Moment of Indiscretion (1958) User Reviews

A decent, compact British crime whodunnit with a twist

[secondtake · 6/10 · 27 June 2011]

Moment of Indiscretion (1958)

At first this is a murder mystery on the surface, and by the last half it's a murder mystery deep down. And hence it loses its earlier distinction as a tale of indiscretion. Janet Miller is played by Lana Morris, a very British part of a British cast in this British whodunnit, and Janet has witnessed a murder. But she was at the scene of the crime (and totally innocent) because of a small interlude (also quite innocent) with her former boyfriend. Her current husband, played by equally British Ronald Howard, can't find out.

But of course he does, and dramatically, while the police are questioning her. His initial unquestioning defense of her, and their later joint struggle for trust and renewal, is the best and most original part of the movie.

I emphasize the Britishness only because this has little resemblance to an American crime film. It's not a noir at all, lacking both the gloom of the characters and the gloom of the photography. And it has the classic drawing room fascination with assembling clues and solving the crime through simple observation and conversation. Guns only show up at the very end.

I actually liked this little movie for the indiscretion, the human drama, enough to like the movie overall. If it's not an intensely satisfying crime movie, thriller, or interpersonal drama all in all, it is still well made and well acted, with convincing detectives and protagonists. Never mind the killer and his girl, who are caricatures of some kind (probably taken from some earlier American noir).

Ilogical but entertaining

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 31 December 2018]

This is a typical Danzigers production.It is illogical,not always making sense but still entertaining.In the opening scene a Judge directs a jury to find a defendant guilty.A Judge cannot do this.Later Howard is shown visiting the Office Of Public Prosecution.Well it was the Director of Public Prosecutions and he did not act as an advocate in court.Despite all the errors it is still entertaining.

dreadful

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 30 April 2013]

Ronald Howard and Lana Morris star in "Moment of Indiscretion" from 1958.

Though the actors did their best, the script for this film was very poor. A woman (Lana Morris) married to an attorney (Howard) goes to say goodbye to her ex-fiancé, who is leaving for the jungle. It's completely platonic, but knowing her husband is sensitive on the issue and never got along with this man, she doesn't tell him. On her way out of his place, she witnesses a murder on the floor below. She runs from the scene, dropping her monogrammed handkerchief and house key as she goes.

Needless to say, it doesn't take the police long to catch up with her. She winds up being arrested for the murder.

The problem with the script is that the attorney husband seems to be able to get into the dead woman's apartment and find things that apparently the police never bothered with. The apartment isn't cordoned off as a murder site (though the murder happened in the doorway), and why didn't the police go through it more thoroughly? And how stupid was it for the attorney to find something his wife told him was there and bring it to the police - who then weren't sure where it came from -- rather than inform the police and let them find it, thus proving she was in that apartment as she said she was, and didn't go to the building to kill the woman? You'd think an attorney, or anyone else, would know better.

Very disappointing.

A great shame, but well worth watching

[jromanbaker · 7/10 · 22 September 2017]

There are two great shames about this film, the social one and the misuse of one of the 1950's best English actors, Lana Morris. She had poise, beauty and a voice as distinctive as Kay Kendall or Joan Greenwood. And she could really act convincingly. For some reason she hardly ever got a major role, but her comic abilities can be seen with Norman Wisdom in 'Trouble in Store' and with him again in another film. I cannot stand Wisdom's films, but for her I will watch these two. Why she was not given a 'Genevieve' moment like Kay Kendall I will never understand. She was also given the role of 'girl' in 'Passport to Shame' Just 'girl' and no name. The irony of the word shame sums it up in an industry that often cannot see true individuality staring at them from the screen. Other than Janet Leigh and Jean Simmons she was the only actor in my childhood I fell in love with; that is until I found Dean Stockwell and James Dean.

This film is not dreadful. It is a minor, well acted drama on the plight of a woman being held for murder who could well have been hung. And in a too subtle way it begs the question of how many innocent people were hung by the neck until dead for acts they never committed. The shame is in the ending, where she shows no sorrow, no anger, at what she has been through and actually shakes the hand of the inspector who arrested her. The film should have shown its possible true colours: that hanging is not the answer. It is also a pity the makers of the film did not rise to addressing further why there could not have been a better investigation in the first place. This is not 'Dial M for Murder' where Grace Kelly is allowed a breakdown or Diana Dors' harrowing conviction and death in 'Yield to the Night'. This is a minor, important footnote to capital punishment with excellent acting by the cast.

Another shame was the gay stereotype in the jewellers shop. A lot of shames here in a film that punches well above its weight.

The wrong woman.

[ulicknormanowen · 6/10 · 17 December 2021]

Honest British thriller ,with sympathetic characters ,a good situation ,a variation on the "unfortunate witness who saw a committed murder ": generally ,he or she is stalked by the culprit who tries to do away with him/her; here, she becomes the main suspect and charged with murder ; the only problem in the script is the motive :why she might have killed this Drayton woman because of a quarrel about a money collect for charity , a convincing motive? Perhaps it would have made more sense if it had involved the former flame, instead of turning him into the unreachable witness.

In spite of this reservation,the thriller buff can have a look .

Her indiscretion may only have been for a moment, but it's 70 tedious minutes.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 15 April 2022]

As the film begins, the judge in a trial is telling the jury that by the evidence given, they should all agree to find the defendant, Lana Morris, guilty of murder. We then flashback to her meeting with a former fiance, then as she's leaving, witnessing a murder downstairs from where she's standing. After the killer leaves, she runs to the body, then flees from the building. Evidence left behind and her lack of an alibi end up with her on trial for murder, and it's ironic that the man that she saw stab the woman is involved in the investigation. The fact that she only had met the victim one previous time (and that was briefly) really gave her no motive and the evidence that was given to the court was very circumstantial, so this is a weak case to begin with. Ronald Howard as her husband and John Van Eyssen as the actual killer are bland in supporting roles, and Morris isn't really very interesting either. This is a below-average British quota quickie, with a script that tries to put all the pieces together in a way that tries to fool the audience that is being intelligent, but only the most foolish of audiences would by anything that the script is selling.

Why Did She Kill The Woman When She Didn't?

[boblipton · 5/10 · 25 May 2023]

Lana Morris is married to Ronald Howard. She used to be engaged to another guy, so when he calls her and says he's leaving the country and would like to say goodbye to her, she agrees to meet him, even though she has promised Howard to never see him again. While leaving, she sees a woman being murdered and runs away. She doesn't say anything, until the police, in the person of Denis Shaw comes calling. She explains, but claims she cannot really describe the murderer. Shaw says that to clear her, she must meet the murdered woman's upstairs neighbor. It's Robert Dorning, who identifies her as the woman she saw arguing with the murder victim a month earlier. Miss Morris faints, and later identifies Dorning as the murderer. However, Shaw dismisses her accusation and arrests her. Now it's up to Howard to find the proof of her assertions.

It's a nice little thriller as the threat of prison closes in on Miss Morris, and she's pretty good. The problem is with the way Ronald Harris' character is written. He's clearly intensely jealous of her former fiancee, yet believes everything she says. The clue that may save her is introduced shortly before the end, and Howard has no trouble tracking it down. While director Max Varnel does a good job of maintaining the tension, and the performers are fine, the structuring of the mystery, the howcatchem, is not well done.

Correct Information.

[heath-stjohn · 8/10 · 18 February 2021]

Great film, with a very well paced sequence of events. Although Totti Truman Taylor is listed on this site as 'Uncredited', her name on the end credits is given as 'Mrs. Cartier'. Also, alhough made and set in 1958, the date on the pawnshop ticket which convicts the killer of an event of just a few months previous to the film's events is "February 1956".