. Anna falls immediately for Philip and he for her. At first, he tells everyone that there is no Mrs. Adams. Later he tells her that he actually has a wife in San Francisco but just no Mrs. Adams with him. She dates him anyways. He starts working out of Paris for NATO. However he is going to New York for five months. She is beside herself. Then Alfred finds out that Philip isn't actually married. He is lying only because he never wants to marry and this is the only way to ensure that the lady starts without any hope of marriage. Then Margaret lets the cat out of the bag.It would be better if the romance is tone down at the beginning. If only Anna treats this more as a friendship. In general, she needs to show some deference to his marriage no matter what. It would help sell the comedy a lot better. Of course, that may have been too modern for the era. It's a bit early to ask whether men and women can be friends without romance. It's an odd thing to say but the chemistry doesn't work for the first half. Obviously it's not Grant or Bergman's fault. It's the story. The audience is watching a couple cheat without any resistance and little reservations. Grant is so cool in this that one can take it as being cold. It becomes a funnier joyful movie after the secret is revealed. It's like a different movie and quite a better one. Bergman finally finds her voice and the couple discovers their chemistry. Grant is also released to be the fun character that the audience expects. The first half is at most a 5 but the twist saves it a bit.
nancydsf
Whenever I want to watch a "feel-good" movie, I put on "Indiscreet." Six fine actors, headed by two of movies' best -- Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman -- and directed by one of our finest directors, Stanley Donen. Grant's entrance ("The door was open") immediately announces he is "Prince Charming." How could Bergman's "Anna Kalman" not be smitten? It's clear they're both smitten, but she must take the initiative. Their mutual attraction is handled subtly. The next most romantic scene, beautifully understated, is in the elevator as they return to her flat after the ballet. In it they don't exchange a word.Bergman looks stunning in a marvelous wardrobe of designer dresses, suits and furs, especially a gold evening gown she wears to a dinner dance. Before leaving for that dance she utters the best line in the film: "How dare he make love to me and not be a married man!" Donen ends the film with a brilliant scene, brilliantly played -- almost an operatic duet -- which ends with Phillip tells Anna, "You'll like being married, really you will" as they are seated on a couch in exactly the same position as Nicky Ferrante and Terry McKay in Leo McCarey's "An Affair to Remember." A nice homage by Donen.
Armand
irresistible charm of Cary Grant. glamor of Ingrid Bergman. rivers of romance. beautiful clothes, elegant places. short - a new form of fairy tale. but not few elements are important. the seduction secret is the game of director with public. the little conspiracy because a real fairy tale is not only a collection of nice images. the dialogs are heart of its success. a man. a woman. few events. and new beginning for each. old recipes. very special in this case for the smart way to mix spices. part of a dead period, seed for dreams of generations, it is a precious piece from box with souvenirs.is it enough ? maybe ! the love is always interesting. the dreams - every time remains free.