Charade. (PG.)
Directed by Stanley Donen.
Starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, Jacques Marin, Ned Glass, George Kennedy. Out on Blu-ray from Criterion Collection. 113 mins.
Just as Con Air is the greatest Michael Bay film not directed by Michael Bay, Charade is possibly the greatest Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock. But while Con Air is the greatest Michael Bay Film ever made, I don't think anyone will be mistaking Donen's romantic comic thriller for North by Northwest. Still, it's got Paris, it's got Hepburn, it's got Grant and it's got more than enough going for it to gently wave away any objections you may have. It is a thriller so smooth, so elegant, so sophisticated that it has no need for anything as indecent as tension. That would just get in the way of Hepburn making gooey eyes at Grant.
We begin with Hepburn at a ski resort in a Givenchy outfit that makes her look like a space stewardess in 2001: A Space Odyssey, meeting Grant for the first time. Back in Paris, she discovers that the husband she was planning to divorce has been murdered. This is where Charade takes its first diversion from standard thriller procedure. The dead husband, Charlie, was not the man she thought he was, with a variety of alias and passports. Well of course he wasn't. But the surprise is that this man of many different names and personas hadn't thought it necessary to invent one for his wife. When questioned by the police she doesn't know a thing about him, not even what his job was. All she appears to have known about him was that he was rich and bought her things, which doesn't paint her in a particularly favourable light. Given that the police, and us, are expected to take this staggering lack of curiosity at face value its no wonder that all concerned find it hard to accept that she is this innocent figure with no idea where a missing $250,000 might be.
There is a marvellous early scene at Charlie's funeral, where the three figures – Coburn, Kennedy, Beatty - that are going to stalk and threaten her until she tells them where the money is turn up one by one. It's a crafty and efficient way to introduce them but with that done and the plot all set up and ready to go, everything comes to a halt. They all want to find the money, but nobody knows who has it or where it is or where to look for it or what they should do to find out. So instead the whole cast just sits around as Hepburn throws herself at Grant.
Grant's uniquely passive approach to seduction was a key aspect of his appeal. He was never the hunter, always the prey. In the case of Bringing Up Baby from the late thirties, (which I watched straight after this) the young Grant is appalled by the advances of Hepburn K. and she has to wreck his entire life just to get him to notice her. Now in his late fifties, he is much more complicit in the manoeuvring to get the lady to fall for his smooth, tanned perfection. Here he makes the initial approach but then leaves Hepburn to do all the running. Which she does with a gusto that may be considered unseemly given he's more than two decades older than her and she suspects he could be a murdering thief who is only after the money and is killing off the competition.
But that's the charade of Charade; it's the motions of a thriller gone through for the chance to see two of the greatest ever movie stars in action. When people complain that they don't make 'em like they used to, they are surely talking about the stars more than the movies. Just as democratising celebrity has completely devalued it, the allocating of movie stardom seems to have become a largely random process today. There are lots of current movie performers who are a joy to watch but if we're honest, they're all fairly interchangeable. If it weren't them it could be someone else, without much being lost or gained. But seriously, could anyone have been better than Grant and Hepburn in this film? Or, in just about any of the films roles they took on.
Which is why this review has just gone on about them and largely ignored the film. It's a nice little film, definitely. It's got a tremendous supporting cast, a Maurice Binder title sequence and a Henry Mancini score. The script by Peter Stone has lots of neat little twists and the film delivers some very fine setpieces. The edge of your seat is untroubled but if the levels of suspense are sub-Hitchcockian, they do at least look like Hitchcock suspense. For example, there is a beautifully lit rooftop fight that mixes elements of Vertigo and To Catch a Thief without generating much excitement. It's witty at times but in a lot of places the dialogue seems just so pleased to be in the mouths of Hepburn and Grant, it's almost stagestruck and just wants to flatter them about how wonderful they were.
Supplements
Not a lot really, just Donen and scriptwriter Stone bickering their way through a commentary.
Directed by Stanley Donen.
Starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, Jacques Marin, Ned Glass, George Kennedy. Out on Blu-ray from Criterion Collection. 113 mins.
Just as Con Air is the greatest Michael Bay film not directed by Michael Bay, Charade is possibly the greatest Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock. But while Con Air is the greatest Michael Bay Film ever made, I don't think anyone will be mistaking Donen's romantic comic thriller for North by Northwest. Still, it's got Paris, it's got Hepburn, it's got Grant and it's got more than enough going for it to gently wave away any objections you may have. It is a thriller so smooth, so elegant, so sophisticated that it has no need for anything as indecent as tension. That would just get in the way of Hepburn making gooey eyes at Grant.
We begin with Hepburn at a ski resort in a Givenchy outfit that makes her look like a space stewardess in 2001: A Space Odyssey, meeting Grant for the first time. Back in Paris, she discovers that the husband she was planning to divorce has been murdered. This is where Charade takes its first diversion from standard thriller procedure. The dead husband, Charlie, was not the man she thought he was, with a variety of alias and passports. Well of course he wasn't. But the surprise is that this man of many different names and personas hadn't thought it necessary to invent one for his wife. When questioned by the police she doesn't know a thing about him, not even what his job was. All she appears to have known about him was that he was rich and bought her things, which doesn't paint her in a particularly favourable light. Given that the police, and us, are expected to take this staggering lack of curiosity at face value its no wonder that all concerned find it hard to accept that she is this innocent figure with no idea where a missing $250,000 might be.
There is a marvellous early scene at Charlie's funeral, where the three figures – Coburn, Kennedy, Beatty - that are going to stalk and threaten her until she tells them where the money is turn up one by one. It's a crafty and efficient way to introduce them but with that done and the plot all set up and ready to go, everything comes to a halt. They all want to find the money, but nobody knows who has it or where it is or where to look for it or what they should do to find out. So instead the whole cast just sits around as Hepburn throws herself at Grant.
Grant's uniquely passive approach to seduction was a key aspect of his appeal. He was never the hunter, always the prey. In the case of Bringing Up Baby from the late thirties, (which I watched straight after this) the young Grant is appalled by the advances of Hepburn K. and she has to wreck his entire life just to get him to notice her. Now in his late fifties, he is much more complicit in the manoeuvring to get the lady to fall for his smooth, tanned perfection. Here he makes the initial approach but then leaves Hepburn to do all the running. Which she does with a gusto that may be considered unseemly given he's more than two decades older than her and she suspects he could be a murdering thief who is only after the money and is killing off the competition.
But that's the charade of Charade; it's the motions of a thriller gone through for the chance to see two of the greatest ever movie stars in action. When people complain that they don't make 'em like they used to, they are surely talking about the stars more than the movies. Just as democratising celebrity has completely devalued it, the allocating of movie stardom seems to have become a largely random process today. There are lots of current movie performers who are a joy to watch but if we're honest, they're all fairly interchangeable. If it weren't them it could be someone else, without much being lost or gained. But seriously, could anyone have been better than Grant and Hepburn in this film? Or, in just about any of the films roles they took on.
Which is why this review has just gone on about them and largely ignored the film. It's a nice little film, definitely. It's got a tremendous supporting cast, a Maurice Binder title sequence and a Henry Mancini score. The script by Peter Stone has lots of neat little twists and the film delivers some very fine setpieces. The edge of your seat is untroubled but if the levels of suspense are sub-Hitchcockian, they do at least look like Hitchcock suspense. For example, there is a beautifully lit rooftop fight that mixes elements of Vertigo and To Catch a Thief without generating much excitement. It's witty at times but in a lot of places the dialogue seems just so pleased to be in the mouths of Hepburn and Grant, it's almost stagestruck and just wants to flatter them about how wonderful they were.
Supplements
Not a lot really, just Donen and scriptwriter Stone bickering their way through a commentary.
