Sunday 14 May 2017

Sabrina (1954 Billy Wilder)

Audrey Hepburn is splendid in only her second leading performance. Terrific screenplay by Wilder, Ermest Lehman and Samuel Taylor (based on his play).


As though to emphasize Bogie at his most ridiculous, Wilder reflects him three times
Unalloyed pleasure. (We both laugh at 'and all the usual what-have-yous'.)

You cannot argue with Walter Hampden's monstrous cigars, nor Bogie's plexi-glass bouncing. You cannot disregard Audrey's big, naked feet as she walks like a ballerina out of a conference room, or Hollander's score which bounces between La Vie en Rose and Bananas in one melody. If  John William's fatherliness fails to move you, or Charlie Lang's twinkling photography holds no allure, then you are tired of life, or the cinema, which is the same thing.
Signed - Jean-Luc Godard II.

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