User Reviews

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.

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 ****

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 .

Coming after "ladri di biciclette"(1946)"miracolo a Milano"(1950) and the absorbing and rather unrecognized "Umberto D"(probably De Sica's masterpiece,1952),"Stazione Termini" cannot be put on a par with these former works.It is an interesting effort though.

Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones are par excellence the romantic couple ,but in an Italian environment,they look like extra-terrestrials.Do not get me wrong,I do enjoy these two actors' talent ,but I wonder why De Sica ,one of the neorealism high priests, has chosen Hollywood stars whereas ,for instance,he refused to engage Cary Grant for the "ladri di biciclette" lead,and he used rather obscure actors for "Umberto D".Besides,I wonder whether both Jones and Clift are dubbed (or not?) in Italian.I wonder too whether this actress was not influenced by Ingrid Bergman's coming to Italy.When she buys chocolate for the children and when she wants to help the poor family,Jones' character makes me think of Bergman's in Rossellini's "Europa 51" (1951) for a very short while

The plot is banal and the railway station becomes the star of the film.De Sica completely succeeds in showing the life of this hive,with its travelers,its priests,its soldiers,its poor families packed into 3rd class waiting rooms,its trains heading for darkness .The lovers' faces are nicely filmed as if they were the only lights of this obscure world.

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.

A married American woman has an affair with an Italian man while visiting her sister in Rome. This short film (a longer director's cut now exists) focuses on the last few hours spent at a train station as the woman is returning home. De Sica creates some striking imagery but the script is too slight to let the characters or the plot develop. Apparently producer Selznick cut the film to stress the romance and to make Jones (his wife then) look good. Clift plays a brooding, hot-blooded Italian but isn't given much to do. Both Jones and Clift have quirky mannerisms that seem well suited to the roles of the angst-ridden lovers. An interesting curiosity piece.

Monty Clift and Elizabeth Taylor lit up the screen in A Place in the Sun with their performances. My belief is that David O. Selznick thought that with his wife Jennifer Jones opposite Clift, some of the magic from that film would rub off here.

But there's no magic in Stazione Termini. I saw a butchered version that reached the American cinema. Now it's possible that what now would be called a director's cut would have been better, but I doubt it. Jennifer Jones is fine as the American wife who is leaving Rome after an affair with a local played by Monty Clift. But basically I sat through 63 minutes of one long goodbye.

Up to a few minutes ago I had seen at one point every Montgomery Clift movie except this one. I wish I hadn't seen this one. Poor Monty Clift is about as Italian as Lech Walesa. I think Monty knows this one was going to be a stinkeroo for him and it shows. At one point director Vittorio DeSica explains that Clift has an American mom to explain the lack of Italian accent. Why didn't he cast someone like Rossano Brazzi in the part, God only knows.

I'd guess that Mr. Selznick had something to do with it. David O. Selznick was not terribly rational when it came to his wife's career. Maybe in an American story Jones and Clift might have set some sparks off. But not here.

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.

An American married woman (Jennifer Jones) visited Rome and while being there got a relationship with another young man (Monty Clift). One day she decided to go back to USA going first by train to Paris. At the Terminal railroad station (Stazione Termini) she decided to send a message to his lover announcing her departure, but he got acquainted somehow before and went to Termini to see her. After several discussions, they made peace and decided to hide themselves in an empty wagon to be closer, they were surprised by the local police and were taken to its station inside Termini. Hopefully, the police commissioner (Gino Cervi) saw nothing wrong and let them go. As you may see the plot is nothing deep, the best of the film is that shows several Roman sites as Piazza Navona and the whole Termini Station as well as the behavior of some Italian people. When you see the film you think that you are there inside the station participating together with the actors. Probably this was the idea of De Sica when directed such a drama.

Considering the talent involved, this film is utterly pointless. Its basically just a buncha angst and screaming.

The hilarious trivia items about this film are far more entertaining, especially the one about the mink stole. I strongly suggest you read it.

Like fine wine, "Stazione Termini" seems to grow better and better with age.

Generally "written off" as a lesser De Sica work, this film offers two beautiful performances by Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift.

The two, with different types of acting training, sensitively mesh their discrete styles through deeply felt emotions. Highly gifted, vulnerable, and insecure, these top performers reach for the bottom of their feelings in bringing to life two desperate, lonely lovers.

It's been said these thespians enjoyed a close off-screen relationship due to the leading lady's deep infatuation with her co-star, and that she was distraught when he, due to personal circumstances, was unable to mutually respond.

That's not at all surprising, for it's all there in their work in this drama. A deft melding of romance and neo-realism, which marks the distinctive De Sica style, "Stazione" now seems just the right length for its content.

It almost seems to unfold in "quasi-real time," with shots of clocks ticking away before the train leaves at the story's finale to emphasize the time element.

What emerges here is a kind of slice-of-life vignette: two people in love, who must part due to one partner's domestic responsibility. We are allowed to briefly share their intimate, final moments together before their inevitable parting.

Zavattini's script (along with Truman Capote and Ben Hecht's dialogue) nicely capture these fleeting minutes, while the score lushly points up the pathos of a tragic unfoldment. De Sica's unique direction (with Selznick's uncredited contribution) rounds out a small gem of a film whose vintage grows increasingly more sweet and more special with age.

This movie was typical of its time, but not great. The actors were top rated but I was some what disappointed with the plot. The actors seemed to be stressed out while making the film rather than at ease with their parts. Montgomery Clift did some really great acting during his career, as did Jennifer Jones, however their chemistry just wasn't there. I really did fall asleep, but went back later and viewed to the end. Will not watch again.

In Rome, the American Mary Forbes (Jennifer Jones) arrives in the central station to get the first train to Milan to return to her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. She calls her sister's house and asks her nephew Paul (Dick Beymer) to bring her luggage to the station. When the train is ready to go, Mary sees Giovanni Doria (Montgomery Clift) seeking her out in the platform. Mary has had a torrid love affair with the Italian man and she decided to break off with her lover without saying good-bye to him. She misses the train and decides to take one direct to Paris later to stay with Giovanni. They go to an empty wagon and while making love, they are arrested by the chief engineer and sent to the police station where the commissioner will decide their fate.

I have just watched the 63 minutes running time version of "Indiscretion of American Wife" and I found it a melodramatic, boring and dated romance. However I noted in IMDb that the original version has 90 minutes running time; therefore it is unfair to review such mutilated version, unfortunately the only one available on DVD in Brazil. I only do not understand how a distributor can cut one third of the film and release the crap work credited to Vittorio De Sica. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Quando a Mulher Erra" ("When the Woman Makes a Mistake")

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953)

** (out of 4)

An American wife (Jennifer Jones) needs to leave Italy for Paris but she's having a hard time letting go of her Italian lover (Montgomery Clift). Originally this was released as STAZIONE TERMINI at 89-minutes but when it hit America, the producer chopped it down to just 63-minutes and added this new title. I'm not going to try and review the original since I haven't seen it but I really do hope it's better than this thing here, which is just a boring mess. Again, I have no idea why David O. Selznick decided to cut this movie down and I'm not certain if it helped or hurt it. I can say that this version here is just one big, boring melodrama that thankfully features two good actors or else this would have been a real disaster. I knew I was in trouble early on during a scene where the woman is writing a note, can't finish it and just crumbles it up. This is when the first loud, swelling music happened and this here was a clue that we were just going to get a boring, wannabe tear-jerker. Throughout the movie there were at least a dozen moments where the music would go loud and over-dramatic but I guess they were trying to use the music to make up for the fact that nothing you were watching was dramatic or emotion. This movie is really, really trying to make the viewer feel for these characters but that's pretty much impossible especially when you know so little about them. The majority of the time they just come across as two people who need to get a life. Both Jones and Clift are good in their roles but I'd say that both of them had much better days. I think just knowing how great they are made up for the fact that they weren't given much and I'm not too convinced that Monty was the right person for the role. What's really shocking is that director Vittorio DeSica made the masterpiece UMBERTO D before this thing.

This natural setting (all in a train station) is so typical of those great Vittorio De Sica films that I have come to love so much over the years. So, if you love De Sica's films, please don't overlook this one.

There are some great scenes here with real suspense.

It is amazing how powerful a movie can be, even though it is only 1 hour long. It is my understanding that this is an Italian movie with only 3 actors speaking English: Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, and Richard Beymer (between The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and West Side Story (1961). I think the other characters' English may have been dubbed.

It is also interesting that Jennifer Jones is directed by De Sica here and shortly after that they were co-starring in A Farewell to Arms (1957).

This film is full of ironical metaphors. We have a running Joseph and Mary / Adam and Eve biblical subtext. The surface sentimentality can be misleading. Rome Termini Station contains enough iconography of Heaven and Hell to make up an ironic parable. I'm surprised that so many critics have not picked up the clever gags. I suspect that the butchering of the film down to 63 minutes has something to do with it. The serpent and the apple, seeking refuge in the manger, Dante's innocent descending into the purgatory of the police station, two passionate innocents caught up in orthodox role structure, it's all there, if rather clumsily re-edited. The film clearly belongs to an era where film language a la Welles or Hitchcock was more sophisticated than much of today's mainstream cinema.

A very intense love story with two yearning characters. JENNIFER JONES is absolutely gorgeous as a straight laced and noble American woman who enters into an affair with an Italian man (played by MONTGOMERY CLIFT). The film takes place entirely at a train station with the two lovers going back and forth in their commitment towards each other even as they stave off red tape.

The love story is interspersed with slice of life scenes at the station. - both comedic and heart breaking. I think the film would have been better in the hands of a more conventional American filmmaker. But even then, a really nice watch mainly due to some intense acting and the chemistry between the two leads.

This is one of the most surprising movies I've seen in a very, very long time. The film's director, Vittorio DeSica is one of my very favorites and I try to watch everything of his I can. His other films such as THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US, UMBERTO D. and MIRACLE IN MILAN are masterpieces, so I naturally thought STAZIONE TERMINI would at least be a good film. Instead, it was absolutely horrible in practically every way. I think the main problem was that in this film, DeSica had abandoned the type film that made him so famous, the so-called "Italian Neorealist" style. In the movies I listed above, DeSica used non-actors and the films excelled due to their realism and down to earth style. However, here, DeSica was "cursed" with a larger budget and the talents of David O. Selznick. While Selznick was no doubt a talented man, his style and type of films he made were in no way like those of the neorealist school. Plus, being a Selnick production, the film had to star Selznick's live-in and perennial leading lady, Jennifer Jones. This was a bad choice, but it got even worse when the Hollywood-minded Selznick ALSO cast Montgomery Clift as Miss Jones' lover. These famous actors were all wrong for DeSica's style, but it got even worse because Clift was cast as an Italian professor--yet he didn't even have a trace of an accent!!! This was apparently an anti-neorealistic movie, as all attempts to film "normal" people went out the window. Apparently the big bucks that came with a Selznick production were just too tempting to DeSica and he sold his soul.

Now if the problem had only been the casting decisions, I still could have lived with the film. Sure, I would have been disappointed, but there still could have been a good movie hiding under all the Hollywood glitz. Unfortunately, the casting was possibly the least problem with this awful film. I can't recall another mainstream film with dialog this bad or syrupy or as poorly written. I expected something artistic or meaningful but it delivered something like an Ed Wood flick--it was THAT bad. The repulsive gushing and mushiness of the dialog is practically stomach-turning, as Clift and Jones slobber all over each other and whine about their love. Sure, a tiny bit of this might have been okay, but to extend this self-indulgent claptrap for practically the length of the film was unforgivable. Also, some amazingly stupid dialog was in the film about how Clift loved Jones so much he wanted to make her his wife and beat her regularly to show he loved her. In fact, later when he was angry about her spurning his love, he back handed her---wow, now THAT'S a great way to show her you love her!! And Jones, being a total low self-esteem weasel, actually apologizes to him later after this altercation!! Another problem, and this one shocked me, was that at times the film had poor cinematography--with fuzzy or out of focus shots that made it look like the film was made by a rookie. I really think that the film looked as if DeSica just gave up and wanted to get the whole mess finished as quickly as possible. By the way, even the music was bad--way too loud and way too much at times.

By the way, if you care about the plot (and I don't really think it matters), Jones has been having an affair with Clift. However, she has a daughter and husband back in America and is naturally torn. Clift comes to the train station and whines and begs her to stay and she is like a yo-yo in her decisions--one minute swearing to stay and the next declaring she'll go. Enough already--just GO!! In many ways, it's like an Italian version of BRIEF ENCOUNTER--just not nearly as well made.

Apparently I am not the only one who hated this film. When it was shown in the same form I watched it, the audiences hated it and Selznick "re-tooled" the film and trimmed it significantly. I did not watch this newer version, but based on what he had to work with, the only way it would be significantly improved is if it were trimmed to the length of a movie trailer! Aside from tons of cash and alcohol, I doubt if there is anything that can induced me to watch the other version (INDISCRETION OF AN American WIFE)--my disgust for this movie is THAT great!! Sappy, poorly directed and cast as well as having some of the worst dialog in history--avoid this movie unless you are a masochist.

The Indiscretion of an American Wife from 1953 is directed by Vittoria de Sica, Italian realist par excellence. The movie is something of a departure for him because it doesn't involve Italians struggling against poverty, loneliness, or rejection. Instead, we have two American actors, Jennifer Jones as Mary, and Montgomery Clift, as Giovanni--two lovers caught up in a whirlwind American-Italian romance. Both Jones and Clift display the raw emotions of two people in a love affair that seems destined to end. Behind the exterior of a gracious lady who dotes on her nephew Paul, played by Richard Beymer, there is a woman longing for the forbidden fruit. But she is married with a young daughter and she feels she has no choice. Clift is equally passionate and cannot be kept from the pursuit. I have trouble liking the character played by Montgomery Clift, for reasons that should be clear to anyone who sees the film. He does redeem himself by risking his life to see her one last time. What he has is charisma. It's purely physical but he is loaded. The movie is played out in a short drama inside Rome's vast train station, housing young families, migrant workers, priests, schoolchildren and these star-crossed lovers. Family members, onlookers and even the local authorities seem to deny them their last few moments together. While it seems dated in many ways, the tension is as riveting as ever.

This would have easily been a 9 or 10 even, if the director hadn't chopped it to bits. Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones gave very strong performances, they filmed in the actual train station and the light from shooting there gave great points of light and shadow; however, the movie was so fragmented to cut time, they're work is completely over shadowed. There should have been much more background to the story to show the reason for this taught energy between them. It's still a film to watch, but I, for one, have been left feeling unsatisfied. The only reason I gave it a six is the things I've mentioned above. The director didn't do his job. Pity.