Editor’s Note: There are so many classic Hitchcock films, but also some legendary Hitchcockian movies. Freeline Media’s film critic Mike Fried takes a look back at one of the great Hitchcockian thrillers not directed by old Alfie. Read on!
By Mike Fried
CHARADE
5/5
American Regina Lampert tells her friend that she is going to divorce her husband Charles. She meets another American, Peter Joshua. When Reggie returns to her flat in Paris she finds out that Charles has sold off all of their belongings, after which he was murdered. Charles’ funeral has very few attendees and each of the scary looking men who attend make sure in their own way that Charles is dead. And now they threaten Reggie.
She is summoned to the CIA and is told by an official, Hamilton Bartholomew, that the three men, along with her dead husband and a man named Carson Dyle, were assigned by the OSS to deliver $250,000 in gold to the French Resistance in World War II. But it never got there and the scary men want it.
Because of the suspenseful plot, the twists in the story and the presence of Cary Grant (kind of fresh off North by Northwest), many thought this was an Alfred Hitchcock picture. But it wasn’t. It was directed by Stanley Donen, in his finest directorial effort (I don’t count Singin’ in the Rain because it was co-directed with Gene Kelly, and let’s face it, Gene takes charge). And Donen has full command of the material — but with this stacked cast even I could direct it.
Besides the two lead Americans having British accents, this movie is just a perfect film. It’s funny, charming and witty. Not everyone is who they say they are and nothing is what it seems.
The movie is peppered with a cast to die for. Reggie and Peter are played with panache by Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. They exude even more screen chemistry than Grant and Eva Marie Saint in NbNW. She is truly frightened and infatuated with — and completely trusts — Peter, who seems to be infatuated with her but who has a secondary agenda. A pre-Oscar (Madison and Academy Award) Walter Matthau plays the CIA desk jockey Hamilton Bartholomew whose devil-may-care attitude belies his true nature.
And as the three bad men, George Kennedy, James Coburn and Ned Glass really fit the bill. Coburn is terrific as the smiling but angry southern criminal, Tex, and Ned Glass — who had a small role with Grant in NbNW — is great as Leo Gideon, the allergic-to-flowers killer. But it is Kennedy who plays Scobie with his usual blustery aplomb and metal claw instead of a hand, who gets things going by casting doubt in Reggie’s mind.
There are also some terrific set pieces. The fight on the roof between Grant and Kennedy is absolutely thrilling. And the final shootout has more twists than Chubby Checker.
It is a smart, sophisticated film with a great, funny yet suspenseful script by Peter Stone — which should have been Oscar nominated — but which was initially rejected by seven studios. Not to be deterred, Stone changed it into a novel and it was published as a serial in Redbook which then made the same studios interested all of a sudden. It was rewritten by Stone to suit Hepburn and Grant and but structurally the movie is akin to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None mixed with a 1930s screwball comedy. “A man drowns in his bed. In his pajamas. A second dead man in his pajamas. If I were you I wouldn’t stay in my pajamas. Good night”
People have often used the phrase “delightful romp” to describe a fun movie but I think this movie is the King of Delightful Romps. Everything is perfectly set up. There’s a scene where Scobie has Peter at gunpoint and all Peter can do is yawn. The orange transfer scene in the nightclub is particularly funny as is Cary Grant taking a shower with his suit on — which happened because he felt that he was a bit overweight — but it worked so well it fit with the humor of the film.
Henry Mancini’s delightful and lightweight frothy score is perfect for the film and adds to the tone of the movie. And the film is gorgeously photographed by Charles Lang, Jr. who holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for best cinematographer (18, with one win- not this film). And under his lens, Paris becomes another character in the story.
And watching Walter Matthau run is funny, even if it wasn’t meant to be.
The best Hitchcock movie not directed by Alfred Hitchcock, indeed.
WATCH IT!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
