Reely Something

bkoganbing

Indiscreet is one of the great examples of the multiple advantages of film over the live performance. The film was taken from a play on Broadway entitled Kind Sir that had almost a year's run and starred Charles Boyer and Mary Martin. The entire play is set in the apartment of the leading lady.

Stanley Donen didn't settle for that. He used the entire city of London as a set and the day and night life of London is glitteringly photographed in technicolor. This film has only seven speaking parts, but all the glitz hides that beautifully.

We're talking here about romance among the very upper crust. Ingrid Bergman is a world famous actress getting on in years, but still looking sharp and looking for love. Cary Grant is a sophisticated diplomat who avoids marriage by making up a fictitious wife that he says will not divorce him. Now those roles are hardly an acting stretch for those two leading players, but I defy anyone to come up with better casting.

Indiscreet has a nice title song that is only heard instrumentally, but Frank Sinatra fans will find the James Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn song on one of his albums. Too bad it wasn't sung in the film.

Cary Grant has always been one leading man who has never been afraid of doing some very physical comedy in his films. Arsenic and Old Lace and The Bachelor and The Bobby Soxer come immediately to mind, but Indiscreet has one of my favorite Cary Grant moments. During a black tie and tuxedo affair, a foursome reel is called. Grant doesn't have the foggiest idea how to do the foursome reel, but he does one grand job at trying to fake it and the other dancers enjoy his impromptu efforts as did this member of the audience.

No deep messages in Indiscreet, just good old entertainment brought to us a by a leading man and lady still with fans the world over.

score 8/10

bkoganbing 8 February 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1287055/