Love in the Afternoon

The first thing I noticed about this lilting romance (on the widescreen DVD) was the beautiful, shimmering, black and white photography. Set in Paris, with some scenes filmed there, Director Billy Wilder weaves a captivating, simple tale of a 20ish woman (Hepburn), who lives with her father (Maurice Chevalier), who schemes to snag a 50ish cad (Cooper). At first the age difference is very apparent, with Cooper seemingly mis-cast as a womanizer, but he grows on you, with a sweet, gentle, quiet, attractive performance. Hepburn is stunning and spunky in one of her best performances. The song "Fascination" is used to great effect. Filmed in 1957, the only way to show the title occurrence is to have a camera shot following Hepburn's dis-robed fur coat falling to the hotel room's floor, as she embraces Cooper. The ending is suspenseful, with cute narration epilogue by Chevalier. A wonderful film.

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.

Immensely charming comedy set in Paris where a Cinderella-type role masterfullly played by Hepburn gets closely involved with a wealthy womanizer . As the rich playboy called Flannagan (Gary Cooper) becomes interested in the daughter , Ariane Chavasse (Audrey Hepburn) , of a sympthetic private detective , Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) , who has been hired to entrap him with the wife of a client (John McGiver) who decides to shoot him . To be aware the beautiful daughter rushes to Flannagan to prevent his murder . And of course , she winds up falling in love with him . An oh-so-very shy young girl , but she lists 20 men in her past! . It's got the hit tune "Fascination" .Love is a game any number can play... especially in the afternoon...It's more likely in Paris and more LOVELY IN THE AFTERNOON!

Amusing and funny movie in ¨Billy Wilder's Sabrina¨ style also starred by Audrey Hepburn about the classic love story in which a duo of oppossite characters , after a series of incidents resulting in the two eventually become attracted to each other . This romantic comedy is intelligently and pleasingly written to gives us lots of fun , laughters and smiles . The hit of the show is undoubtedly Audrey Hepburn who gives one of the best screen acting as the naive and good girl , while Gary Cooper gives a nice acting in his usual style as a middle-aged playboy becomes fascinated by the daughter of a private detective. Here Gary Cooper seems more relaxed and agreeable than usual ; however , Cooper's a little old for the Casanova role , but Hepburn is always enchanting . And , of course , Maurice Chevalier is awesome as likeable and understanding father .

Emotive and romantic musical score and atmospheric black and white cinematography by cameraman William Mellor . This slick, smooth comedy is stunningly written I. A. L. Diamond and Billy Wilder himself , based on the novel "Ariane, jeune fille russe" by Claude Anet . Being competently directed by the genius Billy Wilder . It belongs his first and better period during the 40s and 50s when realized sensational and acerbic films as ¨Double indemnity¨, ¨Ace in the hole¨ , ¨Sunset Boulevard¨, ¨Stalag 17¨ and ¨Seven year itch¨ ; subsequently in the 60s and 70s he realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨. Rating : 7/10. Above average , essential and indispensable watching ; extremely funny and riveting film and completely entertaining . It justly deserves its place among the best romantic comedy ever made . It's the kind of movie where you know what's coming but , because the treatment , enjoy it all the same .

Love in the Afternoon was conceived and brought to the screen by Billy Wilder as a homage to his friend and mentor in Hollywood, Ernest Lubitsch. This French novel Ariane had been filmed before in fact, by the Germans just before the Nazis took over and had starred Elizabeth Bergner.

Audrey Hepburn proved to be a worthy successor to Bergner. Whatever success Love in the Afternoon has is due to her performance. She radiates beauty and charm and no wonder Gary Cooper is so fascinated by her. Wilder would consider no one else for the lead and waited for Hepburn to be free while she was on a lengthy location shooting for War and Peace.

But it's Cooper who's the weak one here. He was not Billy Wilder's first choice. Cary Grant for the third and final time missed out on being in a Billy Wilder film having previously turned down Five Graves to Cairo and Sabrina. The part was offered to Yul Brynner also. But Gary Cooper turned out to be available when Hepburn was and he got the role. Wilder later admitted the bad casting, but he also said that it was his ill luck to get Cooper at the start of the health problems that would eventually kill him. He said Cooper got old overnight. In fact he looks as old as Maurice Chevalier and Chevalier as Hepburn's father was 13 years older than Cooper.

Maurice is a detective who specializes in tracking down and confirming spousal infidelities. He's been hired by John McGiver to find out if his wife has been seeing millionaire playboy Cooper. Daughter Hepburn however is crushing out on Gary big time and unbeknownst to Maurice she takes it upon herself to warn him.

The old popular standard Fascination is heard through out the film and in the same year it came out, the 20+ year old standard was revived in a million selling hit by Pat Boone.

It was not an easy shoot despite those familiar Parisian location. In a recent biography of Wilder, the story is told that he had tremendous difficulty in shooting the picnic and row boat scenes. It seems as though the location was a breeding ground for mosquitoes and they were unmerciful to cast and crew. Wilder took several takes just to get enough usable footage.

Audrey Hepburn fans will be mad for Love in the Afternoon, Gary Cooper's though might wince when seeing it.

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.