Quando a Mulher Erra

This film is full of ironical metaphors. We have a running Joseph and Mary / Adam and Eve biblical subtext. The surface sentimentality can be misleading. Rome Termini Station contains enough iconography of Heaven and Hell to make up an ironic parable. I'm surprised that so many critics have not picked up the clever gags. I suspect that the butchering of the film down to 63 minutes has something to do with it. The serpent and the apple, seeking refuge in the manger, Dante's innocent descending into the purgatory of the police station, two passionate innocents caught up in orthodox role structure, it's all there, if rather clumsily re-edited. The film clearly belongs to an era where film language a la Welles or Hitchcock was more sophisticated than much of today's mainstream cinema.

Coming after "ladri di biciclette"(1946)"miracolo a Milano"(1950) and the absorbing and rather unrecognized "Umberto D"(probably De Sica's masterpiece,1952),"Stazione Termini" cannot be put on a par with these former works.It is an interesting effort though.

Montgomery Clift and Jennifer Jones are par excellence the romantic couple ,but in an Italian environment,they look like extra-terrestrials.Do not get me wrong,I do enjoy these two actors' talent ,but I wonder why De Sica ,one of the neorealism high priests, has chosen Hollywood stars whereas ,for instance,he refused to engage Cary Grant for the "ladri di biciclette" lead,and he used rather obscure actors for "Umberto D".Besides,I wonder whether both Jones and Clift are dubbed (or not?) in Italian.I wonder too whether this actress was not influenced by Ingrid Bergman's coming to Italy.When she buys chocolate for the children and when she wants to help the poor family,Jones' character makes me think of Bergman's in Rossellini's "Europa 51" (1951) for a very short while

The plot is banal and the railway station becomes the star of the film.De Sica completely succeeds in showing the life of this hive,with its travelers,its priests,its soldiers,its poor families packed into 3rd class waiting rooms,its trains heading for darkness .The lovers' faces are nicely filmed as if they were the only lights of this obscure world.

A married American woman has an affair with an Italian man while visiting her sister in Rome. This short film (a longer director's cut now exists) focuses on the last few hours spent at a train station as the woman is returning home. De Sica creates some striking imagery but the script is too slight to let the characters or the plot develop. Apparently producer Selznick cut the film to stress the romance and to make Jones (his wife then) look good. Clift plays a brooding, hot-blooded Italian but isn't given much to do. Both Jones and Clift have quirky mannerisms that seem well suited to the roles of the angst-ridden lovers. An interesting curiosity piece.

Indiscretion of an American Wife or Stazione Termini 1953 is set at a station where an ill-fated couple : Jennifer Jones , Montgomery Clft say goodbye endessly while the women attempts to decide whether to join her husband and daughter in the States . This longing...this yearning...this warning...

An attractive and enjoyable movie from a script by Truman Capote from the story " Terminal Station" by Cesare Zavattini that also collaborated in the screenplay , it never puts a foot wrong , neither do the actors , as the agony of their frustrated feelings etched on their faces for all to see . Dealing with a touchingly understated love story develoved at a station , about a romance they know has not future . Including the charming final scenes that are particularly poignant and stirring . Being well photographed , especially in the railway scenes , though a perfect remastering being really necessary because of the film copy is worn-out . The two main actors are pretty well . And deft supporting cast as a very young Richard Beymer and Gino Cervi as a Police Commissioner.

The motion picture was well directed by Vittorio De Sica , though it contains some flaws and gaps due to it was heavily cut , in fact was trimmed down from 87 minutes upon US release . De Sica was one of the most notorious actors/filmmakers of the Italian cinema and a maestro of the Neorealism style , as he directed prestigious movies : "The Bicycle Thief , Miracle in Milan, Shoeshine , The Children are watching , The Gold of Naples , Umberto D , The Roof , It Happened in the Park , Two Women, Yesterday Today and tomorrow , Marriage Italian style , After the Fox , Woman Times Seven, The Garden of the Finzi Continis" . Rating : 6.5/10 , decent romantic drama . The flick will appeal to Montgomery and Jennifer Jones fans .

Italian maestro Vittorio De Sica's Hollywood sortie, this ill-received co-production with David O. Selznick, starring Ms. Selznick, Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift as the star-crossed lovers, is built on a pellucid idea of condensing a doomed extramarital romance within a neat spatio- temporal structure: two hours inside the Terminal train station in Rome.

Jones plays Mary Forbes, the titular American wife, who strikes up a torrid affair with a bachelor Giovanni Doria (Clift, sporting a passable Italian and stays on autopilot as a careworn and distressed jilted lover) during her visit in Rome, impulsively decides to go back home and break off their liaison after declaring her utmost feelings for him the day before. Firstly, she must take the train from Rome to Paris, and Giovanni's timely advent botches Mary's plan to leave at 7 pm, and the next train leaves in one and half hour, during which time, the pair undergo an honest tête-à- tête, a badly-devised game-changer (encountering Mary's nephew Paul, a decent screen debut of Richard Beymer), a temporary separation then rekindle their passion in an empty compartment, which will cause a scene and their fate will be left at the mercy of the police commissioner (Cervi), can she manage to take the 20:30 train and how their affair will end?

First of all, the premise is very lax, there is absolutely no exigency for Mary to depart for Paris immediately, it is her whim out of the blue, which makes the entire scenario sound contrived, it is not helped by Jones' emotionally duelling but ultimately mushy incarnation, as demure and kind- hearted as her Mary is, clearly, it is her have the final say, but her conflict with moral compass swivels when the narrative is constantly hogtied by its essayist sidebar to extol the Termini station itself, a monumental presence buzzed with characters and egregious red tape, which feels tonally incompatible with the central story, which shows up the quintessential rift between Hollywood melodrama and Italian Neo-realism.

Lastly, if you are not dissuaded by this review and still want to watch it, don't watch the bluntly truncated 63-minute USA version, its 89-minute original version is unequivocally more cohesive and engaging for the viewing experience, still, it is a letdown among De Sica's corpus.