Charade Puts Up Quite The Facade

 

On Christmas Day, less than 48 hours removed from having completed watching a Robert Redford retrospective at the Brattle Theatre, I would return to that venerable film house for a screening of Charade starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Released in 1963, Charade co-stars Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass. It was directed by Stanley Doren, co-written by Peter Stone and Marc Behm with cinematography by Charles Lang and music from Henry Mancini.

Primarily shot on location in and around Paris, Hepburn plays Regina "Reggie" Lampert, an American ex-patriate recently widowed as her husband was thrown off a train. Her husband had been a soldier assigned with several other soldiers to go behind enemy lines during WWII to steal funds for the French Resistance. Instead, her husband kept the money for himself, and his accomplices Tex Panthollow (Coburn), Herman Scobie (Kennedy) and Leopold W. Gideon (Glass) are determined to collect the money from Reggie despite not having any idea where the might could possibly be. 

Ostensibly protecting Reggie are Grant and Matthau, but neither are who they seem to be. At various points in the film, Grant is known as Peter Joshua, Alexander Dyle, Adam Canfield and Brian Cruickshank while Matthau masquerades as an American embassy official. Despite his deceptions, Reggie becomes quite enamored with Peter, Alexander, Adam and Brian. At the time of the film's release, Grant was 25 years older than Hepburn and their age gap is alluded to subtly:

Alexander Dyle: Reggie, listen to me.

Reggie Lampert: Oh-oh, here it comes. The fatherly talk. You forget I'm already a widow.

Alexander Dyle: So was Juliet -- at fifteen.

Reggie Lampert: I'm not fifteen.

Alexander Dyle: Well, there's your trouble right there - you're too old for me.

Reggie Lampert: Why can't you be serious?

Alexander Dyle: There you said it.

Reggie Lampert: Said what?

Alexander Dyle: Serious. When a man gets to be my age that's the last word he ever wants to hear. I don't want to be serious, and I especially don't want you to be.

Reggie Lampert: Okay, I'll tell you what. We'll just sit around all day long being frivolous - how about that?

In our current times, the age gap would have been treated with the subtlety of a ballpein hammer with certain segments of the audience speaking of "age appropriate relationships" . Indeed, if we go by the half your age plus seven formula Grant would have been deemed too old for Hepburn. But this represents a failure of imagination. Whatever gap there was in their age, there was gap between them concerning their intelligence and wit. In that sense, there was no age between them.

It also must be remembered that this was a movie. A work of fiction, a charade if you will. In the case of Charade, it puts up quite the facade. Charade strikes the right balance of adventure, comedy and romance. Amid this balance is both the interior and exteriors of Paris coordinated by Lang and Mancini's music. 

Charade would earn a single Oscar nomination for the eponymous theme song composed by Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The pair had earned back-to-back Oscars for their collaborations on "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's (Hepburn's most famous role) and "Days of Wine and Roses" from the film of the same name. However, they would not earn a third consecutive Oscar as Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn won the statue for "Call Me Irresponsible" from Papa's Delicate Condition.

Charade is nice light entertainment for the holiday season. It is running at the Brattle through December 30th.