Saturday, July 09, 2022

Movie review - "Sabrina" (1954) ***1/2

 As in Love in the Afternoon Audrey Hepburn romances an older man in a Billy Wilder film who looks like he's dying of cancer, which in fact he was. Here he's Humphrey Bogart - who's actually quite good, Bogart can play these roles, but years of drinking and smoking have told on his face and he's got one foot in the grave - where he'd place it in early 1957.

Hepburn is far more alive in her scenes with Bill Holden, who she had an affair with in real life, but her transfer of affection on screen to Bogart is well done. The film takes its time but I think it needed to to sell it.

I wish Cary Grant had played Bogart's role instead of Bogart, or just an older star who was less, well, dying - but the thing is they were all dying: Errol Flynn, Clarke Gable, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper. Maybe Greg Peck again?

Side note: this has a gag where Hepburn's chauffeur dad John Williams insists on a class divide and Bogart calls him a snob and Williams says yes and they all laugh... I encounter that joke a bit (George MacDonald Fraser used it in Mr American and it's in The Admirable Crichton) - I think conservative writers enjoyed it because it reinforces the class structure showing how cool the lower orders are with it.

Still, a charming Cinderella story with three very big stars, nice music and some funny lines.

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