Come See the Paradise (1990) [R] ****

A film review by Roger Ebert on January 18, 1991.

Here is a film about people who insist they are Americans, even when small and evil-minded people in power would treat them as if they were not. Most of the characters in Come See the Paradise are Japanese-Americans who were thrown into prison camps at the outset of World War II, even though there was no evidence that they were less patriotic, less American, than members of other ethnic groups such as the Germans or the Italians. Their imprisonment was essentially racist, translating into laws that said they were not entitled to the same constitutional rights as their fellow citizens.

Another character in the film is an Irish-American who is a left-wing labor organizer. He gets involved in a stupid and illegal action against a movie theater chain, flees from the East Coast to the West Coast, and changes his name. But he cannot change his ideas, and after he gets a job in a fish cannery he is soon supporting the right of his fellow workers to strike. That means he, too, is not an American - at least not in the eyes of the company goons.

Although we make much of our tradition of freedom in this country, we are not so clever at understanding what freedom really means. Even our president, for example, cannot understand that among the rights symbolized by the American flag is the right to burn it - or honor it, if that is our choice. I have always wondered why the people who call themselves American most loudly are often the ones with the least understanding of the freedoms that word should represent.

When the country is threatened, our civil liberties are among the first casualties - as if we can fight the enemy by taking away our own freedoms before the enemy has a chance to. That is what happened in the early days of World War II, when a wave of racism swept the Japanese-Americans out of their homes and businesses, confiscated their savings and investments, and shipped them away in prison trains to concentration camps that were sometimes no more than barns and stables. Later on some of these same Japanese-Americans fought with valor in the same war, perhaps because they understood better than their captors what they were fighting for.

Come See the Paradise tells a story of this period in terms of a romance between the labor organizer and a young Japanese-American woman. Her name is Lily Yuriko Kawamura (Tamlyn Tomita), and she is the daughter of a businessman who runs a little chain of Japanese-language movie theaters. When the Irishman, Jack McGurn (Dennis Quaid), flees to San Francisco after getting in trouble in New York, he finds a job as a projectionist in one of the theaters, and then he meets the daughter and they fall in love with each other almost immediately. (On their first date, he leans across the table and asks to kiss her, and she gives permission. It's a sweet scene, reminiscent of some of the Hollywood movies being made at about the same time.) Lily's father, of course, opposes the marriage. Jack goes to confront him, in one of the movie's strongest scenes, and when the old man remains inflexible the two young people run away to get married out of state (marriages between members of different races were illegal in California at the time). In a scene that is gloriously romantic and highly improbable, they find themselves at someone else's wedding party, where they dance the night away.

Then Pearl Harbor is attacked and war is declared. By executive order of President Franklin Roosevelt, Lily, her family and everyone they know find themselves herded away to prison camps. One of her brothers later volunteers for the U.S. Army and another becomes militantly pro-Japanese, but the saddest figure is the father, who is accused by his own people of being a spy, and literally fades away into death, sitting sadly in a chair and gazing at nothing.

Lily and Jack have had a daughter, who goes into the camp with her mother, while Jack goes into the Army, but not before one of the most lacerating scenes in the film, when Jack takes his little daughter to meet Santa Claus, and Santa refuses to let the child sit on his lap. She's an American, Jack informs Santa, grabbing him, and you will sit here and listen to what she wants for Christmas or I will kill you. Come See the Paradise has been criticized in a few places because it uses a technique that is common in movies about minority groups: A convenient Caucasian provides the point of view, so that the audience will have someone to identify with. I didn't appreciate that approach in Glory - why couldn't the story of these black Civil War soldiers be seen through their own eyes, rather than through the eyes of their white commanding officer? But with Come See the Paradise, the introduction of the Quaid character seemed somewhat less contrived, because the film's director, Alan Parker, is making a statement not limited to the story of his Japanese-American characters. The theme of the whole film is that all of its characters are Americans, too. That people of various colors and political beliefs are all equally Americans, and if there is not room for them here then there is no purpose for this society. By adding the Quaid character, he is able to show in one story how eager we sometimes are to deprive people of their rights for both racial and political reasons.

The story itself is rather sweet, when it is not angry. It's told in a flashback from shortly after the war, when Lily is describing the events of those days to her daughter, now just barely old enough to ask questions. The love affair between Jack and Lily is tender and romantic, and if Lily's father dies after he loses all pride and self-esteem, at least her mother lives long enough to finally accept and embrace her little half-Japanese granddaughter.

Come See the Paradise is a fable to remind us of how easily we can surrender our liberties, and how much we need them. [Ebert’s rating: 3 stars out of 4 = 75%]

Blogger’s comment: This is a heartfelt, passionate romance with an uplifting ending, but the process of getting there is not an easy one. Nevertheless it is worth watching. Filmed in Aug. – Nov. 1989 it was released the following year. Thirteen years later (Nov. 2002 – Oct. 2003) Dennis Quaid and Tamlyn Tomita would be together in The Day After Tomorrow (2004) as Jack Hall and Janet Tokada.

I can just imagine this conversation:

DENNIS: Damn, Tamlyn, you're as beautiful as you were thirteen years ago. How is that possible?
TAMLYN: Just good genes, Dennis. It's too bad you didn't notice me then. You know I really wanted you to.
DENNIS: What was I doing in 1989?
TAMLYN: I think you were chasing Meg Ryan.

Labels: drama, romance, WWII
IMDb 67/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=55, viewers=74)
Roger Ebert’s review 

 

Cactus Flower (1969) [M] ****

A film review by Roger Ebert for rogerebert.com on December 29, 1969.

The movie press agents have a theory that critics shouldn't be allowed to see a comedy in a screening room. Unless they can hear the people laughing, the theory goes, they won't know the movie's funny.

I don't know if there's anything to this or not (usually not, I guess), but it was a pleasure to catch the Saturday matinee of Cactus Flower at the State Lake. The audience didn't merely like it; it reveled in it. Here's one kind of comedy that inspires raucous laughter, such as The Producers (1968), and another, like this one, where the audience laughs under its breath because it doesn't want to miss the lines.

It's not exactly that the lines mean anything; it's more that the three central performances (by Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman and - wow! - Goldie Hawn) are so engaging that we find ourselves, despite ourselves, involved in their story.

They work together. The chemistry works. When Pauline Kael observes that The Scalphunters, not a very good movie, becomes enjoyable because of the sparks that Burt Lancaster and Ossie Davis strike in their scenes together, I know what she means. Goldie Hawn and Walter Matthau have that happening in Cactus Flower, and Ingrid Bergman moves between them with absolute serenity.

The story should be familiar by now; the play ran forever at the Blackstone. It's about a middle-aged dentist, his nurse, and his 21-year-old mistress. He tells the girl he's married, because he doesn't want to get involved. But then he does get involved, and can't figure out how to confess his deception. So he gets the nurse to pretend to be his wife. But then the girl becomes sympathetic to the poor, abandoned wife - and then there's the problem of the hairy young playwright who lives next door.

All of this is the basic stuff of stage comedy. In Cactus Flower, just as in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895, or in She Stoops to Conquer in 1773, the plot depends upon a romance developed through mistaken identity. So Abe Burrows wasn't inventing anything new when he wrote the play.

What usually happens is that hit Broadway comedies have a long run in New York, and then they tour the provinces forever, and then a couple of big-name movie stars are substituted in the key roles, and then an expensive production is launched to support the comedy (which is the most fragile of art forms), and by the time the movie finally turns up, four years later, nobody could care less. That's exactly what happened with Cactus Flower, of course - except, paradoxically, that the movie is better than the play.

I wonder whether a lot of the credit doesn't belong to I.A.L. Diamond, who wrote the screenplay. Diamond is a master of light comedy, who has mostly collaborated lately with Billy Wilder (on The Apartment, The Fortune Cookie, etc.). Diamond's screenplay successfully opens up the play, breaking it loose from the confines of the stage without seeming to.

This has previously been a weak spot in the films of director Gene Saks, whose Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple were both terribly tied to one set. By widening the background, Diamond (or somebody) has managed to really convince us that Cactus Flower does take place now (or about now) in a real city - New York. That contributes a lot to the performances they seem more real because they're not stuck in phony sets. But in the last analysis, it really is Matthau, Miss Bergman and (with a marvelously expressive face) Miss Hawn who make Cactus Flower a success. [Ebert’s rating: *** ½ out of 4 stars]

Labels: comedy, Ingrid Bergman, romance, Sixties

Internet Movie Database 7.2/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=71, viewers=74) 

The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) [UR] ****

A film review by Jeffrey Kauffman for DVDTalk.com on January 27, 2009.

Director Anthony Asquith and playwright/screenwriter Terence Rattigan knew upper crust British society from the inside out. Asquith's father had been Prime Minister of the UK in the early 20th century, and Rattigan was a diplomat's son. The two forged a long and largely successful collaboration, with Asquith bringing two of Rattigan's best known plays, The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy, to the screen. The two brought big budget soap opera to the screen with 1963's The V.I.P.s, a sort of Grand Hotel at Heathrow airport (in fact the film is also known as Hotel International), with various glamorous folk, and the occasional comedy relief (Margaret Rutherford in her Oscar winning role) trying to outwait the fog and various personal trials. A year later they brought the same all-star ethos to a more unique property, The Yellow Rolls-Royce, a triptych of stories built around the eponymous car whose ownership passes to three disparate people over the course of several decades.

Perhaps because of their intimate knowledge of the British ruling class, there's an air of authenticity, if also stodginess, to the first episode, featuring Rex Harrison as a diplomat and Jeanne Moreau as his wife who is enjoying a dalliance with Edmund Purdom. Harrison buys the Rolls as a belated anniversary gift for Moreau, setting the car off on a multi-decade journey of its own. Harrison isn't quite as diffident as he usually was at this stage in his career, and manages to craft a detached, yet completely sympathetic and surprisingly vulnerable, character. Moreau, perhaps because she's working in English, is halting at times, but manages to convey some nuance with an almost silent film technique of sideways glances and other furtive looks. It's fun to see Edmund Purdom finally out of the historical costume melodramas like The Egyptian that first brought him to fame, and he, in fact, is the most compelling character, if far from the most likable, in this brief opening episode.

We then find ourselves some years later in Italy, where gangster George C. Scott buys the slightly used vehicle to impress his moll, Shirley MacLaine. Art Carney is literally along for the ride as Scott's henchman and MacLaine's chauffeur, and Alain Delon enters the picture as an enterprising photographer who strikes up a fleeting romance with MacLaine when Scott leaves to kill a rival gangster. It's somewhat strange that this should be the longest of the three segments of The Yellow Rolls Royce, as it's obviously the furthest from Rattigan and Asquith's personal experience (or at least one would hope). There's an air of artificiality that hangs over this central episode even more than the two bookends (the entire film is not exactly a model of cinema verite, but most people are going to know that going in). Scott does OK as the gangster, and MacLaine is not exactly stretching in a floozy role that seemed to mark a lot of her late 1950s through late 1960s work. Carney, much like supporting actor Purdom in the first go-'round, is by far the best thing here, bringing his down to earth simplicity to an underwritten role. Delon is fine as the putative love interest for MacLaine, who shows her that she needn't settle for someone of Scott's bullying tendencies. It's high gloss fluff, with perfectly made up tears streaking MacLaine's face in the climactic showdown with Delon and then Scott.

What really sets the central episode apart is the absolutely stunning location photography in Italy. This is no mere second unit stuff--that's obviously, for example, MacLaine, Scott and Carney standing in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (though there are some brief rear projection shots, mostly of Carney driving the car). While the hidden sea cavern into which Delon lures MacLaine is obviously a soundstage, the bulk of this episode features one lovely location after another, well filmed by Asquith and DP Jack Hildyard. If only the story could support the incredible visuals.

Last up is perhaps the oddest coupling of the film, Ingrid Bergman as a feisty expatriate American finding herself in Yugoslavia in 1941 just as the Nazis are invading. She hooks up with freedom fighter Omar Sharif, who convinces her to drive him and his fellow underground operatives into the occupied territory. Of course love ensues, as patently bizarre as it seems between Bergman and Sharif. This is prime Rattigan, with a mismatched pair playing out their amorous intrigues against world shaking events. While this segment also features some lovely location shots, it's less of a travelogue than the MacLaine-Scott segment, choosing instead to focus largely on the personal story, despite the occasional strafing attack of Nazi warplanes.

The Yellow Rolls-Royce is an interesting, if never emotionally compelling, film. First of all the central conceit of focusing on an object as it passes from owner to owner (something utilized over the years in such disparate pieces as TV movie The Gun, to the Oscar winning The Red Violin, to Susan Vreeland's novel The Girl in Hyacinth Blue) is a fascinating diversionary technique that never completely distracts us from the fact that none of these stories is very involving. That said, The Yellow Rolls-Royce is mid-1960s star power, and international star power at that, at its finest, with the sheen of craftsmanship that M-G-M's imprimatur guaranteed a decade or two earlier. The film is more or less a series of tableaux, luscious and perfectly arranged, but emotionally distant and at times more than a bit silly.

The film benefits from an immensely enjoyable score by Riz Ortolani, highlighted by a regal theme for the Rolls itself and one of the greatest mid-1960s song to not receive an Oscar nomination, Forget Domani. Hildyard's cinematography is up to his usual exceptional standards, with sweeping shots of gorgeous vistas and a typical Hollywood aura surrounding the main stars. The Yellow Rolls-Royce really never goes anywhere, despite its title car traveling thousands of miles through three very different owners. Still and all, it's a glamorous journey. Like a lot of trips, it may be best to ignore the tourists and simply concentrate on the scenery.

Labels: comedy, drama, Ingrid Bergman, period, romance, WWII

Internet Movie Database 6.6/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=xx, viewers=68) 

Goodbye Again (1961) [NR] ****

Based on the best-selling novel Aimez-vous Brahms? (Do You Like Brahms?) by Françoise Sagan, and directed by Anatole Litvak, Goodbye Again is a poignant, bittersweet romantic drama about the tragedy of impossible relationships and unrequited love.

Paula Tessier (Ingrid Bergman) is a forty-something interior decorator living in Paris in 1961. For the past five years she’s been in a relationship with Roger Demarest (Yves Montand), a farm tractor importer / exporter. Paula knows Roger is an inveterate womanizer who cheats on her with an endless line of vapid, young women, all of whom he calls Maisie. However, because of her low self-esteem, insecurity or the naïve belief that she can change Roger, Paula clings to him and refuses to end the relationship. Roger claims he loves Paula, but he’s too self-centered and egotistical to give up his freedom as a womanizer. If Paula was honest with herself, she’d recognize that Roger was never going to change and their relationship was going nowhere.

One day Roger gives Paula the name of a wealthy American divorcee, Teresa Van der Besh (Jessie Royce Landis), who needs a decorator for her Paris apartment. Mrs. Van der Besh has a 25-year-old son Philip (Anthony Perkins), an attorney who is studying international law with a Paris law firm. Philip is immature, melancholy, directionless, spoiled, and has a penchant for play-acting at being physically injured or deformed. When he meets Paula, he becomes hopelessly infatuated with the attractive, cosmopolitan middle-aged woman, and insists that their fifteen-year age difference is no barrier to a romance.

Flattered by the novelty of having a young admirer, and plagued by Roger's serial infidelities, Paula does little to discourage Philip's persistent advances. He drives her around town in his little Triumph TR3 sports car, revealing his romantic philosophy in the process. They lunch in an outdoor restaurant and attend a Brahms concert.

When Roger goes on an extended international business trip, Paula allows herself to begin an affair with Philip, convinced she can change him like she changes the décor of an apartment, even though she’s tried, without success, to change Roger. At this point, although she may not realize it, Paula is involved with two men who act like irresponsible little boys and refuse to grow up

[Twenty years later, in 1983, psychologist Dan Kiley would define this as the Peter Pan Syndrome. He would also use the term Wendy Syndrome to describe women who act like mothers to their Peter Pan partners. So both Roger and Philip are Peter Pan, and Paula is Wendy.]

Eventually, Paula can no longer deny the reality that Philip is irresponsible, childish, indecisive, indolent, slovenly and unable to develop a passion for his work. All of this, plus her self-conscious guilt over having such a young lover, ultimately forces her to end their brief affair.

Litvak uses the recurrent theme of circles to convey the sense that the lives of these three people are going nowhere. There are scenes in which Philip drives aimlessly around the traffic circles of Paris in order to pass the time, and after Paula breaks up with Philip, she watches him as he descends a long, spiral staircase. Brahms' Symphony No. 3, whose melody has a cyclical theme, is used throughout the film, including a haunting blues version sung to Philip by a night club singer (Diahann Carroll), which reflects the hopelessness of Philip’s love for Paula, and of Paula’s love for Roger.

Bergman, Montand and Perkins are all excellent in their roles, and Perkins, especially, shows exceptional depth as the lost and vulnerable Philip. Paula is tolerant, forgiving and continually disappointed, Roger is self-indulgent and egotistical, and Philip is directionless and hopeless. Sadly, there is nothing positive or uplifting about this romantic drama, just the reality that these three people have learned nothing and will continue to enact the same patterns over and over.

Labels: drama, Ingrid Bergman, Paris, romance, Sixties

Internet Movie Database 7.0/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=76) 

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) [UR] ****

A film review by Jeffrey Kauffman for Blu-ray.com on February 8, 2014.

Gladys Aylward is a name that doesn't ring many bells nowadays, but for a brief time in the late fifties, she was the object of some considerable international interest. A small (barely five feet tall), unassuming woman who had spent her (equally small) life savings on a passage to China, where she worked with another émigré named Jeannie Lawson in spreading the good Word, and where she ultimately gained a certain notoriety for heroically leading a ragtag bunch of Chinese orphans to safety during China's war with Japan in the late thirties.

Aylward's fame was quite considerable in China, but she was still only marginally known in her native Great Britain until Alan Burgess wrote a biography of Aylward entitled The Small Woman, which hit the bestseller charts in 1957. (Alan Burgess should not be confused with Anthony Burgess of A Clockwork Orange fame.) It didn't take Hollywood long to figure out this amazing story was ripe for a cinematic adaptation, though as so often happens in the film world, the truth wasn't deemed good enough, and several key changes were made to Aylward's actual story. Perhaps the oddest decision was the casting of Ingrid Bergman - tall, statuesque, obviously attractive, and not to put too fine a point on it, Swedish - as the diminutive, evidently Cockney accented and by all accounts fairly plain looking Aylward. The film perhaps more understandably telescopes some of the events in Aylward's actual life story to make for a more compelling film experience, but other decisions are almost funny; in real life, Aylward's Chinese hostel was actually called The Inn of the Eight Happinesses. Aylward was reportedly very unhappy with The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, but if one looks objectively on the film as an entertainment rather than an absolutely accurate historical document, there's a good deal to be enjoyed here. While perhaps too long for its own good (clocking in at well over two and a half hours), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is the kind of old fashioned historical epic that was so popular in the late fifties, one fraught with danger, lots of local color and just a hint of romance.

Bergman plays Aylward like a slightly petulant, stubborn and headstrong woman who is nonetheless absolutely convinced that God wants her to go to China to serve as a missionary. The opening scenes of the film establish Aylward's single minded determination to achieve this goal, despite the fact that film's official missionary group has deemed her inappropriate for such work. Leaving that assessment somewhat crestfallen, she rather coincidentally notices a travel agency and goes in, insisting that she be allowed to buy a ticket to China on an installment plan that the agency doesn't even offer. According to Aylward's unusual way of thinking, once she's committed to the idea with a down payment, it will make paying for it over the course of time an easier prospect.

The film stretches the truth a bit in its formulation of how Aylward actually ultimately gained a foothold in China, positing a kindly employer named Sir Francis Jamison (Ronald Squire) who pulled a few strings (and wrote a few letters), ultimately getting Aylward a position with the already established Jeannie Lawson (Athene Seyler). Despite this fanciful setup, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness starts to establish its bona fides as a moving drama, if not a stoutly accurate historical epic, once Aylward finally does get to the place she's been so sure she belongs for so long.

Aylward learns to interact well with the local leader, an imperious man (or more appropriately, Mandarin) played by Robert Donat. Her ability to interface with the local peasantry provides the early dramatic impetus for the film, as does a burgeoning romance with a so-called Eurasian captain named Lin Nan (Curt Jurgens). The film really starts to pick up steam once Aylward gets involved in what she sees as a major human rights issue, the horrifying binding of women's feet which had a long historical precedent but which was finally falling out of fashion.

The stories of the Mandarin, the captain and Aylward dovetail rather nicely in the film's final extended sequence, when the Japanese begin attacking mainland China and the captain tries to talk Aylward into evacuating immediately. Things get more complicated when Aylward suddenly becomes the caretaker for a gaggle of (incredibly cute) orphans, all of whom will perish in the attack if she can't figure out a way to get them to safety. This disconcerting state of affairs is only further exacerbated when even more orphans show up at the last moment, just as Aylward and her trusty aide Li (Burt Kwouk) have decided to make a run (and/or walk) for it, leading the kids by foot to a safer region.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is big, glossy entertainment, but it's surprisingly heartfelt, with a generous dash of both drama and humor spicing up the proceedings. Gorgeously shot (in Wales, of all places) by the incomparable Freddie Young, and with a really impressive production design capably recreating the village life of China during that era, the film is also notable for its nicely nuanced performances (though some may find the prospect of two Caucasians playing Asians - or at least half breeds - politically incorrect by today's standards). The film plays its heartstring tugging aspects without shame, repeatedly depicting people initially not especially liking Aylward but gradually at least becoming fond of her, and in the case of Lin, more than that. Perhaps surprisingly, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness snagged an Oscar nomination for its director, veteran Mark Robson, while remaining shut out in all the other categories.

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a near perfect entertainment in the vaunted old fashioned late fifties style. It's big, probably a bit too glossy for its subject matter, but undeniably enjoyable, filled with luscious scenery, really gorgeous sets and costumes, and some wonderfully moving performances. Some may feel the film could have been judiciously trimmed by at least twenty minutes to a half hour, but for those willing to relax into an old style epic, this is an evocative and even meaningful experience. [Kauffman’s rating: **** out of 5 stars]

Labels: biography, drama, Ingrid Bergman, romance, war

Internet Movie Database 7.3/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=78) 

Blu-ray 

Indiscreet (1958) [UR] ****

A film review by Jeffrey Kauffman for blu-ray.com on January 16, 2013.

One might be forgiven for thinking that there was a bit of cynical marketing at work by casting Ingrid Bergman in a film called Indiscreet. It seems like pop culture chump change now, what with movie stars in and out of rehab, vicious voicemails to their soon to be ex-spouses or estranged children played with relish on the evening entertainment shows, and civil and criminal court cases piling up against various celebrities, but Ingrid Bergman's seemingly minor peccadillo of having an affair (and the perhaps more major peccadillo of conceiving a child) with iconic Italian director Roberto Rossellini wasn't just front page news around the world in the early fifties, it was cause for actual denunciations in Congress (could you imagine a Senator denouncing Lindsay Lohan nowadays?). Bergman's career, at least in the United States, seemed to be over. This was the woman who had been a virginal presence in everything from The Bells of St. Mary's to Joan of Arc, and in that perhaps less celebrity conscious and decidedly more star struck time, people tended to confuse performers with their roles.

It wasn't until 1956 that Bergman was able to rehabilitate her stateside image and career with Anastasia, winning an Academy Award which not so coincidentally was accepted by her longtime friend Cary Grant. Two years later Grant and Bergman would reteam for the first time since having made the Alfred Hitchcock classic Notorious, this time in a decidedly different and lighter offering, though one which it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out was probably engineered to trade on Bergman's supposedly shaded past. If Bergman in real life had been pilloried for having had an affair with a married man while married herself, Indiscreet posits Bergman as an actress searching for a soul mate who falls in love with a debonair man played by Grant, a man who pretends to be married and is therefore carrying on an affair. There's kind of a nudge, nudge, wink, wink aspect to this slight twisting of then recent history, and while Indiscreet was in fact based on a not very successful Broadway comedy called Kind Sir which had run for a few months in 1953 and 1954 with stars Mary Martin and Charles Boyer, the fact that the film adaptation garnered its indicative new name and star was most likely an intentional act on the part of producer-director Stanley Donen, who was certainly no fool and no doubt understood the subliminal messages being conveyed to a potential audience.

Writer Norman Krasna had a long if not particularly distinguished career, more in the world of film than on the legitimate stage. But Krasna's approach to his material in Kind Sir is probably the major reason the show wasn't a multi-season smash on Broadway and isn't the most fondly remembered film in either Grant or Bergman's long and storied careers. This is material that fairly screams farce, with a debonair bachelor pretending to be married so that he doesn't need to make a commitment. But Krasna takes an almost dramatic, even soap operatic, approach to this fare, and the results are not only rarely amusing (let alone funny), they fail to really provide much interest beyond the glamorous setting. The strange thing is Krasna was a rather splendid farce writer, as some of his other screenplays prove, so why he chose to craft a kind of creaky, weepy entertainment that gets by - sometimes just barely - on the combined charisma of its two legendary stars is a quandary. There's really not much else there to Indiscreet.

Indiscreet would seem to be a rather unusual entry in the filmography of Stanley Donen. It's neither an ebullient musical like Singin' in the Rain nor a comedically tinged thriller like Charade. Even within the second tier of Donen's oeuvre, Indiscreet is a decidedly middling entry, one that fitfully sputters to life in the final act when Bergman's character of Anna Kalman discovers that Grant's character of Philip Adams is trying to pull the matrimonial wool over her eyes, and decides to create her own bit of subterfuge. But even that effort falls short of any real laughs, and once again Krasna and Donen revert to dewy eyed close ups of Bergman weeping at the joy of having found happiness with a man who has gone to great lengths to avoid making a commitment to her. One can only assume Donen's attention was more absorbed with his film version of Damn Yankees! which was being done at around the same time. Who knows what was on Krasna's mind.

Indiscreet is a film that on paper looks like it couldn't possibly miss. How could a film helmed by Stanley Donen and starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant be anything other than a wonderful entertainment? Well, just watch Indiscreet to find out just how far on paper is from finished film. This is a slow and pretty dreary exercise in scattered titters and unnecessary melodrama. Something must have attracted these fantastically talented people to this project, but I for one am at a loss to say what it was. For those wanting a little old school Hollywood glamour, you could probably do worse, but the fact is just cherry picking any other Stanley Donen film will probably guarantee you'll do considerably better. [Kauffman’s rating: *** out of 5 stars]

Labels: comedy, Fifties, Ingrid Bergman, romance

Internet Movie Database 6.8/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=73, viewers=72) 

Blu-ray 

Blogger's comment: I've seen Indiscreet twice and appreciated it much more the second time. Bergman and Grant are incredibly talented and have great chemistry together. Part of the appeal of a light, romantic comedy like this, is that male viewers can put themselves in Grant's place, and female viewers in Bergman's place. And this is an aspect of the film that Kauffman's review completely ignores. It's also the reason that so often critics' ratings and viewers' ratings are so far apart. If you enjoy Bergman and Grant together, don't miss Notorious (1946).

Anastasia (1956) [NR] ****

A film review by Richard Cross, 20/20 Movie Reviews on October 20, 2013.

The myth that the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II, survived the assassination of the Romanov family during the Russian revolution was an enduring one for most of the 20th Century. Anastasia’s remains were found with those of eight others of her family in Ekaterinburg in 1991, finally bringing speculation to a conclusion, but when director Anatole Litvak’s screen adaptation of the hit Broadway stage play by Marcelle Maurette was released in 1956, the mysterious fate of Anastasia was still very much in the public eye.

The film takes place in Paris in 1928, ten years after the Romanovs were assassinated. Rumors circulate amongst the exiled Russian aristocracy that Anastasia, the Tsar’s youngest daughter survived the assassination. The rumors endure partly due to the fact that £10 million left by the Tsar in an English bank still waits to be claimed, which has resulted in any number of con men and opportunists producing fake Anastasias in an attempt to get their hands on the inheritance. One of these opportunists is former White Russian General Bounine (Yul Brynner), who, together with fellow emigres Boris Chernov (Akim Tamiroff and Piotr Ivanovich Petrovin (Sacha Pitoeff), is part of a syndicate established to locate and groom a suitable candidate for the part. Their attention turns to Anna Koreff (Ingrid Bergman), a refugee in Paris who once claimed to be Anastasia while recovering in a Romanian mental hospital. Anna is initially a reluctant recruit into their scheme, even though she still claims to be Anastasia and bears an uncanny resemblance to the girl, who was 17 when the Romanovs were assassinated. But eventually she capitulates under the forceful persuasion of Bounine with whom she develops an intense love-hate relationship.

Attempts to convince the Russian aristocracy prove inconclusive, and so Bounine decides they must somehow convince the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovona (Helen Hayes) of the authenticity of Anna’s claim. However, the Dowager is a crusty old dame who has grown inured to the repeated attempts of fraudsters to get their hands on the family fortune, and she initially refuses even to meet with Anna.

There’s a pleasing ambiguity about Arthur Laurents’ screenplay for Anastasia which always leaves us unsure about the veracity of Anna’s claim. In fact, she herself seems occasionally uncertain about her true identity, with perceived memories becoming confused with the overbearing Bounine’s meticulous tuition on every tiny detail of the young Duchess’s life. Bounine and his cohorts are, in fact, entirely fictional and so the story is only very loosely based on truth which, of course, frees any writer to embellish to their heart’s content, so it’s to Laurents’s credit that the film remains a sober account of Anna’s claim without ever feeling dry or forced. And while he finds it impossible to entirely disguise the story’s stage origins, the quality of the performances from Bergman and Brynner are strong enough to facilitate such a wordy screenplay. However, given the strength of both of their performances, its sadly surprising at how little chemistry is created between them. [Cross’ rating: ** out of 4 stars]

Labels: biography, drama, history, Ingrid Bergman

Internet Movie Database 7.1/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=73, viewers=70) 

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Anastasia Nicholeavna Romanov - her true story