Indiscreción de una esposa

Indiscretion of an American Wife or Stazione Termini 1953 is set at a station where an ill-fated couple : Jennifer Jones , Montgomery Clft say goodbye endessly while the women attempts to decide whether to join her husband and daughter in the States . This longing...this yearning...this warning...

An attractive and enjoyable movie from a script by Truman Capote from the story " Terminal Station" by Cesare Zavattini that also collaborated in the screenplay , it never puts a foot wrong , neither do the actors , as the agony of their frustrated feelings etched on their faces for all to see . Dealing with a touchingly understated love story develoved at a station , about a romance they know has not future . Including the charming final scenes that are particularly poignant and stirring . Being well photographed , especially in the railway scenes , though a perfect remastering being really necessary because of the film copy is worn-out . The two main actors are pretty well . And deft supporting cast as a very young Richard Beymer and Gino Cervi as a Police Commissioner.

The motion picture was well directed by Vittorio De Sica , though it contains some flaws and gaps due to it was heavily cut , in fact was trimmed down from 87 minutes upon US release . De Sica was one of the most notorious actors/filmmakers of the Italian cinema and a maestro of the Neorealism style , as he directed prestigious movies : "The Bicycle Thief , Miracle in Milan, Shoeshine , The Children are watching , The Gold of Naples , Umberto D , The Roof , It Happened in the Park , Two Women, Yesterday Today and tomorrow , Marriage Italian style , After the Fox , Woman Times Seven, The Garden of the Finzi Continis" . Rating : 6.5/10 , decent romantic drama . The flick will appeal to Montgomery and Jennifer Jones fans .

Italian maestro Vittorio De Sica's Hollywood sortie, this ill-received co-production with David O. Selznick, starring Ms. Selznick, Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift as the star-crossed lovers, is built on a pellucid idea of condensing a doomed extramarital romance within a neat spatio- temporal structure: two hours inside the Terminal train station in Rome.

Jones plays Mary Forbes, the titular American wife, who strikes up a torrid affair with a bachelor Giovanni Doria (Clift, sporting a passable Italian and stays on autopilot as a careworn and distressed jilted lover) during her visit in Rome, impulsively decides to go back home and break off their liaison after declaring her utmost feelings for him the day before. Firstly, she must take the train from Rome to Paris, and Giovanni's timely advent botches Mary's plan to leave at 7 pm, and the next train leaves in one and half hour, during which time, the pair undergo an honest tête-à- tête, a badly-devised game-changer (encountering Mary's nephew Paul, a decent screen debut of Richard Beymer), a temporary separation then rekindle their passion in an empty compartment, which will cause a scene and their fate will be left at the mercy of the police commissioner (Cervi), can she manage to take the 20:30 train and how their affair will end?

First of all, the premise is very lax, there is absolutely no exigency for Mary to depart for Paris immediately, it is her whim out of the blue, which makes the entire scenario sound contrived, it is not helped by Jones' emotionally duelling but ultimately mushy incarnation, as demure and kind- hearted as her Mary is, clearly, it is her have the final say, but her conflict with moral compass swivels when the narrative is constantly hogtied by its essayist sidebar to extol the Termini station itself, a monumental presence buzzed with characters and egregious red tape, which feels tonally incompatible with the central story, which shows up the quintessential rift between Hollywood melodrama and Italian Neo-realism.

Lastly, if you are not dissuaded by this review and still want to watch it, don't watch the bluntly truncated 63-minute USA version, its 89-minute original version is unequivocally more cohesive and engaging for the viewing experience, still, it is a letdown among De Sica's corpus.

Cesare Zavattini's slim story "Terminal Station" turned into somewhat-overblown star-vehicle for Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift, who manage to create romantic tension despite director Vittorio De Sica's insistence upon an overly-busy background. These indiscreet lovers (she a married housewife from Philadelphia and he the half-Italian professor who adores her) are consistently spied upon by accusing eyes while saying their reluctant farewells in Rome's railway station. De Sica appears to be just as interested in the central couple as he is in the woman's young nephew (Dick Beymer) who simply refuses to leave, happy party groups, another group of serious-faced priests, an elderly Italian and his apples, a pregnant woman, the overachievers on the police force, etc. Told in 'real time', the looming faces of the many clocks (reminding our couple of her impending trip home) become a red herring in the proceedings, which do have intriguing moments in spite of the fact Clift shows no signs of Italian blood (he barely seems to comprehend the language!). Jones, in a tidy Jane Wyman-ish hairdo, ably manages to convey the torn emotions of a woman with a family who has found passion at last, and her performances is certainly worth-seeing. Clift makes a fantastically dramatic exit from a moving train, but otherwise just fills the bill. David O. Selznick production has the requisite gloss, but could have used a bit more fire under its icy exterior. **1/2 from ****

This film will not appeal to everyone, but even with the ravages executed by Selznick on the American cut, Stazione Termini (Selznick's U.S. version: Indiscretion of an American Housewife) remains a powerful film for those who can appreciate it.

To be sure, there are faults, especially unfortunate in light of De Sica's credentials. Most striking are that Montgomery Clift as American-Italian is a spectacular error, not so much in casting, as in characterization (American expat would have worked); far too much English comes from the mouths of early-1950s Romans and other Italians; and the American housewife is perhaps overly oblivious to the italianità around her. Otherwise, mostly spot on, at least in the full version.

Jennifer Jones, beyond radiant in her prime-of-life womanhood, exudes a sensuality that both contrasts strikingly with her 1950s-prim exterior and celebrates the troubled woman within: proper well-brought-up ladies can have passions, too, a marriage ceremony is no guarantor that all will be well 'til death do them part, and she, like so many before her and after, struggles when smoldering embers flare and she senses that the 'groove' of her comfortable, uneventful marriage may actually be 'rut'.

As would be expected of De Sica, his rendition of the setting -- the newly rebuilt Stazione Termini itself, trains, travelers -- is so accurate as to pass for a recording, and protagonists as well as the concentrically-involved supporting cast embed within it void of staging, with total plausibility.

The arrest scene and its aftermath also verges on documentary in its genuinity. The strict proprieties of post-WWII Rome -- for some Romans very genuine, for others hypocritical sham even then -- may seem contrived to a young American or British viewer today, but the inevitable tension was very real at the time, and De Sica presents its effects honestly, and with éclat.

Give Stazione Termini a chance. Enter the time and place. De Sica managed to do a fine job of it, in spite of Selznick's ill-advised meddling, and he deserves far more more credit than he's normally given for this effort. So does Jennifer Jones, who is magnificent here.

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953)

This is such a contained, focused film, and demands so much of its two actors, every little nuance matters in a kind of exciting dramatic way. The closest thing this compares to, as two lovers or would be lovers talk in a train station, is Brief Encounter (1945), and that's a masterpiece of acting and cinema both.

Here, with Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones, it comes close. I found the slowness of it magical, and the filming, in the ultra modern station, very beautiful. If director Vittoria De Sica clearly has a different style than David Lean (though both pile on the romanticism), the effect is still one of longing and loneliness. The weakness here, most of all, is simply the writing, which is so important when two people are sitting around in conversation most of the time.

Oddly, and sadly, it was the producer (Selznick) who got in the way. He was married to Jones at the time, and she was unhappy both during the filming and in her marriage. She also seems to be overacting sometimes--she can be marvelous, and nuance magnified might be exactly what was needed, but it often seems distracting. Clift, for his part, liked De Sica and he did what he could with what he had to work with under the director. It was Selznick who interfered with De Sica, and who altered the script using a series of screenwriters, and even though Truman Capote was one of them, the whole thing was hampered.

The fact it is still a marvelous film is something to wonder at. Flawed, yes, but short and intense and it has a special feeling that Hollywood (and British counterparts) were unable to pull off. The whole atmosphere and mood are enough alone to make it worthwhile.

I saw the short version, and I think it's probably plenty, but if you find the original, with 20 minutes extra, and you like this one, give it a try.