I recently watched and reviewed Stanley Donen's Wait Until Dark, which was so good I immediately went to my library's website to see if they had anything else by him. This one caught my eye.
Charade has Audrey Hepburn teaming up with Donen again, and this time with Cary Grant as her costar. Along with those two stars, this film also has George Kennedy, Walter Matthau and James Coburn, with music again my Henry Mancini.
The pacing and atmosphere in this spy thriller are top notch as early on, Audrey Hepburn as Reggie meets Cary Grant's Peter Joshua in Switzerland. They flirt, and when she gets home to Paris she discovers her husband has been killed. She doesn't know much about his as we discover when she talks to a CIA agent, who informs her that her husband had $250,000 and was likely killed by some hitmen after the money. Hitmen that may now be coming after her.
Charade is a story of twists and turns, a story of capers and adventure. Cary Grant isn't who he claims to be, practically no one else is either for that matter. Bodies of side characters appear later on, there's all sorts of crazy intrigue as one might expect.
I liked Charade and I'd recommend it, but I do want to point out that the writing in this is really dated. They comment on the age difference between Hepburn and Grant in the movie, but he's 25 years older than her and she just throws herself at him constantly. It would be bad writing even without the age gap and without his obvious untrustworthy nature, but given those two things it makes it even worse.
It's not a deal breaker, and Charade is a fun movie that has a great feel and a lot of appeal.
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