Gloria Swanson in Indiscreet (1931)

[dfordoom]

Indiscreet, made in 1931, is a strange hybrid of a film. It’s basically a romantic comedy, but every so often it starts thinking it’s a musical. The other problem with the film is some fairly ordinary acting from the supporting cast. Really it only has one thing going for it, and that’s its star, Gloria Swanson. Can she save the picture on her own? Well actually yes, she can, and she does. She’s delightful. She’s very funny, and she handles the more serious moments just as deftly. She even sings. The plot is pretty slight. Swanson plays a woman who had been involved with a man who was not exactly respectable. She’s now in love with a writer, and then her kid sister turns up from Paris with her new love – the same guy Swanson used to be involved with. Can she save the kid sister from this rotter?

After watching this movie you can’t help wondering why Swanson’s career declined during the 1930s. She doesn’t appear to have had any difficulty at all handling the transition to sound, she has a great voice, so what went wrong? Her mad scene in this movie is absolutely priceless – it’s worth watching the movie just for that scene. Overall Indiscreet is an entertaining romantic comedy, with Gloria Swanson in superb form.

[feaito]

I think that I might have enjoyed better this film if a had watched a better print. The Madacy VHS I bought in 1996 is just too awful!! I remember though that I enjoyed Maude Eburne's character.

On the other hand, I do remember not liking very much Monroe Owsley's character and considering is acting rather bad... so I was pleasantly surprised yesterday, after watching the 1930 version of "Holiday", in which Owsley (IMO) gives a better performance than Lew Ayres (in the 1938 film) in the role of Ned Seton; he gives a certain bitterness to the role that Ayres did not convey. Mary Astor as Julia Seton is also superior than Doris Nolan in the 1938 version. Robert Ames is OK, but Cary Grant is much better as Johnny Case. Ann Harding gives a different edge to Linda Seton and is as good as Kate Hepburn is in the 1938 version. If only TCM would restore properly this film and release it on DVD.

[sandykaypax]

Thanks for the review of Holiday, Feaito! I'd love to see this earlier version. I can picture Mary Astor perfectly in the role of Julia Seton! Perhaps TCM can get the rights to show this one someday.



Sandy K

[feaito]

Glad you liked it Sandy.

I'd have thought that TCM owned the rights to this version, since it's a Pathé Film, Studio which merged with RKO Radio. I also had the idea that TCM had aired the film in the past. But on second thoughts the rights to the 1930 version might belong to Sony-Columbia, which owns the rights to the 1938 remake.

[drednm]

My print is pretty good so there are good prints of this underrated classic. Gloria Swanson sings "If You Haven't Got Love," which is a nifty song, and "Come to Me," which takes on comic overtones within the context of the film.

After the disaster of WHAT A WIDOW, Swanson needed a miracle to recover her audience. Although they are both decent films, INDISCREET and TONIGHT OR NEVER just weren't the right comeback vehicles for the time.

INDISCREET also benefits from solid work by Ben Lyon and Maude Eburne. Monroe Owsley was ok; Barbara Kent always leaves me cold.....

[moviemagz]

The direction is pretty bad IMO which is ironic because it's the legendary multi-Oscar winning Leo McCarey!!

The scene where Gloria goes to the estate and makes a deliberate bad impression clearly inspired the famous scene along the same nature by Irene Dunne in McCarey's THE AWFUL TRUTH.