With characteristic helpfulness, Criterion has presented both the 90-minute Italian-release director's cut (with the dialogue almost all in English) of Vittorio de Sica's 1953 venture in directing American movie stars (Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift) in Rome, "Stazione Termini," and the 63-minute cut by the legendarily meddlesome American producer (and husband of Jennifer Jones), David O. Selznick, "Indiscretion of an American Wife." It also includes the 8-9 minute music video of Patti Page singing “Autumn in Rome” and “Indiscretion" that was added as a prelude to exhibiting a feature film slashed down to 63 minutes. (De Sica was dissuaded from having his name removed from the remnant, shrugged it off, and moved on to make more movies.)

Over the years, I had seen "Indiscretion of an American Wife" twice and wondered if it made more sense before Selznick hacked out nearly one-third of it. The short answer is that it did. Selznick got carried away with the scissors, though I can see why he cut into (well, he cut out, not just "into"...) the scene of the leads talking in a restaurant within the fascist modernist Stazione Termini (the central train station in Rome that was finished by Americans, not by Mussolini's regime).

Selznick was interested in showcasing his stars, particularly his wife, not in the setting (though the stars sacrificed the comforts they were used to making movies, working from midnight to 6 a.m. in a cold locale without any special facilities for them). De Sica (and/or his frequent collaborator, Cesare Zavattini) called the story "Stazione Termini" for a reason. The station is a major character in their movie, whereas it is only a backdrop in Selznick's end of an affair wallow.

The pioneers of neorealism were interested in showing ordinary people (that is, Italians) as well as the American stars (though, as I've said, Selznick cut out a large chunk of his stars together, too, and loved the sequence in which his wife returns to saintliness in helping an Italian family). Both versions are star vehicles, though in De SIca's the station is a more important supporting one. The quasi-documentary footage of people ca. 1953 in the Stazione Termini is IMO interesting, though adding nothing to the story (wispy though the story is). One of Selznick's objections was that the Italians in the station always seemed to be singing. There is a group getting off the train who are singing, and more singing Italians in the first-class lounge. I've never been in the Stazione Termini, but in the five times I've passed through Da Vinci Airport, I have never heard in-transit passengers singing in the terminal, so tend to agree with Selznick that this was odd (and, perhaps, a cliché to comfort American audiences?).

And as ready as I am to side with De Sica against Selznick (as stand-ins for the eternal struggle of art and commerce), I have to say that "Stazione Termini' is not a great movie destroyed by a greedy American money-man. Neither version is all that plausible.

My reading of the Italian version is that the married American, Mary Forbes (Jones) who has been visiting Rome, where her sister lives, has been seeing a lot of Giovanni Doria (Clift), one of whose parents was American (explaining his fluency and lack of an accent), and has finally had sexual relations with him. She is fleeing Rome to return to her husband and daughter and does not think that her resolve can withstand seeing Giovanni again.

Rather implausibly, he finds her in a crowded compartment on the 7 p.m. train to Genoa. She gets off (leaving the package with a present for her daughter) on the train, and agrees to take the direct 8:30 train to Paris and to spend the intervening time with Giovanni (but only in the station, she refuses to go back to his apartment, knowing that if she does, she'll never leave).

More implausibility is that her nephew Paul (Richard Beymer, billed as "Dick") shows up with a bag and her mink coat only after she is off the train. Paul obviously has a crush on his aunt and senses that this man is a rival. BTW, I think Beymer is very good, much better than as Tony "West Side Story." Later on he observes Giovanni slapping Aunt Mary and is suitably outraged and eager to champion his Lady against the vile Italian who has wronged her. (Giovanni's frustration at Mary's cowardice is understandable to me, and he earlier told her that if they lived together he would beat her... which she refused to believe...)

After Mary takes charge of a fainting pregnant woman, the pair splits. Giovanni storms out, then changes his mind, returns to the station, sees Mary across the tracks, dashes across in front of a back-projected (quite unconvincing) oncoming engine, and there's a big romantic reunion embrace.

Then the two enter a railroad car that is open and empty. They are seen by a train employee, who fetches police (carbinieri, I think). The illicit lovers do not "get it on," but kiss in closeup with throbbing musical underpinning. (De Sica had them talking more; Selznick cut out the dialogue.) They are interrupted by the forces of the social order, which provides opportunities for Giovanni to try to shield Mary (and her honor). They have a very long trek across the station (setting up some expressionist shots, particularly of a stairway that would not have been out of place in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis") and are beset by gawkers, including paparazzi (though, I don't think that term had yet been coined).

Italian audiences found the grave official concern about infidelity laughable, but I'm sure it pleased the Hollywood censors (and the moralistic Selznick). The Hollywood production code mandated that tempted or straying wives always had to return to their husbands. Giovanni and Mary are both humiliated in the railroad police office and Giovanni has a final one.

There are many striking shots in both versions. The naturalistic (neorealist) photography of Aldo Graziati is excellent, but Selznick wanted star lighting for the closeups of his wife (and her American costar). These were shot be the great Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howe, and for glamorous star closeups are also superb.

Aside from not very developed characters, the movie/screenplay has way too many coincidences (all of which are preserved in both versions). Although Montgomery Clift sounds very American, his body language is at least somewhat Italian (and he's only supposed to be half Italian). He specialized in sensitive, doomed characters who do not live happily ever (From Here to Eternity, A Place in the Sun) and managed to make some of the dialogue (some of which was supplied by Truman Capote) somewhat credible. (The first choice for the role was Marlon Brando, which is impossible for me to imagine.)

Jennifer Jones had the brittleness of the conventional Philadelphia wife incapable of grand adulterous passion (or any other grand passion). I suspect that Selznick wanted her portrayed as gracious (and I know that the part of the movie he liked best was her playing Lady Bountiful to the Italian family with the fainting wife/mother). Mary is something of a blander Blanche DuBois, and Jones had the touch of desperation that Vivien Leigh brought not only to "Streetcar Named Desire," but to the role of Karen Stone in the adaptation of Tennessee Williams's The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone—which got things righter than "Indiscretion" did.

(Clift does not appear until 17 minutes into the 63-minute American version. Contrary to my expectations, Selznick did not cut more shots or lines of Clift than of his wife. He cut some of Beymer that I would have retained, too.)

On the commentary track there is mention of some critic at the time of the American release noting that the movie presents only the third act (of an affairette). It seems to me that the implicit first two acts of meeting and mating would not have been very interesting. (I'm extrapolating more from "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" than from "A Place in the Sun.") There's not a whole lot at stake in the movie. It's difficult to imagine the very conventional and unadventurous Mary staying and living in Pisa with Giovanni, and to me it looks more like a blow to his ego than a heartbreak for Giovanni that Mary is running away. (He could have chosen to be flattered by it. I would have....)

The Criterion DVD provides splendid images for both versions. The trailer that Selznick concocted is brilliant. That it is very misleading does not bear on that!

In addition to providing both versions for comparison, the Criterion disc has a very informative and entertaining commentary track (under the American version, including the Patti Page numbers) by Leonard Leff (author of Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick about another fraught producer/director relationship. All the information about the conditions under which the movie was made in my review derive from Leff's account.

The only additional feature that might have been interesting was to interview Richard Beymer, the sole survivor from the movie.

I'd give the American version a 3.2 star rating, the Italian version a 3.7, and the DVD a 4.8.

BTW, although I've said that I can't imagine Mary staying on to live with Giovanni, after the arduous night-time shooting of this movie, Jones stayed in Italy to make Beat the Devil, with more Truman Capote dialogue, a blonde wig, and direction by John Huston. It also failed at the time, but has proved to have stronger legs and has become something of a cult classic spoof. (Selznick did not produce it and it had a strong ensemble cast headed by Humphrey Bogart.)


My other De Sica/Zavattini reviews:
Shoeshine (1946)
Umberto D. (1952)
After the Fox (1966)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
A Brief Vacation (1973)

This is a contribution to Daumco's never too late (for a first review) writeoff.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD