Terminal Station: A Review

TERMINAL STATION

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Jennifer Jones. This review is also for Terminal Station, not its revamped version, Indiscretion of an American Wife.

While watching Terminal Station, the thought that came to mind was, "how could you make a mess of something so simple?". It is not that Terminal Station is a bad film. Far from it: in many ways, the film's simple story is quite good. The problem is the conflict between director and producer. Their battles over a film would lead to essentially two films from the same material. Terminal Station, version one, is a pretty good film that leans more Italian than American.

Philadelphia housewife Mary Forbes (Jennifer Jones) has been in Rome visiting her sister. During that time, she began an affair with half-Italian, half-American professor Giovanni Doria (Montgomery Clift). Now, she is determined to leave her lover and the Eternal City. Mary must get back to her husband Howard and daughter Kathy. She goes to Giovanni's apartment, then decides not to and rushes to the Stazione Termini to take a train out of Rome. She first opts for a train to Milan, where she will then another to Paris. She also hurriedly calls her sister and gets her nephew Paul (Richard Beymer, billed as Dick Beymer) to bring her a suitcase with some items.

Mary buys a child's Sicilian costume for Kathy and is ready to leave. She, however, spies Giovanni at the station. He has pursued her there, and she leaves the train. They, however, do not leave Stazione Termini. Instead, Giovanni continues to try and talk Mary out of leaving Rome. She has decided to take another train, this time a direct one to Paris. Paul, who has lingered at the station looking at various items, is one of the people who sees an enraged Giovanni slap Mary. Despite this, Mary still struggles to leave. Will Giovanni woo her into leaving Howard and Kathy for him? Will their affair be discovered due to the accidental intervention of the station police?

Terminal Station is Italian director Vittorio De Sica's American debut. Perhaps it was too much to ask him to fit his style to the designs of a Hollywood production. He might have been more successful had he had a sympathetic American producer who would let De Sica's realism play out. Instead, De Sica had the terrible misfortune to deal with Hollywood maverick producer David O. Selznick. 

The man best known for producing Gone with the Wind and Rebecca was never the easiest person to deal with. Selznick was notorious for sending out endless memos to his directors and rumored to be the inspiration for the tyrannical producer in The Bad and the Beautiful. Most directors tended to disregard his incessant memos and micromanagement. De Sica had the added advantage of not reading English. He, however, had a major disadvantage in that Terminal Station's star was Mrs. David O. Selznick. In his crazed obsession with making Jennifer Jones the focal point of everything, Selznick decided to ruin what could have been a great film.

Again, the problem is not Jones herself. She is at times a bit overdramatic as the adulterous house frau, but on the whole Jones handles the material well. Jones has a wonderful moment early in the film when she tenderly caresses the package containing Mary's gift to her daughter. In that scene, we see the character's hopes and longing for her child. Jones makes it plausible to believe Mary's inner conflict, especially as I thought that Mary was an especially stupid woman to want to stay with Giovanni. In his small role, Richard Beymer was fine as Paul, the nephew who soon grows leery of this strange Italian man.

A minor problem is Montgomery Clift. I figure that Clift agreed to the role for the chance to work with De Sica. However, it is pretty outlandish to believe that Clift is Italian in any way. Terminal Station tries to paper over that oddity by having him mention that his mother is American. However, you never believe Clift is this fiery Italian who would smack his woman around because "that's what Italian men do". I do not think the majority of Italian men go around slapping their broads either in public or private. Clift's stabs at an Italian accent never work. I think there were times when he flat-out forgot that he was supposed to have one. 

It simply would have been better to have made the Clift character an American expatriate that Mary fell in love with or cast an Italian or Italian-American in the role. Rossano Brazzi would have been a better choice. You could have had perhaps a Sal Mineo or even Bobby Darin, who would have been more plausible if the film opted for a younger plaything. Clift, I think, did his best, and he was one of the finest actors of his generation. Terminal Station, however, was the wrong material for him.

Terminal Station has some wonderful moments that I put down to De Sica's Italian neorealism. The film is filled with quick bits of outside characters popping in and out. We see priests ordering ice cream. We see a heavily pregnant woman and her brood. Terminal Station has a nice section where, on their way to the station police office, Mary and Giovanni accidentally walk on a red carpet set down for the railroad company president. 

I think an issue is that despite its brief runtime, Terminal Station feels a bit padded. I got the sense that things were padded to keep things going. Then again, perhaps the length was due to people waiting for the Italian trains to get going. 

If we look at Terminal Station, I think we have a good introduction to Vittorio De Sica as a filmmaker. He brought in as much neorealism as I think he could get away with. The film is filled with strong moments. The entire film could be summed up in the question the station police chief asks Mary. "Do you still plan to take (the train)?" he asks her when deciding whether or not to drop charges which would expose the affair. The hesitation to the answer holds you. 

Perhaps Indiscretion of an American Wife, which I have not seen, pales in comparison to Terminal Station. That is for another day. As it stands, minus Montgomery Clift's miscasting, Terminal Station works well. Jennifer Jones did mostly well, though at times again was a bit overly dramatic. Mussolini may have made the trains run on time, but even he would have been no match for David O. Selznick and his interference. 

DECISION: B-