Indiscreet

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman reunited twelve years after Notorious, this time not in a thriller but in a drawing-room comedy. Anna is a famous stage actress living in London who has given up on love. Philip is a NATO economist who tells her on meeting that he is married. She takes the relationship anyway, precisely because he can never be permanent. Then she learns the marriage is a lie, and the second half becomes her revenge. Stanley Donen's most cited solution is a telephone scene: the two are in different cities, in different beds, and the screen splits. The split is arranged so that they appear to be in the same bed. This is how the production code of the period was got around. Donen directed, from a play by Norman Krasna. Exactly right for anyone who likes 1950s Hollywood comedy and the fit between these two actors. For anyone wanting incident, the story is one misunderstanding and the middle stretch sags.