Charade

Stanley Donen's indefatigbly charming screwball thriller comedy about a woman being pursued by several men who want the fortune her murdered husband had stolen pairs Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in roles that were for a time understandably considered for Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Grant, in the last notable film that he made before retirement is as characteristically debonair as Hepburn is characteristically the ingénue and Henry Mancini's swingin' score adds to the light-hearted fun.

Whilst the glamorous production values are typical of period, on the downside there's the period-typical cartoon villains (James Coburn,George Kennedy,and Ned Glass), not to mention unconvincing back-projected scenes and some may object to the also typical pairing of the older man (Grant was 60, Hepburn 33) with a younger woman which these two did regularly in various permutations in films such as To Catch A Thief, North By Northwest, Funny Face, My Fair Lady and Sabrina but Peter Stone's script with its multiple plot twists is amusingly engaging, both Grant and Hepburn are excellent and Donen's fluid direction makes for a delightfully entertaining package that only drags when the film tries to imbue proceedings with conventional thriller action.

 

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