When Sabrina attends the party in probably the most fantastic gown ever created for the movies, the butler, played by Emory Parnell, gushingly brings a report back to the rest of the staff on how she’s doing, “The prettiest girl, the prettiest dress, the belle of the ball… and they way looked into each other eyes!” The Hubert de Givenchy gown, burned into our retinas, is a silk organdie with black floral patterns, a straight skirt with an overskirt open in front, and a long train. It is the best dress ever made, and Hepburn wears it with the talent of a virtuoso.
A special Olympic medal should have been given to Mr. Holden for his held-for-a-moment-in-mid-air leap over the patio wall to greet Hepburn, who, rather than running to him, waits like princess for him to run to her.
Miss Hepburn’s easy, beaming smile and graceful confidence tell us she is indeed the belle of the ball, even to the point of being oblivious of David’s discomfort at having to introduce her to his mother, and his mother’s suggestion she cook for them sometime. The chauffeur’s daughter cannot be put in her place, not anymore. She is above that.
Holden does a great comic bit when he sits on the champagne glasses, and Hampden’s frustration at the sudden and inexplicable romance between his already engaged to be married son and the chauffeur’s daughter explodes when he is reminded to be more liberal because it is the 20th century.
“Twentieth Century! I could pick a century out of a hat blindfolded and get a better one.”
Hepburn sings a dreamy chorus of “La Vie en Rose” in the car with Bogart, not as if she is performing but only absentmindedly, as if she is thinking of something else. It is a wonderfully quiet moment. She is comfortable enough to discuss with Bogart about life and love, and tweaks his hat. There is a moment when they return from sailing that she wears his coat over her shoulders and he carries her shoes that is sublimely intimate in a way she never achieves intimacy with the cocky and self-assured younger brother who regards her as a conquest.
Bogart’s flirtation-that-is-not-flirtation of remarking, “I wish I were my brother” is the capper to his character development. He says it only as a ruse to romance Sabrina, but there is truth to it as well. In many respects, he wishes he were David, but wishing that is as impossible as wishing he were younger. It cannot be. He does not dare wish she loved him. He wishes only that he were David, so that she would love him.
By now Sabrina’s character development hits the fan. She is falling for older brother Linus and tries desperately to stop herself. To the point of arriving at his New York office for date in her capri pants. Who but Hepburn would even think of wearing capri pants in a film at that date, let alone appear as stylish as she does?
At the end, Sabrina realizes with a burst of enthusiasm that she does prefer Bogart and wants him to take her to Paris, brushing away his reticence with a warm embrace and an ecstatic smile and a playful, “They’ll say I’m too young for you. There’ll be an awful scandal and the market will go down!” By now, Bogart wants to release her for her own good.
Sabrina’s father tries to put a moral on the story with, “Democracy can be a wickedly unfair thing. Nobody poor was ever called democratic for marrying somebody rich.”
We have our happy ending of course, but I wish that the ending of the original play written by Samuel Taylor had been used for this film. In the play, Sabrina’s father has made wise investments enough so that Sabrina is an heiress to a fortune, and can come to Linus as an equal partner with her own separate finances. That perhaps is too modern a thought for a 1950s Cinderella story, or someone felt so at the time.
Finances, so it is reported, are a major reason for marriages that fail. So much is made of the link between wealth and romance in this film, it would have been a striking end to have Hepburn’s and Bogart’s wistful empathy for each other have the bite of a little financial savvy and even competition added to it.
That's it for this week. See you Monday.
Showing posts with label Sabrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sabrina. Show all posts
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Sabrina (1954) - Part 1
“Sabrina” (1954) is deceptively a watershed film. Deceptively because it is simply a Cinderella story, nothing unusual about that, but one which stands out as a turning point in film as part of popular culture, likely because of the three main stars and the film’s director. They all came together, and created something unique, a single definitive moment in time, a picture of the early 1950s.
Director Billy Wilder was at the height of his career and all three stars were recent winners of the Academy Award. The film may have come together in terms of script and casting in a last minute and slap-dash sort of way, but the result is almost flawless and remarkably poignant. This was William Holden’s last appearance as a boyish character, before he went on to more dramatic roles in “The Country Girl” and “Bridges of Toko-Ri”. Audrey Hepburn, fresh from her triumph in “Roman Holiday” and on Broadway in “Ondine” would appear in “Sabrina” with a kind of glowing confidence that she did not exhibit in later films, even films important to her career like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Wait Until Dark” which allowed her to show more range. She ironically appears more fragile in those films, but in “Sabrina” as the awkward girl turned into a sophisticated beauty, she commands the screen every second with a remarkable ease and sureness. Perhaps she is not yet aware she wears the mantle of a star.
Humphrey Bogart had spent the late 1940s and early 1950s comfortably recognized as a major star, and had won the Academy Award in 1951 for “The African Queen” which is all he needed to prove his lion’s position. In three years, by 1957, he would be dead of lung cancer. He had waited a long time in his career to become the romantic hero. This was his last hurrah.
The film makes a picture postcard to us of the early 1950s, a time of post-war opulence and unapologetic yen for the good things in life. The men at the Larrabee’s party are wearing white dinner jackets, to which Mr. Larrabee, played with wonderful crustiness by Walter Hampden complains, “They look like barbers.” It is a time of popular tunes like “Isn’t it Romantic” which haunts Sabrina and marks events in her life, a time before shallow and frenetic rock n’ roll. It is a time when dancing was a social accomplishment and seduction took time. We see it is a time of a single strand of pearls and strapless evening gowns with full skirts. Young people at this period did not want to be young, for to be young was to be gauche. Young people yearned for sophistication and experience, to emulate their elders, as Sabrina does when she spies the party from the branches of a tree on the estate. It was not a time then, as now, of arrested emotional immaturity.
This is so much a film of style that substance, where it exists, is tucked away neatly like a squared-off white handkerchief in the men’s breast pockets. All is well-mannered, like Miss Hepburn’s elegantly intoned speech. When she dances with Holden at the party and reminds him of when they were children, that he stole a kiss from her, she glances up at him with her almond eyes, her face still tilted downward, her voice low and playful, and we can see that he is aching to be alone with her and we do not blame him. The arousal is almost reverent.
When Bogart meets her for the rendezvous at the indoor tennis court instead of the expected Holden, it is a great moment in film. We know, and she suspects, that he is come to head off his brother’s romance with the chauffeur’s daughter which would cause great inconvenience to the family. However their encounter is easy and charming, and soon turns sexy as he pours her champagne and kisses her, telling her the kiss is really only a proxy kiss from his brother David. As she clings to Bogart in their slow, almost somnambulant dance, we see from her expression that he has thrown her off balance emotionally. She finds herself attracted to the older brother instead, something she did not expect or want.
At first it is an unspoken issue for present day viewers of this film (was it an issue for the audience in 1954?) that Bogart’s attitude for young Sabrina ought to seem more fatherly than romantic. It’s laudable, I think, that the film addresses this head on by remarking more than once that Bogart is much older than Hepburn. He even jokes himself when preparing to take Sabrina on an outing, as he looks at himself with sarcasm in the mirror, that he is “Joe College with a touch of arthritis.” This allows us to accept the decades difference in their ages, because they refer to it themselves and accept it.
Bogart is at least hale and hearty enough to carry Hepburn over his shoulder and ascend a flight of stairs with her after her suicide attempt. Does he realize it is a suicide attempt? He makes no comment at the time, it is only later when trying to win her over that he invents a past of suicidal desperation of his own to connect with her that we see he may remember the earlier event and attach some importance to it.
We see early on that though Bogart as the older brother carries the banner for the Larrabee family in responsibility for running their fortunes, he is yet more egalitarian than younger brother David. David is embarrassed at first to have Sabrina attend his family’s party. Bogart runs the business not because money is the means to an end, but because in establishing world trade, “people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar.” He cares about the worth of people in terms of being valuable in their attributes. David is more class conscious.
None are more class conscious than Sabrina’s chauffer father, played by John Williams, who warns Sabrina on her relationship with David, “You’re reaching for the moon.” To which his daughter replies gleefully, “No, Father. The moon is reaching for me.”
So, he is. Some of the films cute moments are when David picks Sabrina up at the train station, not recognizing her after her return from school abroad in Paris, and he marvels that her poodle is called David.
“That’s funny. My name’s David, too.”
Hepburn smiles into the dog’s head for our benefit, “That is funny, isn’t it?”
More tomorrow on "Sabrina".
Sponsored Link:
Sabrina [DVD](1954) DVD
Director Billy Wilder was at the height of his career and all three stars were recent winners of the Academy Award. The film may have come together in terms of script and casting in a last minute and slap-dash sort of way, but the result is almost flawless and remarkably poignant. This was William Holden’s last appearance as a boyish character, before he went on to more dramatic roles in “The Country Girl” and “Bridges of Toko-Ri”. Audrey Hepburn, fresh from her triumph in “Roman Holiday” and on Broadway in “Ondine” would appear in “Sabrina” with a kind of glowing confidence that she did not exhibit in later films, even films important to her career like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Wait Until Dark” which allowed her to show more range. She ironically appears more fragile in those films, but in “Sabrina” as the awkward girl turned into a sophisticated beauty, she commands the screen every second with a remarkable ease and sureness. Perhaps she is not yet aware she wears the mantle of a star.
Humphrey Bogart had spent the late 1940s and early 1950s comfortably recognized as a major star, and had won the Academy Award in 1951 for “The African Queen” which is all he needed to prove his lion’s position. In three years, by 1957, he would be dead of lung cancer. He had waited a long time in his career to become the romantic hero. This was his last hurrah.
The film makes a picture postcard to us of the early 1950s, a time of post-war opulence and unapologetic yen for the good things in life. The men at the Larrabee’s party are wearing white dinner jackets, to which Mr. Larrabee, played with wonderful crustiness by Walter Hampden complains, “They look like barbers.” It is a time of popular tunes like “Isn’t it Romantic” which haunts Sabrina and marks events in her life, a time before shallow and frenetic rock n’ roll. It is a time when dancing was a social accomplishment and seduction took time. We see it is a time of a single strand of pearls and strapless evening gowns with full skirts. Young people at this period did not want to be young, for to be young was to be gauche. Young people yearned for sophistication and experience, to emulate their elders, as Sabrina does when she spies the party from the branches of a tree on the estate. It was not a time then, as now, of arrested emotional immaturity.
This is so much a film of style that substance, where it exists, is tucked away neatly like a squared-off white handkerchief in the men’s breast pockets. All is well-mannered, like Miss Hepburn’s elegantly intoned speech. When she dances with Holden at the party and reminds him of when they were children, that he stole a kiss from her, she glances up at him with her almond eyes, her face still tilted downward, her voice low and playful, and we can see that he is aching to be alone with her and we do not blame him. The arousal is almost reverent.
When Bogart meets her for the rendezvous at the indoor tennis court instead of the expected Holden, it is a great moment in film. We know, and she suspects, that he is come to head off his brother’s romance with the chauffeur’s daughter which would cause great inconvenience to the family. However their encounter is easy and charming, and soon turns sexy as he pours her champagne and kisses her, telling her the kiss is really only a proxy kiss from his brother David. As she clings to Bogart in their slow, almost somnambulant dance, we see from her expression that he has thrown her off balance emotionally. She finds herself attracted to the older brother instead, something she did not expect or want.
At first it is an unspoken issue for present day viewers of this film (was it an issue for the audience in 1954?) that Bogart’s attitude for young Sabrina ought to seem more fatherly than romantic. It’s laudable, I think, that the film addresses this head on by remarking more than once that Bogart is much older than Hepburn. He even jokes himself when preparing to take Sabrina on an outing, as he looks at himself with sarcasm in the mirror, that he is “Joe College with a touch of arthritis.” This allows us to accept the decades difference in their ages, because they refer to it themselves and accept it.
Bogart is at least hale and hearty enough to carry Hepburn over his shoulder and ascend a flight of stairs with her after her suicide attempt. Does he realize it is a suicide attempt? He makes no comment at the time, it is only later when trying to win her over that he invents a past of suicidal desperation of his own to connect with her that we see he may remember the earlier event and attach some importance to it.
We see early on that though Bogart as the older brother carries the banner for the Larrabee family in responsibility for running their fortunes, he is yet more egalitarian than younger brother David. David is embarrassed at first to have Sabrina attend his family’s party. Bogart runs the business not because money is the means to an end, but because in establishing world trade, “people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar.” He cares about the worth of people in terms of being valuable in their attributes. David is more class conscious.
None are more class conscious than Sabrina’s chauffer father, played by John Williams, who warns Sabrina on her relationship with David, “You’re reaching for the moon.” To which his daughter replies gleefully, “No, Father. The moon is reaching for me.”
So, he is. Some of the films cute moments are when David picks Sabrina up at the train station, not recognizing her after her return from school abroad in Paris, and he marvels that her poodle is called David.
“That’s funny. My name’s David, too.”
Hepburn smiles into the dog’s head for our benefit, “That is funny, isn’t it?”
More tomorrow on "Sabrina".
Sponsored Link:
Sabrina [DVD](1954) DVD
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Walter Hampden
Walter Hampden has a great role in “Sabrina” (1954) as the exasperated father of the Larrabee brothers. The scene where he struggles to get an olive out of a jar is pure screwball comedy, and not something you’d expect from someone who played “Hamlet” three times on Broadway.
Mr. Hampden was in his 70s when “Sabrina” was shot, and he came to the movies late in his career, and played only character parts. He was the longwinded master of ceremonies at the beginning and end of “All about Eve” (1950), which poked fun at his own historic place in American theatre, and he played the Archdeacon in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939).
He took on a few television roles (nominated for an Emmy), but most of his career was spent on the boards where he played the classics, including heralded stints as Cyrano de Bergerac, Hamlet (once with Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia), and even founded the American Repertory Theatre. His last stage role was in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”
Twenty-one years old at the turn of the 20th century, Mr. Hampden could not then have envisioned sound film let alone television, where he played Hamlet for the last time.
Capping off his film career as Louis XVI of France in “The Vagabond King,” Mr. Hampden was one of those superlative stage actors who proves, and evidently must have felt, that all the world’s a stage.
Mr. Hampden was in his 70s when “Sabrina” was shot, and he came to the movies late in his career, and played only character parts. He was the longwinded master of ceremonies at the beginning and end of “All about Eve” (1950), which poked fun at his own historic place in American theatre, and he played the Archdeacon in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1939).
He took on a few television roles (nominated for an Emmy), but most of his career was spent on the boards where he played the classics, including heralded stints as Cyrano de Bergerac, Hamlet (once with Ethel Barrymore as Ophelia), and even founded the American Repertory Theatre. His last stage role was in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”
Twenty-one years old at the turn of the 20th century, Mr. Hampden could not then have envisioned sound film let alone television, where he played Hamlet for the last time.
Capping off his film career as Louis XVI of France in “The Vagabond King,” Mr. Hampden was one of those superlative stage actors who proves, and evidently must have felt, that all the world’s a stage.
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