Jason's Blog, page 184

Sabrina

Humphrey Bogart is a dull businessman, William Holden is his younger, playboy brother. Both are part of a wealthy family on Long Island. Audrey Hepburn is Sabrina, the chauffeur's daughter, who gets their attention when she comes back from two years in Paris. Directed by Billy Wilder.

A timeless classic, and Hepburn at her most beautiful. You could probably turn down the sound and still be able to enjoy the film just for the elegance of it's black and white compositions on the screen. What modern comedy can you say that about? It's another film I remember seeing on tv as a kid, so some nostalgic feelings might be involved. Humphrey Bogart is a bit too old for his part. At least it is acknowledged in the script, Bogart at some point looking at Hepburn and saying, If I were ten years younger... I can't help but imagine how the film would have been if the first choice for the older brother, Cary Grant, had done the part. Grant and Holden could actually have passed for brothers, Bogart and Holden... not so much.

Polish film posters...

... are pretty amazing. http://www.polishposter.com/index.html

Love in The Afternoon

Music student Audrey Hepburn falls for aging millionaire batchelor Gary Cooper. Also starring Maurice Chevalier, directed by Billy Wilder.

Well, the film looks gorgeous in black and white, with a classic, understated direction by Wilder, but it's not that fun, really. Hepburn was often paired with actors old enough to be her dad, like Humphrey Bogart and Fred Astaire, here it's Gary Cooper. It's just very hard to root for them as a couple. At the end of the film you just feel bad for Hepburn being stuck with the old geezer. And at over two hours the film feels too long.

A silkscreened poster...

... from a signing tour in the US, 2003.

Paris When It Sizzles

Secretary Audrey Hepburn helps screenwriter William Holden who is stuck on his script. Also starring Noel Coward and Tony Curtis with cameos of Marlene Dietrich and Mel Ferrer, directed by Richard Quine.

I've already talked about two Quine movies, The Notorious Landlady, which I didn't like and How To Murder Your Wife, which I wasn't even able to finish. The guy knows how to point the camera in the right direction but doesn't seem to have much of a visual sense. And based on this film he's not too good with the actors either. This is the first Audrey Hepburn film I've seen where she's actually a bit annoying, her mannerisms turned up to eleven. But maybe the director asked her to do that Audrey Hepburn thing. William Holden is also normally an sympathetic actor, here he's just trying too hard. The two of them work on the script, then we see them as actors in that movie, only for Holden to scrap that idea and try something else. After half an hour it gets tiresome and there's still an hour left. If the movie within the movie had been exciting it might have worked. But in the end they decide it's just silly hackwork. So why exactly have we been watching it?

Audrey Hepburn, part 2

Got some more Audrey Hepburn films! First: The Children's Hour. Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine are the headmistresses of a school for girls. One pupil accuses them of being lovers. Also starring James Garner, based on Lillian Hellman's play, directed by William Wyler.

It's a dated, but still quite powerful film. Released the year before Days of Wine And Roses, it's one of the first issue films, showing that the medium could be something more than just escapism. Both the main actresses are excellent. The director could maybe have asked the main child actor to dial it down a bit. Veronica Cartwright as one of the other kids is more convincing, pretty much doing the same job here that she later did in Alien.

As it turns out, there is a bit of truth in the girl's accusation, setting up the tragic ending of the film. It's an ending that can be debated, I suppose. From a dramatic point of view it's effective, less so if it is viewed as the moral of the story. If made today, there probably would have been some uplifting You go, girl! ending, but I'm not sure if it would make a better film. As it is, it shows the changes in society the last fifty years. And maybe I'm just a sucker for sad endings.

End papers...

... for an issue of Mjau Mjau.

It Happened One Night

Claudette Colbert is a spoiled brat running away from her father. To get away from detectives sent to catch her she takes the bus from Miami to New York. On the same bus is journalist Clarc Gable. Directed by Frank Capra.

Since I didn't care too much for You Can't Take It With You I wanted to re-watch Capra's earlier Oscar winner It Happened One Night, from 1934. Being a simple love story the film feels less dated than other Capra films. The scene on the bus with everybody singing and Colbert and Gable then giving their money to a poor boy and his mother who fainted is probably the most capraesque sequence in the film. I assume Colbert was a big star at the time, but I think this is the only film of hers I've seen. Gable is very funny as the journalist. Of course, in the beginning they can't stand each other, only gradually warming up, and at the same time creating the mold for pretty much every romantic comedy ever made. The scene where they pretend to be married in front of the detectives is probably my favourite. The hitch-hiking scene is also very funny. A classic.

Another D.V. strip

An old illustration