"The volatile collaboration between director Vittorio De Sica and producer David O. Selznick resulted in two cuts of the same film. De Sica’s magnificent neo-realistic version, Terminal Station, following the true timeline of the characters of the film. It was screened at a one-and-a-half hours. After disappointing previews, Selznick, married to the star Jennifer Jones (until his death in 1965), severely re-edited it to 69 minutes and changed the title to the more salacious Indiscretion of an American Wife without De Sica’s permission. What we are left with is a buried classic known as "Terminal Station" and its infinitely inferior bastardization with much financed marketing, known as "Indiscretion of an American Wife". A truer obvious example of the flaws and hurdles in the business world of cinema, especially the Hollywood system, could rarely be found. De Sica's "Terminal Station" is a magnificent work in his body of filmatic achievements. He was working at the heights of his powers, while Producer David O. Selznick was floundering at a time where he had lost total touch of what it meant to create art and beauty in film. "Indiscretion of an American Wife" would prove to be the last film he had input on. The disparity shows what a staggering blunder his ham-fisted manipulations were. Many have called it an attempt at "Americanization" of De Sica's film, but I feel it goes much further. If nothing else, projects like "Terminal Station" prove that they do not exist as brief sporadic cuts, but the entire breadth of intertwined segments that form the essential and complete puzzle of a film. Specific examples are the almost total removal of extraneous characters from the Selznick version. I can't for the life of me understand why this was done. The final clowning mark of the Selznick version was to bring it up to certifiable theatrical screening length by including two Patti Page songs at eight minutes 15 seconds (not dissimilar to an MTV video) to start the film. It has virtually no relation to the story that would follow but an obvious attempt to capitalize on the singers popularity and fulfill the requirements to derive profit from viewing audiences. My final suggestion is never to see "Indiscretion of an American Wife" until you have first seen "Terminal Station" and only then if you are a film student wishing to derive the differences yourself. I noted how similar "Terminal Station" was to David Lean's classic "Brief Encounter'... both centering on a decision of leaving a spouse for infatuation, and both with a train station prominent in the films locales. I also remarked  the similarity in the use of music - both choosing classical themes that dominate emotional scenes in place of dialogue. "Terminal Station" is a masterpiece -out of and "Indiscretion of an American Wife" gets no grade at all as it is barely 2/3's of a film."

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From Vittorio De Sica, the legendary director of The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D., Two Women, Marriage Italian Style, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, comes this heartrending romantic drama starring screen icons Jennifer Jones (Portrait of Jennie, Gone to Earth, Duel in the Sun) and Montgomery Clift (Red River, A Place in the Sun, Judgment at Nuremberg). An American housewife (Jones) vacationing in Italy reluctantly decides to put an end to her brief affair with an Italian academic (Clift). She flees to Rome’s Stazione Termini, where she bids him farewell, but he begs her to stay. The film’s plot is simple; its production was not. The troubled collaboration between De Sica and producer David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind) resulted in two cuts of the same film. De Sica’s version, Terminal Station, was screened at a length of one-and-a-half hours, but after disappointing previews, Selznick severely re-edited it and changed the title to Indiscretion of an American Wife without De Sica’s permission. This Special Edition includes both versions of this controversial release.