FILM · 1958 · UK
Indiscreet
26 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (26)
- #001
Ingrid Bergman agreed to make the film without seeing the script so that she could work with her friend Cary Grant again.
- #002
Cary Grant said this was his favorite of his own films.
- #003
Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman appearing as somewhat older and wiser lovers carried greater significance for 1958 audiences. Grant was in the third of his five marriages, while Bergman had weathered scandal after her adulterous affair with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini.
- #004
When director Stanley Donen asked Cary Grant whether he would make the film, Grant said he wanted Ingrid Bergman as his co-star and no one else. Bergman was committed to making The Sixth Happiness (1958), which was to be shot in the United Kingdom, and to a theatre production in Paris, so the film was moved to Elstree Studios in England.
- #005
According to a contemporary article in the Hollywood Citizens-News, the split screens showing Philip and Anna in bed in separate cities were achieved by building separate bedrooms on a single sound stage at the studio and using separate camera and sound crews, with their actions synchronized.
- #006
When censors objected to Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman being in bed together, director Stanley Donen shot a split-screen sequence showing both stars lying side by side in bed but with a clearly visible "border" between them.
- #007
Cary Grant was taught to play billiards by Sidney Lee, then one of England's finest players, and learned to play the violin left-handed for the role, while Ingrid Bergman was taught how to dance the Highland Fling.
- #008
The film marked a series of firsts for Ingrid Bergman: her first time in a full-fledged comedy and her first time playing a fashionable woman, wearing the last of the late Christian Dior's personal creations and the Rolls-Royce that was to have been hers, the first 1958 Silver Wraith seen on the streets of London. It was also the first time The Garrick Club was used as a location.
- #009
The car Anna is chauffeured in is a brand-new 1958 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith worth $23,000 at the time (more than $209,000 in 2020). Cary Grant reportedly bought the car at the end of shooting.
- #010
Phyllis Calvert's husband, the actor Peter Murray-Hill, died during the making of this film.
- #011
The original Broadway production of Norman Krasna's "Kind Sir," on which Indiscreet (1958) was based, opened at the Alvin Theatre on November 4, 1953, ran for 166 performances and closed on March 27, 1954. Its cast included Charles Boyer and Mary Martin in the roles played by Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman.
- #012
It was the first of two films from Grandon Productions, owned by Cary Grant and director Stanley Donen. The other was The Grass Is Greener (1960).
- #013
Indiscreet reunites the two leads of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Notorious (1946).
- #014
Philip takes up a post at NATO, then headquartered in Paris, during the making of this film. In 1966 France decided to withdraw from NATO's command structure, and the headquarters moved to Brussels, Belgium, in 1967. France returned to full participation in NATO in 2009.
- #015
The split-screen telephone humor was also used, in a somewhat different setting, in Pillow Talk (1959).
- #016
Like the character he plays, Cary Grant was left-handed.
- #017
It was the first film Stanley Donen produced and directed.
- #018
It was Nora Ephron's favorite film.
- #019
The Grass Is Greener (1960), which also starred Cary Grant, has a scene implying that the lovers decide not to go to a show. In that film the empty seats are shown, but here young students looking for standing room are later shown in the season seats held by Ingrid Bergman's character.
- #020
A contemporary article by the columnist Louella Parsons announced that Clark Gable would appear with Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield.
- #021
It was included on the American Film Institute's 2002 list of 400 nominated films for the 100 Greatest American Love Stories.
- #022
The second aircraft shown landing at an airport is an Air France Lockheed Constellation L-749, registration F-BAZO, built in 1948. It flew with the airline until 1961, when it was sold to the French Air Force for use as a search and rescue aircraft. It was retired in 1969, placed in storage and sold for scrap in 1971.
- #023
The setting of Norman Krasna's original play was New York.
- #024
The film is based on "Kind Sir," a flop play written by Norman Krasna, who gave it to Stanley Donen for free, and they wrote the screenplay together.
- #025
The film was released one day after the death of Warner Bros. co-founder Harry M. Warner.
- #026
Leslie Weston was cast to play a taxi driver, but he withdrew his services and was replaced.
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