DVD Review Sabrina (1954)
Sep. 12th, 2010 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olivia_suttonHi all -
I love classic movies and I really love discovering or re-discovering a classic I haven't actually seen before. And sometimes, even a modern, girl-geek like me can actually enjoy a romantic movie.
So I just watched "Sabrina" for the first time - ever - and I really, really enjoyed it. Starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden (b/w 1954) and directed by Billy Wilder (my favorite classic director - I like him quite possibly MORE than Hitchcock since he directed both "Sunset Blvd" and "Double Indemnity" as well as "The Apartment", "The Lost Weekend" and the famous but not one of my personal favorites "Some Like It Hot"), "Sabrina" is really a classic lover's triangle story. Hepburn is Sabrina, the daughter of the Chauffeur on a very, very large estate on Long Island that belongs to the Larrabee family. She grows up with the family's two boys - Linus (Bogart) - who becomes a responsible businessman, and David (Holden) who becomes an irresponsible skirt-chaser and playboy. Sabrina, however, falls for David, who doesn't even know she exists. Sabrina falls so hard, in fact, that when she catches David with another girl, she even tries to kill herself and is rescued by Bogart. (I could just see the wheels in Wilder mind turning as he tried to figure out how to get some angst into a romance!) After the incident, she's sent off to France, and cooking school.
In France, at first, Sabrina can think of nothing but David, and even her classes don't distract her (given how boring they sound - who could blame her on that front). But she's soon taken under the wing of an old baron who teaches her about style, and grace, and she returns to New York two years later an outwardly changed woman. But, inwardly, she'd still like to make Holden her husband.
Sabrina's plans however, are somewhat derailed by Bogart, who's arranged his brother's relationship and marriage to a sugar cane heiress to cement a business deal to make bullet-proof plastic from sugar cane. (Don't ask -- like you don't want to try and figure out how the daughter of a chauffeur can afford the prestigious Cordon Blue cooking school in France). Anyway, Bogart arranges the match, but playboy Holden thinks this is one girl he's not interested in. And when he sees the new Sabrina - he's hooked. But, Bogart, mostly to save his business deal, and partially because he's also intrigued by this sophisticated woman in his midst, also starts to chase Sabrina.
And thus, we have the triangle -- who will end-up with Sabrina? Like most movies of the 50s, it's the men in her life -- her father, the two brothers, and the two brothers' father, who seem determined to make Sabrina's choice of a mate for her, rather than letting Sabrina choose. But it's a good movie anyway. I was actually a little surprised by who she ended-up with.
Billy Wilder's direction is incredible - as always, especially his use of deep focus and shots of characters completely isolated from each other, surprising in a romance (but not surprising coming from Wilder - an accomplished Film Noir director). The film is in black and white.
Very enjoyable, I recommend it. And no -- I'm not going to tell you the end!
--Olivia
I love classic movies and I really love discovering or re-discovering a classic I haven't actually seen before. And sometimes, even a modern, girl-geek like me can actually enjoy a romantic movie.
So I just watched "Sabrina" for the first time - ever - and I really, really enjoyed it. Starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden (b/w 1954) and directed by Billy Wilder (my favorite classic director - I like him quite possibly MORE than Hitchcock since he directed both "Sunset Blvd" and "Double Indemnity" as well as "The Apartment", "The Lost Weekend" and the famous but not one of my personal favorites "Some Like It Hot"), "Sabrina" is really a classic lover's triangle story. Hepburn is Sabrina, the daughter of the Chauffeur on a very, very large estate on Long Island that belongs to the Larrabee family. She grows up with the family's two boys - Linus (Bogart) - who becomes a responsible businessman, and David (Holden) who becomes an irresponsible skirt-chaser and playboy. Sabrina, however, falls for David, who doesn't even know she exists. Sabrina falls so hard, in fact, that when she catches David with another girl, she even tries to kill herself and is rescued by Bogart. (I could just see the wheels in Wilder mind turning as he tried to figure out how to get some angst into a romance!) After the incident, she's sent off to France, and cooking school.
In France, at first, Sabrina can think of nothing but David, and even her classes don't distract her (given how boring they sound - who could blame her on that front). But she's soon taken under the wing of an old baron who teaches her about style, and grace, and she returns to New York two years later an outwardly changed woman. But, inwardly, she'd still like to make Holden her husband.
Sabrina's plans however, are somewhat derailed by Bogart, who's arranged his brother's relationship and marriage to a sugar cane heiress to cement a business deal to make bullet-proof plastic from sugar cane. (Don't ask -- like you don't want to try and figure out how the daughter of a chauffeur can afford the prestigious Cordon Blue cooking school in France). Anyway, Bogart arranges the match, but playboy Holden thinks this is one girl he's not interested in. And when he sees the new Sabrina - he's hooked. But, Bogart, mostly to save his business deal, and partially because he's also intrigued by this sophisticated woman in his midst, also starts to chase Sabrina.
And thus, we have the triangle -- who will end-up with Sabrina? Like most movies of the 50s, it's the men in her life -- her father, the two brothers, and the two brothers' father, who seem determined to make Sabrina's choice of a mate for her, rather than letting Sabrina choose. But it's a good movie anyway. I was actually a little surprised by who she ended-up with.
Billy Wilder's direction is incredible - as always, especially his use of deep focus and shots of characters completely isolated from each other, surprising in a romance (but not surprising coming from Wilder - an accomplished Film Noir director). The film is in black and white.
Very enjoyable, I recommend it. And no -- I'm not going to tell you the end!
--Olivia
