INDISCREET

(director/writer: Stanley Donen; screenwriter: Norman Krasna, play ‘Kind Sir” by Krasna; cinematographer: Freddie Young; editor: Jack Harris; music: Richard Bennett, Ken Jones; cast: Cary Grant (Philip Adams), Ingrid Bergman (Anna Kalman), Cecil Parker (Alfred Munson), Phyllis Calvert (Margaret Munson), David Kossoff (Carl Banks), Megs Jenkins (Doris Banks); Runtime: 100; MPAA Rating: PG; producer: Stanley Donen; Warner Bros./Lionsgate; 1958-UK)

“Well-acted.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
 
A thin rom/com that’s breezy, well-acted, and discretely directed by Stanley Donen (“Singin’ in the Rain”/”Play it in Rio”) from a 1953 flop Broadway play “Kind Sir” by Norman Krasna that’s here called Indiscreet. It follows along the lines of Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth (1937).

The London-based stage actress Anna Kalman (Ingrid Bergman) returns home from a vacation to Majorca and meets the smooth international American financier Philip Adams (Cary Grant). He’s friends with her diplomat brother-in-law Alfred Munson (Cecil Parker), whose wife (Phyllis Calvert) is Anna’s sister. Philip’s wife is in San Francisco, as Anna makes a date with him to attend the ballet, even though he tells her his wife won’t give him a divorce.

They fall in love. Problems arise when Philip is transferred for 5 months from his NATO post in Paris to New York. How things get resolved is well-executed, as Anna discovers something he’s hiding about himself and turns the tables on him.

REVIEWED ON 8/19/2026  GRADE: B
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