Rating: 3.5* of five

Really good dialogue and pretty klunky scene changes; the play wasn't a hit on Broadway because the stars, Charles Boyer and Mary Martin, were famous for singing roles and there's not a note sung. Alas, the flop was about to sink forever, a small but lovely little story of a misunderstanding, then a lie told to ease a man's conscience, and a woman's fury artfully revenging her misuse leading to a happy ending, doomed to obscurity. Then as now a hit Broadway play was a safe bet to get a film deal. Not so much for flops.

Author Notman Krasna was a macher in the entertainment industry. He had the juice to get things done that would've been impossible for others, as a string of successes in the 1930s and 1940s lent him a glow of Harvey Weinstein-y success. By the 1950s, though, the "what have you done lately?" query didn't elicit such glowing names and titles. Kind Sir's fate was changed by an old friend of Krasna's, a series of friends of his friend, and his own savvy response to opportunity's quiet little rap.

Indiscreet a 1958 release directed by Freed-Unit stalwart-cum-wunderkind Stanley Donenm (who died in February 2019 at 94!) was based on Krasna's flop after he pitched the young director on it. Donen was glad to have a Krasna project, and stipulated that his recent turn directing Cary Grant made him sure he'd be perfect as lying philandering Philip, the male lead; bye-bye Boyer. Grant, seeing a fat one down the middle allowing him to work with his old friend the recently rehabilitated Ingrid Bergman; she was delighted to be in a studio film again (sex scandal), but required the story be reset to take place in London since she was working in Paris and couldn't leave. Krasna was no fool, rewrote the screenplay, and filming commenced.

And the critics said...*yawn*

This play and its film can not get any respect! (Well, the English liked it and it was the top-grossing film there in 1958.) Glorious Technicolor, fine mature performances from peak-glamour actors, a love story that was racy because the woman initiates it, more in-jokes than a film student could make up, and South Pacific trounced it and all other comers at the box office. To this day, the play, the film, and the idea of adults falling in love and behaving like fools get no traction on anyone's lists. The play, well, I don't like reading plays too much but I know snappy repartee when I read it. It's got it! The Broadway-back-stage hunks that got drafted out when the film changes came in actually did the story good. The secrets-and-lies bit is evergreen. The play's ending is exactly as soppy as the film's. But why should that matter? Sixty-plus years later we can look past the past's passé prudery, no?

Kanopy, the library-based film streaming service, has it for free. Watch the film. Hunt up the play if you like reading them. But give it a real shot, play the odds and make an effort to be available to bygone charms. They are there spread out before you. ( )

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