“Paula” (Ingrid Bergman) has been dating “Roger” (Yves Montand) for a while, but though she really does care for him quite deeply, the romantic spark is waning a bit and she suspects that he is playing away from home on his fairly regular business trips. She isn’t looking to change things, but when she meets the adoring “Philip” (Anthony Perkins) his naive innocence and enthusiastic attempts at courtship bring something refreshing, exhilarating even, to her own rather staid lifestyle. When she learns that “Roger” is once again up to mischief, things with the younger man take on a new dynamic - but are either being fair to the other? Though most of her clients tolerate “Roger” and his peccadilloes, are they going to be prepared to indulge her appearances in restaurants and parties with this especially green (and not very alcohol tolerant) man? Bergman is almost maternal as she depicts a woman, highly successful in business but just, in her way, as in need of comfort as the besotted “Philip” - a part ably portrayed by the on-form Perkins in what I think might be my favourite of his performances. Montand also brings something of the rakish sophisticate to his part in a fashion that almost gets under your fingernails and there’s a solid effort from Jessie Royce Landis as the young man’s mother who has to tread on the eggshells strewn around her with some aplomb, too. It takes quite a poignant look at ageism and sexism, stereotypes and it does it in quite a light-hearted fashion making it’s point about hypocrisy and double-standards without pontificating at us. The production is classy and Anatole Litvak lets at least four actors take hold of this quite intimate melodrama and leave us certain that, by the end, nothing will be certain.
