BEFORE: I've been on the lower cholesterol diet for two weeks now, and I don't know if it's had any effect, but I feel lighter. Could just be my own perception, after avoiding red meats, eggs, butter and avocados for a while. I think my jeans are a little looser, but I can't be sure because my bathroom scale still just reads "E" when I step on it - I'm not sure if this stands for "error" or "extra heavy", but I'm hoping that some time soon I can get back to a weight that will register on the scale. That probably should have been a warning sign months ago, that I'd become too heavy for a home scale.
Cary Grant carries over for Day 5 of Marchie Madness, and it's another film released in 1958, the same year as "Houseboat".
THE PLOT: A London-based actress, who has been unable to find love in her life, comes home early from a vacation and meets a suave financier who is a work acquaintance of her brother-in-law.
AFTER: This is sort of a twist on the usual romance-with-deception storyline. You've seen over and over plots where two people fall in love, and one turns out to be secretly married. In this case, Cary Grant's character is quite upfront about being married, but is he? Near the start of the film, his new love points out that the current "excuse" on the dating scene that year is "Sorry, I'm married, but I'm separated and can't get a divorce." Presumably this is the easiest way for single men to cheat on their wives and not get too involved with potential girlfriends, and they use this to succeed on the London dating scene with older women who don't want to be tied down either.
But is that really Philip Adams' situation, or is there more to his story?
It's only recently that I learned the homophone for "discreet", which is "discrete". Up until then, when I saw the word "discrete", I thought that someone had misspelled it, or was maybe using the British spelling. But no, "discreet" means being careful to not be noticed or to cause offense, and "discrete" means individually separate or distinct. What a dumb language we have, the human mouth can make thousands of sounds that are not being used for words, and we have to have two words that sound exactly alike but mean different things? If I were in charge, I'd get rid of one of them, most likely "discrete", because people could just use "distinct" in its place - we don't need it.
Anyway, our lovers tonight are definitely indiscreet, meaning that they don't care who knows that they're sleeping together - and this very public romance doesn't seem to matter at all to the higher-ups at NATO, because they check Mr. Adams out and they hire him anyway. In 1957 if you were a public figure I assume you couldn't live with someone without being married, but I guess you could get two apartments on different floors of the same building and nobody's going to be the wiser.
And I've found my answer to my question from the other night - why do screenwriters feel the need to introduce so much deception into romance stories, or are constantly writing about love triangles? Because a film about two lovers who meet cute, get to know each other, date exclusively, are very happy together, then eventually get married turns out to be a very boring movie. Somehow it seems like the relationships we aspire to in the real world just aren't dramatic enough for a film, which needs to have tension, doubt, and one of those "it's always darkest before the dawn" turnarounds in the final act.
"Indiscreet" is an extreme example of this, because it's mostly just about two people getting together, with little or no conflict, and they keep it casual because he's married but separated. Since there's little chance of this relationship turning into marriage, that keeps the pressure off, so it's a comfortable arrangement. But then they HAVE to introduce doubt and tension at the end, there's a short-lived theoretical love triangle, and an argument for good measure, which makes you wonder if these two people are meant for each other after all. I understand why they have to do this, but it still feels incredibly forced.
This is the third of four films this week directed by Stanley Donen - he also directed "Charade", "The Grass Is Greener", and tomorrow's movie. And like last night's film, the lead actress was involved in a real-life love triangle - she was married to one man, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, and fell in love with Roberto Rossellini. When she became pregnant with Rossellini's child while married to Lindstrom, she became something of a social outcast in Hollywood, and didn't make a Hollywood film for six years, returning with "Anastasia", for which she won Best Actress, and then made "Indiscreet" two years after that.
Also starring Ingrid Bergman (last seen in "Gaslight"), Megs Jenkins, David Kossoff, Cecil Parker.
RATING: 4 out of 10 scotch and sodas
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