NOTE IMDb
7,1/10
18 k
MA NOTE
Un playboy vieillissant est fasciné par la fille d'un détective privé engagé pour lui tendre un piège avec la femme d'un client.Un playboy vieillissant est fasciné par la fille d'un détective privé engagé pour lui tendre un piège avec la femme d'un client.Un playboy vieillissant est fasciné par la fille d'un détective privé engagé pour lui tendre un piège avec la femme d'un client.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 3 victoires et 4 nominations au total
Olga Valéry
- Hotel Guest with Dog
- (as Olga Valery)
Elga Andersen
- Bit Part
- (non crédité)
Claude Ariel
- Existentialist
- (non crédité)
Jack Ary
- Man in Love on Right Bank
- (non crédité)
Marc Aurian
- Couple Drenched by Water Wagon
- (non crédité)
Vera Boccadoro
- Couple Drenched by Water Wagon
- (non crédité)
Paul Bonifas
- Police Chief
- (non crédité)
Charles Bouillaud
- Ritz Employee
- (non crédité)
Françoise Brion
- Minor Role
- (non crédité)
Marcelle Broc
- Rich Woman
- (non crédité)
Jeanne Charblay
- Client at Baker's
- (non crédité)
Avis à la une
I am not a fan of romantic movies but there are a small handful that I love and by far the one I love most (of the less bigger scale types like "Gone With the Wind") is "Love in the Afternoon". I love the story, the camerawork and especially the lead players...Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn. I love these two so much that it's hard to put another great screen couple above them. They make the whole story come alive in their own way. Coop with his dry but lovable wit and charming good looks, and Audrey with her universal charm, wholesomeness and great beauty. I have read in the book "The Complete Films of Audrey Hepburn" that Cary Grant and Yul Brynner were the first two choices to play Coop's part. Thank God that neither were able to. Coop as the character of Frank Flannagan makes the film more romantic and his ever-popular sweet-guy, no-airs-of-any-kind persona makes the film less stuffy than it would with Grant or Brynner. Audrey of course is the perfect Ariane and they shine together in each other's arms. Call it a cliche but that comment fits this film perfectly. See it if you're in the mood for good, romantic farce.
This has always has been my all time favorite romantic comedy. Thanks to Billy Wilder's creative genius this film works despite Gary Cooper being miscast as the leading man. Regrettably, Gary Cooper was not only too old, but lacked the charm and suaveness needed for the role. Cooper was also in the twilight of his career and was suffering from health problems when the film was made. Cary Grant or Gregory Peck would have been more appropriate for the role of Frank Flannagan, the womanizing jet setter who falls madly in love with the daughter of a detective who has been investigating him. Nevertheless even with a miscast Gary Cooper the film works ....thanks to the marvelous performances of Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier, who play the young innocent musician daughter and her snooping, pooping private detective father. The title song "Fascination" with original music by F.D. Marchetti and Franz Waxman serve as a romantic thread that runs tightly through out the entire cinematic heart throbbing experience. Billy Wilder's more noted films such as "The Apartment" and "Some Like It Hot" may have garnered more recognition than this film over the years, but in my opinion none of them have the charm that this film has to offer. In fact if one is willing to "What if?", and trade off Gary Cooper for Gary Grant for the role of Frank Flannagan, I suspect that that this film would have been right up there with the best romantic comedy of all time, "It Happened One Night".
This film by Billy Wilder features beautiful B&W photography. Gary Cooper stars as a supposedly smooth womanizer (Frank Flannagan) who cares little for the women he beds. Audrey Hepburn plays a younger woman (Ariane Chavasse) who is intrigued by his intrigues and becomes personally involved.
Shot in France, the film conveys a cosmopolitan air that almost sells the idea that these two might connect emotionally. But Cooper is not smooth enough to pull if off (no surprise) and the relationship between the two does not convince. It's not an issue of age; it's about chemistry and personality. Bogart in "Sabrina" offered the same problem, though less so. As an example of another pairing that worked well despite a sizable age difference, consider Stewart and Kelly in "Rear Window".
Frankly, I'm surprised that such obviously poor pairings plague numerous films, but apparently some believe that box office draws can overcome such issues.
Shot in France, the film conveys a cosmopolitan air that almost sells the idea that these two might connect emotionally. But Cooper is not smooth enough to pull if off (no surprise) and the relationship between the two does not convince. It's not an issue of age; it's about chemistry and personality. Bogart in "Sabrina" offered the same problem, though less so. As an example of another pairing that worked well despite a sizable age difference, consider Stewart and Kelly in "Rear Window".
Frankly, I'm surprised that such obviously poor pairings plague numerous films, but apparently some believe that box office draws can overcome such issues.
This odd combination of story, characters, and cast could easily have fallen apart irretrievably in the first few minutes. That it holds together is due primarily to Audrey Hepburn's unsurpassed charm and Billy Wilder's resourceful story-telling technique. It ends up being enjoyable most of the time, sometimes very much so, in spite of itself.
The story is rather strange - for it to "work" you have to buy into a number of unlikely possibilities, and even then, you have to accept the main characters as sympathetic even when they don't deserve it. It's the kind of hollow concept that you see much more often in present-day movies, which are made for audiences who don't care about plausibility, and who are easily persuaded that a shallow, pseudo-romantic attraction between two characters automatically makes them sympathetic.
None of that is to imply anything against the stars. Audrey Hepburn is so engaging as Ariane that it makes you want her to be happy, even though much of her behavior is fatuous. Maurice Chevalier is enjoyable and is obviously well-cast, and John McGiver also adds some good moments. Gary Cooper's character doesn't work very well, but that should not be blamed at all on Cooper. The character just is not as appealing as the scriptwriters presume him to be, and Cooper should actually be commended for making him as likable (or as un-unlikable) as possible.
Wilder's skill made some strange stories work pretty well in his time, and he also deserves much of the credit for keeping this one afloat. There are also some very good sequences in the screenplay, for all that it was uneven in general. The odd thing about "Love in the Afternoon" is that if you can tolerate the poor setup and get past the obvious flaws, you can really enjoy most of the movie, because it does have several positive things to offer.
The story is rather strange - for it to "work" you have to buy into a number of unlikely possibilities, and even then, you have to accept the main characters as sympathetic even when they don't deserve it. It's the kind of hollow concept that you see much more often in present-day movies, which are made for audiences who don't care about plausibility, and who are easily persuaded that a shallow, pseudo-romantic attraction between two characters automatically makes them sympathetic.
None of that is to imply anything against the stars. Audrey Hepburn is so engaging as Ariane that it makes you want her to be happy, even though much of her behavior is fatuous. Maurice Chevalier is enjoyable and is obviously well-cast, and John McGiver also adds some good moments. Gary Cooper's character doesn't work very well, but that should not be blamed at all on Cooper. The character just is not as appealing as the scriptwriters presume him to be, and Cooper should actually be commended for making him as likable (or as un-unlikable) as possible.
Wilder's skill made some strange stories work pretty well in his time, and he also deserves much of the credit for keeping this one afloat. There are also some very good sequences in the screenplay, for all that it was uneven in general. The odd thing about "Love in the Afternoon" is that if you can tolerate the poor setup and get past the obvious flaws, you can really enjoy most of the movie, because it does have several positive things to offer.
There is likely no more romantic ending to a Hollywood movie than the one in this soufflé-light 1957 romantic comedy, where Audrey Hepburn tries to keep up with a departing train upon which Gary Cooper stands and listens intently to her babbling about her fictitious sexual conquests. Hepburn plays Ariane, a young cellist and the daughter of a Parisian private investigator named Claude Chevasse. She has an unbridled interest in her father's often tawdry cases, chief among them the affairs of Frank Flannagan, a millionaire industrialist and aging playboy who finds himself in various trysts with married women around the world. A certain Monsieur X has come to Chevasse to catch his wife in a suspected extramarital fling with Flannagan. Overhearing Monsieur X's intention to kill his wife and her lover, Ariane decides to warn Flannagan, and they embark on an afternoons-only affair under the pretense that she is as much a worldly bon vivant as he is. Things come to a head when Flannagan becomes infatuated with this mysterious "thin girl" and recruits Crevasse to find out who she is.
Master filmmaker Billy Wilder leaves his unmistakable stamp on this confection with a clever, ironic script co-written with his long-time partner I.A.L. Diamond in their first collaboration. The dialogue is full of their trademark sparkling banter, and leave it to Wilder to use a Gypsy string quartet to act as a chorus for Flannagan's sexual shenanigans. Hepburn is her usual impeccable self as Ariane and especially good fun when she layers the deceptions about her checkered past. Cooper played this type of boulevardier role in the 1930's under masters like Ernst Lubitsch, and it is quite enjoyable to see him come back to this milieu two decades later as an aging lothario. Looking weather-beaten after years of Westerns and adventure pictures, he was given a lot of grief because of the age difference between him and Hepburn, but I actually find the gap quite touching and Cooper surprisingly game. Maurice Chevalier is ideally cast as Crevasse even if has to play down his naturally effervescent manner. Granted the film runs a little too long at 126 minutes, but it is fine, light entertainment similar to Wilder and Hepburn's previous collaboration, the classic 1954 "Sabrina". The print transfer on the 2005 DVD is fine though not outstanding. Unfortunately there are no extras included.
Master filmmaker Billy Wilder leaves his unmistakable stamp on this confection with a clever, ironic script co-written with his long-time partner I.A.L. Diamond in their first collaboration. The dialogue is full of their trademark sparkling banter, and leave it to Wilder to use a Gypsy string quartet to act as a chorus for Flannagan's sexual shenanigans. Hepburn is her usual impeccable self as Ariane and especially good fun when she layers the deceptions about her checkered past. Cooper played this type of boulevardier role in the 1930's under masters like Ernst Lubitsch, and it is quite enjoyable to see him come back to this milieu two decades later as an aging lothario. Looking weather-beaten after years of Westerns and adventure pictures, he was given a lot of grief because of the age difference between him and Hepburn, but I actually find the gap quite touching and Cooper surprisingly game. Maurice Chevalier is ideally cast as Crevasse even if has to play down his naturally effervescent manner. Granted the film runs a little too long at 126 minutes, but it is fine, light entertainment similar to Wilder and Hepburn's previous collaboration, the classic 1954 "Sabrina". The print transfer on the 2005 DVD is fine though not outstanding. Unfortunately there are no extras included.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesGary Cooper was very pleased with his performance and very disappointed that the majority of critics thought him miscast due to his age. Indeed, the film's box-office failure was largely attributed to his being considered too old to play Audrey Hepburn's lover. In April 1958 he had a full facelift and other cosmetic surgery, but the procedure was largely unsuccessful.
- Gaffes(at around 1h 50 mins) When Flannagan says to Chavasse, "I couldn't get to first base with her!", Gary Cooper clearly mouths something else.
- Citations
Ariane Chavasse: Working on a new case?
Claude Chavasse: A client from Brussels. His wife ran away to Paris with the chauffeur. I have to find them; the husband wants his car back.
- ConnexionsFeatured in L'homme qui venait d'ailleurs (1976)
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Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langues
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Romance al atardecer
- Lieux de tournage
- Société de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
Box-office
- Budget
- 2 100 000 $US (estimé)
- Montant brut mondial
- 718 $US
- Durée2 heures 10 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.85 : 1
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