Indiscretion of an American Housewife (1953)

I always fall into watching this movie on the rare occasions it's on.

It was on AMC about a week or so ago.

Montgomery Clift always gets my attention.

So what's up with the terrible title, one even Morrissey would probably reject?

Well, there's clearly backstory.

Here are some notes I found online from the Criterion collection, which always releases classics at a very cheap price. Good deals!

Not that I feel the need to own this movie.

It's hard to articulate why this movie is so mesmerizing.

I didn't know until just now that Truman Capote did the dialogue.

I think it's the fact that it's such an odd length (1 hour and 15 minutes) and that De Sica has such a marvelous eye.

Now I know why it's an odd length. Read below. David Selznick pulled a Fatal Attraction on it with the scissors.

The terminal where this occurs is visually interesting, and the lovers float through the confusion of all these bodies in transition, making the station a metaphor for their situation, at the end of a brief affair and uncertain as to which direction is home.

It's a melodrama, yes, but there's a little more there.

It's weird, because it's almost like AFFAIRS FOR DUMMIES, because these really are two innocents, and it starts to feel like reading one of those endlessly, funnily prescriptive children's books from the fifties as the couple gets "collared" by the authorities after they enter a dark unoccupied train to find some privacy and are discovered in media res.

They are taken before the authorities; the woman may be detained and miss the train ride which begins her voyage home to America. All is cast in doubt. They are like children before the police. There's embarrassment and fear, and they respond as children. The infantilizing aspect of these scenes is disturbing. Two lovers before the State.

Of course, it's a stand-in for the lovers being discovered in a more significant way, say by the woman's spouse.

I think I'm drawn to it mostly for visual reasons. It's just so stylishly shot, and the minor characters and non-characters are as visually interesting as the titular couple. It's the fifties and everybody wears clothes with perfect silhouettes; everybody wears stiffened fabrics that hold their shape. The hair and hats are perfect. Well, there are poorer Italians in the station and the woman interacts with these kids, as well as other people--most of the rest unwillingly.

It's more a movie about the problem of getting out of something that feels so right, and so it has that wistfulness.

In a way, the director is cheating by setting it in a beautiful train station.

If he had shot this in an ugly setting, the movie would probably be incredibly boring.

But he didn't. And that's why it's watchable.

It's not a great movie. But it is an interesting one.

The theme of the movie tends to be rigidity pitted against comfort. The rigidity of the station. The rigidity of the social mores of the time. The rigidity of love contrasted with the fluency of desire. Even the clothes of the principals (especially Jennifer Jones) are rigid and constraining, although designed to be pretty and alluring and admired. The rigidity of class structure is uncomfortable when Jones' character tries to give a gift to some poor children. The rigidity of the interrogation by the police and the hierarchy there which must be observed.

It's rather an updating and transposition of The Scarlet Letter, but this time with serious consequences narrowly averted. In this version, society gives the adulteress a break. Should I have typed harlot? I'm joking.

Maybe you have to have a crush on Monty or Jennifer Jones (who is equally good in this) to enjoy it.

Monty did horrified expressions so well. And he was usually horrified in the movies. Because he was usually in love. With a woman. And, since he was a gay man, I think we can understand the problem.

Although, probably reviewers at the time thought it was just "conflicted emotions" about the girl.

If he had gotten into a gay film, we might have finally seen him relax.

I wonder if Truman got lucky on set.









Synopsis.

An American housewife (Jennifer Jones) vacationing in Italy reluctantly decides to put an end to her brief affair with an Italian academic (Montgomery Clift). She flees to Rome’s Stazione Termini, where she bids him farewell, but he begs her to stay. The film’s plot is simple; its production was not. The troubled collaboration between director Vittorio De Sica and producer David O. Selznick resulted in two cuts of the same film. De Sica’s version, Terminal Station, was screened at a length of one-and-a-half hours, but after disappointing previews, Selznick severely re-edited it and changed the title to Indiscretion of an American Wife without De Sica’s permission. The Criterion Collection is proud to present both versions of this controversial release.

Cast

Giovanni Doria Montgomery Clift
Mary Forbes Jennifer Jones
Paul Richard Beymer

Credits

Director Vittorio De Sica
Associate producers Marcello Girosi and Wolfgang Reinhardt
Music Alessandro Cicognini
Conducted by Franco Ferrara
Photographed by Aldo Graziati
Editing Eraldo Da Roma
Miss Jones' costumes designed by Christian Dior
Art director Virgilio Marchi
Production manager Nino Misiano
Technical associate Richard Van Hessen
Camera operator Sergio Bergamini
Assistant director Luisa Alessandri
Unit manager Roberto Moretti
Sound engineers Bruno Brunacci and Alberto Bartolomei
Screenplay Cesare Zavattini, Luigi Chiarini and Giorgio Prosperi
From a story by Cesare Zavattini
Dialogue by Truman Capote

Disc Features.•Includes new digital transfers of both versions of the film: Indiscretion of an American Wife: Selznick’s 72-minute cut, including the Patti Page-performed overture “Autumn in Rome” and “Indiscretion”; Terminal Station (Stazione termini): De Sica’s original 89-minute version
•Exclusive audio commentary on Indiscretion by film scholar Leonard Leff (Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick)
•Original theatrical trailer
•Promotional materials
•Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
From the Current.Indiscretion of an American Wife &
Terminal Station

by Dave Kehr Aug 18, 2003

Vittorio De Sica was one of the world’s most celebrated filmmakers when, in 1952, David O. Selznick commissioned Terminal Station (Stazione Termini, 1954) from him and his screenwriting partner, Cesare Zavattini. The film would be a gallant experiment in combining Italy’s...