Classic feel-good movie magic
(at its most magical)
by Ken Cornwel
Charade (1963)
Directed by Stanley Donen
Screenplay by Peter Stone
Serious movies are important. There is a valuable place for the high-minded art film, the political film, and the message picture. But sometimes you need a movie you can curl up with: after a bad day, you come home from work, pop it into the DVD player and forget about things for a while. Or it shows up on cable somewhere and you keep watching even though you've seen it a million times. It makes you feel good. Stanley Donen's Charade falls into that special category.
It certainly doesn't hurt that Charade stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn (the only movie they made together) at their most magical. Hepburn plays Regina, an American in Paris with a husband named Charles who gets himself thrown off a speeding train in his pajamas before the opening credits. She's upset of course, but she wanted a divorce anyway.
Then, Cary Grant (Peter Joshua) comes along to comfort her. She definitely needs the help because it seems that Charles stole a big sum of money during the war with the help of some army buddies. Charles ran off with the cash leaving his pals without a cent and it looks like one of them killed him trying to find out where it's hidden. Now they figure that Regina has it somewhere, even if she doesn't know it. Peter offers to help her out, and Regina starts to fall for him. Unfortunately, he looks like he's not exactly who he says he is, and she may be in this mess all by herself after all.
It has some interesting twists and turns, but plot-wise Charade is your standard thriller. What really makes it sing is the snappy dialogue, fun supporting characters (played by such stars to be as Walter Mathau James Coburn), the lovely Henry Mancini score and haunting theme song, humor, and romance. Written by Peter Stone, the thriller aspect of the screenplay is an excuse for the characters to toss some witty banter back and forth and romance each other. In real life, Grant was old enough to be Hepburn's father and was afraid that people wouldn't accept him as the romantic aggressor. So Stone pokes fun at the age difference and makes Regina the more romantically forward of the couple, a refreshing change of pace for the genre. She tells Grant: "You know what's wrong with you?" Pauses, leans in, purrs, "Nothing."
Charade also gets mileage out of the iconic personas of its lead actors. Stone and Donen seem to delight in poking fun at Grant's suave image and he really gets into the spirit of things. He hops in the shower, fully clothed. He's roped into a party game where he has to pass an orange without the use of his hands to a rotund woman seemingly immune to his charms. Meanwhile, Audrey's Regina is chic, resourceful and lovely: Famously slender, Hepburn's character spends the movie snacking as a reaction to stress. One character tells her that it's unfair that her distress doesn't turn into fat. When Grant's Peter finally admits that he's got a thing for her, Regina dramatically drops her knife and fork with a clatter and declares, "I'm not hungry anymore! Isn't it glorious?!"
In 2002 Jonathan Demme decided to remake Charade as "The Truth with Charlie," and the truth is that it's not so good: he seemed to leave out all of the elements that made the original such a sophisticated, witty joy. Gone are the clever dialogue and the romantic, sad Henry Mancini music. All that was left was a rather conventional thriller. It was doomed from the start though because no can take the place of Audrey and Cary.
No need to worry though. Through the magic of DVDs, Charade is still there to sweep you away to Paris on a rainy Saturday afternoon or a day home sick, letting you forget your troubles--for a few hours at least.
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