Well this movie is what happens when you have an All-Star cast in a extremely classic story. Poor girl goes unrecognized by rich guy, poor girl changes so she looks rich, rich guy notices her, and then she falls in love with her true love. This has a slight trick in that the "true love" is only going out with her so she will get over the rich guy at first.
Anyway, all's that needs to be said in order to be convinced to watch this movie is: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Billy Wilder. One of the greatest directors ever with AFI's #1 star of all-time, Audrey Hepburn is certainly one of the icons of film, and then William Holden is sort of underrated normally, much less amidst the other three.
I don't think Audrey Hepburn could have pulled this off at any other time in her career. This was basically her breakout role, and I'm as surprised as anyone that her poor girl who doesn't get noticed essentially works. Who knew? (I think a lot of it is that the clothes she wears as the chauffeur's daughter are really unflattering.
And I suppose I can't be the only one who's sort of creeped out by the age difference between Hepburn and Bogart, am I? I mean Bogart was 54 and at best, he looked like he was approaching 50. Hepburn was 23 and she looked even younger. Different time, and it's not that distracting to the movie, but it's still sort of odd. (Though Bogart did marry a 20-year-old Lauren Bacall about 10 years earlier)
Here's yet another film that uses a well-worn romantic comedy trope and succeeds in spite of it, possibly because it did it first, but also because of the talent. And it just doesn't feel well-worn when you watch it like newer movies that use it would. Not much to say, except that it's a pretty enjoyable film.
3.5/4 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment