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Indiscretion of an American Wife (Vittorio de Sica; Columbia) takes the moviegoer far across the sea to "the Eternal City of Culture, of Legend, and of Love." The customer is set down in Rome's bareboned, modern Stazione Termini. About him lies all the grandeur that was Rome, but he never gets out of that railroad station. And whether it be in the City of the Caesars or at the switchtrack in Wawa, Pa., an hour wait between trains is an hour wait between trains.

In this case, the boredom is surprisingly unrelieved by the fact that Vittorio de Sica (Shoeshine, Bicycle Thief} is directing the crowd in the waiting room. Jennifer Jones is "a housewife from Philadelphia," a mother who has taken a brief vacation from marriage. Montgomery Clift is an Italian college professor, the sort of tourist attraction Italy has offered to northern women since the days of the Ostrogoths. At one point he lures Jennifer into a darkened train compartment and gives her a clinching argument for not going home. Surprised by the terminal police, the lovers are haled before a magistrate, who tears up the morals charges on condition that Jennifer go home.

The camera finds in the terminal, as in a giant utensil, a certain metal delight, but in almost every other respect Indiscretion is, for the gifted men who made it, an indiscretion indeed.

Originally titled Terminal Station, Indiscretion began discreetly as a combined effort of Italy's De Sica--it was his first English-language movie--and Hollywood's David O. {Gone With the Wind} Selznick, husband of Jennifer Jones. Selznick supplied the stars, script and money, De Sica the unblinking eye for "neo-realism." But the effort never moved very smoothly: De Sica, who likes to use nonprofessionals in his films and speaks poor English, frequently found his American stars hard to deal with. The original Italian script was worked over successively by American Authors Carson McCullers, Paul Gallico and Truman Capote. For U.S. distribution, Selznick cut the picture by nearly a third (90 to 64 minutes). He took out a lot of local sidelights, e.g., a boisterous Italian wedding party and some realistic lovemaking. Says Director De Sica: "I cannot pass judgment . . . Perhaps Selznick cut a little too much. But one kiss more or less shouldn't make such a difference."

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