Indiscreet

Indiscreet is a 1958 romantic comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen, adapted by playwright Norman Krasna from his own Broadway play Kind Sir, and starring Cary Grant as Philip Adams and Ingrid Bergman as Anna Kalman. It reunited the two stars for the first time since Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946).^{1 • 2}

From play to film

The play Kind Sir had been one of the biggest flops of the 1953 Broadway season, so no studio had bid on the film rights, which Donen bought for just $10,000. He and Grant, who had enjoyed working together on the poorly received Kiss Them for Me (1957), formed their own production company, Grandon, to make the film for Warner Bros.² According to a January 1958 New York Times article cited by the American Film Institute, Grant agreed to appear only if Ingrid Bergman was cast as the female lead. Bergman was already committed to The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, filming in Great Britain, so the setting of the story was moved from New York to London to accommodate her schedule.¹

For Bergman, the film came at a turning point. She was returning to Hollywood after her exile following her relationship with Roberto Rossellini; after eight years in Europe, that marriage was on the rocks and she was nearly broke. When Donen made a personal pitch, she agreed to the picture before even asking what it was. At the 1957 Academy Awards, Grant accepted Bergman's Oscar for Anastasia on her behalf and was so moved by the audience's reception that she became his only choice for the role.²

Casting was not entirely smooth. Margaret Johnston was originally cast as Bergman's sister but quarreled with Donen and left the film; Phyllis Calvert replaced her, and re-shot the character's scenes shortly after her husband's death.^{1 • 2}

Production in London

The film was shot at Elstree Studios and on location across London between November 18, 1957 and early February 1958, with exteriors including the Garrick Club, Piccadilly Circus, the Thames Embankment at Cleopatra's Needle, and the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden; sounds and shots of Big Ben chime through the film as a continuity device.¹ Donen later said location shooting made him feel freer and made the picture handsomer, and that he avoided CinemaScope because of the large number of close-ups.⁸ Winter filming took a toll: Donen and cinematographer Freddie Young were among those sidelined by flu, while Grant, who was undergoing hypnotherapy with his wife Betsy Drake, stayed healthy.²

Grant arranged luxuries for his co-star: a high-fashion wardrobe supervised by Christian Dior, and the first 1958 Silver Wraith Rolls-Royce off the factory line, valued at $23,000, which Anna's chauffeur drives in the film and which Grant bought from Grandon after shooting ended.^{2 • 1}

Style and the split screen

The film's most discussed technical device is a split-screen sequence showing Philip and Anna talking to each other from their separate beds in different cities. Because the actors could hear each other's lines as they were spoken, their reactions had, by one contemporary account, far more romantic impact than separately staged coverage would have; a Hollywood Citizen-News review described how Grant straightening his blanket in Paris appears to "conquer space by patting Bergman's London derriere."¹ The device also served censorship purposes, letting director Stanley Donen imply the lovers were sharing a bed without actually showing it, which was taboo in 1958.^{6 • 9}

Time magazine's 1958 review noted the film's scale compared with the Broadway original: instead of about $100,000 for a stage production, Donen had roughly $1,500,000, the city of London as a backdrop, and Technicolor. The review judged it a conventional comedy of upper-class manners "flicked off in the high old style of hilarity," and called Bergman's part the first comedy role she had played for Hollywood.⁷

Reception and afterlife

Retrospective critics have generally treated the film as a star vehicle carried by its leads. Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus says it "spins rom-com gold out of a premise just sturdy enough to set the stage for typically delightful work from its wonderfully well-matched leads," and it holds a 100% Tomatometer score from 21 reviews alongside a 69% audience score from more than 5,000 ratings.⁴ The Los Angeles Times' Katy Noviello called it "short on plot but more than makes up for it in style," and Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader praised it as "a fine light comedy, with unexpected passages of seriousness, marked by the Donen touch."⁴ On IMDb the film rates 6.8/10 from about 11,000 users and received three BAFTA Award nominations.⁵ The Numbers records a domestic box office of $8,000,000.¹⁰

Grandon Productions later became a point of dispute: in 1968 Grant, Donen, and Krasna filed a breach-of-contract suit against Warner Bros., alleging the studio had batched Indiscreet, whose profits they owned 75% of, with 47 wholly owned Warner films and divided television income equally, depriving them of their share; the outcome is not recorded in the AFI entry.¹ A television movie remake based on Krasna's play, also titled Indiscreet, aired in 1988, directed by Richard Michaels and starring Robert Wagner and Lesley-Anne Down.^{1 • 11}

References

1. Indiscreet (1958), AFI Catalog of Feature Films
2. Indiscreet, by Frank Miller, Turner Classic Movies
3. Indiscreet, Paramount Pictures
4. Indiscreet, Rotten Tomatoes
5. Indiscreet (1958), IMDb
6. The 'Indiscreet' Charm of Glamour, Los Angeles Times
7. Cinema: The New Pictures, Time, July 21, 1958
8. London on Location: Indiscreet
9. AFI Silver Theatre program notes
10. Indiscreet (1958), The Numbers
11. Television Reviews: Sans Ingrid and Cary, 'Indiscreet' Is Inept, Los Angeles Times

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1950s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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