Cary Grant is coasting on the type of auto-pilot that only a guy who’s been in more classics than any other actor could, while Ingrid Bergman vainly attempts to get us to care about her co-dependent theater actress character whose startlingly lack of self-respect is equaled only by her stunningly bad taste in clothes.
Both of them manage to look over the hill in their various close ups that director Stanley Dolen unwisely inserts into this movie with too much regularity. Really, do I need to see Cary’s thin, craggy features to remind me that he was 117 years old when he made this movie? Or that Ingrid Bergman could have benefited from a nose job if she was still insisting on appearing in films in her eighties?
I wouldn’t even have a problem watching a couple of decomposing has beens if they were involved in something that held my interest. i>Indiscreet though was just about the blandest thing I ever saw. Purportedly a romantic comedy, there wasn’t a single thing in this movie that was funny.
That’s not to say that there were a bunch of jokes or humorous situations that fell flat because there weren’t any. In fact, there was barely anything in this film that even attempted to rise to the level of a remark that might raise a wan smile out of the jolliest of us.
Even the slightly wacky revenge scheme that Ingrid cooks up in the last ten minutes of the movie is so underwhelming that you’re just wondering whether Cary will remember to act suitably befuddled and/or outraged by it. After all, this was a guy that faced a leopard and Katharine Hepburn in the same film!
Ingrid plays Anne, a woman who’s been a bit unlucky in love and finds herself all alone in her fancy house in London. Her meddling sister Margaret and her rather dry English husband Alfred show up at Anne’s place, surprised that she has returned early from where ever she was away to. Seeing that she’s back without any man again, they attempt to lift her spirits by inviting her out to dinner and a speech.
It’s to be a speech about monetary policy in Europe, which certainly is the hottest ticket in London, but that ingrate Anne can’t be bothered to do her part and learn all about inflation, emerging economies, the gold standard, and what a farthing is.
At least not until there is a late arrival to her apartment. His name is Philip, but more importantly for Anne, he bears more than a passing resemblance to movie star Cary Grant, except you know, older than dirt.
Entranced by the Cary Grant charm that hasn’t quite left him like his looks have at this point, Anne suddenly decides that she does want to go this dry affair after all. And just who is this Phillip? None other than the featured speaker!
He’s an expert on these monetary matters and Alfred is trying to get him to join NATO to work in some vague capacity, but Philip isn’t too excited about that prospect. At least not until he takes a shine to Anne and figures out that he can work in Paris during the week and fly across the Channel to London to live in sin with Anne. (Okay, this is 1958 so “living in sin” means that he takes an apartment right below hers and he sneaks up the service entrance to see her so the elevator guy won’t talk.)
It’s the perfect love affair for Anne though. Except for one little detail. Philip tells her that he’s married. He and his wife are separated, but she would never give him a divorce. This only momentarily derails Anne before she calls Phil up to tell him that she doesn’t mind being his hussy, err, mistress.
Despite neither Anne nor Philip displaying much in the way of personality beyond the vague sense of disinterest that Grant seems to have in the entire operation, we are subjected to a rather lengthy bit where nothing happens in the movie other than following these two around as they fall in love.
Things go swimmingly for Anne and Phil (if not for the audience) until Phil shows up early one weekend and tells her that NATO wants him to take a job in New York City. He tells her that he hasn’t told them what he’s going to do because he wanted her advice.
She tells him to forget it and that she wants him to stay in Europe. He tells her he’s taking the job in New York City anyway. Well, at least he gave her some input, right?
She acts like a little baby and says that she wished that he weren’t married and that she could marry him. Funny that she should say that, because this movie has a little plot twist stashed somewhere in its fancy high society tuxedo. A plot twist so sinister, so diabolical, so dated, that your yawns will be mighty indeed!
The movie ultimately attempts to construct a situation that will result in some crazy confrontations, but the payoff is so low key, the credits will be rolling before you realize anything actually happened.
Multiple problems afflict this movie like all the liver spots the make up people likely had to cover up on the stars during the filming. A boring script rife with dinner parties and small talk combined with a pair of characters that were annoying in their anonymity make for one of the least funny and least romantic romantic comedies of all time.
Phil isn’t exactly likeable with his twisted philosophy that underpins the movie’s plot twist and he doesn’t have much of a personality besides his smooth vocal delivery, while Anne is hardly the role model of three dimensional womanhood what with her eagerness to play second fiddle and then not even to have the dignity to just break it off once she finds out the truth. I’d rather sit through one of Phil’s speeches on currency devaluation than watch this.
© 2009 MonsterHunter
