Directed by Stanley Donen, 1963
Haven't posted in a while - was considering writing about Sally Potter's Rage... but didn't. (Quite fabulous; it's massively appealing to see a fairly mainstream film eschew conventional structure... But ultimately unsatisfying, with its reliance on unnecessarily melodramatic events - I mean, this is the fashion industry we're talking about: deaths and riots are hardly necessary to make it dramatic or compelling. Just look at The September Issue!)
...And then I was thinking about posting about Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts, which - in some ways - was completely wonderful... But, unfortunately, only in terms of the aesthetics: everything's staged in a way that draws attention to its artificiality, and the rococo production design has seemingly every scene dripping with a decadent fecundity: plants, flowers, animals, copious nudity, and Dutch masters styling. Overall though, despite enjoying its wanton oddness, and having a certain appreciation for any film with the brass neck to scream ART CINEMA quite so brazenly, I ultimately don't feel that well equipped to talk about it, because I don't know what the fuck any of it meant.
But, yeah. Then I remembered that while I was away recently, I saw the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn vehicle Charade - entirely without any preconceptions and simply because it was the only thing going. A Hitchcock-lite spy film pastiche is pretty unassuming, but, weirdly, I found it completely entertaining - I guess that's the rub though; entertaining rather than stimulating or wildly inventive. Ie, not the sort of thing that I'm too lazy to think about in any depth right now. (Like, on a long-haul flight where I watched, among other things, Miller's Crossing for the first time, I probably enjoyed Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium the most. And I stand by that! No accounting for taste, I suppose.)
Anyway, my dears - Charade was quite the unexpected gem. One of the things I found most notable about it was that I couldn't really place how much of a pastiche it actually is; there are comic elements, but they're generally independent of the plot proper (slightly absurdist moments like Grant wrestling with a larger lady in an orange-passing game; or soaping himself up in the shower while fully dressed). The plot itself, though ridiculous, isn't sent up, and does work in the heightened register of early Bonds or Technicolor Hitchcocks: all Parisian glamour and hotel suites, and a crisp precision and immaculate delivery so mannered it verges on stiltedness.
In particular, a rooftop fight between Grant and that big guy from Naked Gun, against the obligatory huge neon sign, performed with minimal music, works on a 'serious' level, while, given the constantly slithering character motivations, there are moments when even Grant's customary urbanity becomes unexpectedly sinister. Throw in some surprisingly unpleasant deaths and - rather than seeming unbalanced - the tonal variation between these elements and the stars' screwball badinage amounts to a surprisingly satisfying whole.
If it is intended as pastiche, the percussive Henry Mancini score and Saul Bass-style titles could count either way, but, regardless of the intention, it's pretty fun, and shot in an unfussy way that doesn't seem overdone, with flat and in places slightly stylised lighting. (While even the colour palette couldn't be more of its time: all autumnal light browns and grey-greens.)
Either way, it helps that both leads are so predictably endearing, with her elegant flake routine (and impeccable Givenchy wardrobe), his big, perfectly groomed nut-brown face, and their playful bantering chemistry - something very of its time, which I can't imagine being replicated today.
Humour... espionage... impeccable clothes; altogether, pretty satisfying, as trifles go. There are quite delicious twists throughout, too, but it manages to avoid the smug camp of sixties spy parodies like Our Man Flint (though a swaggering, corduroy-suited James Coburn features), or the execrable pop-art abortion of Modesty Blaize (Monica Vitti aside).
"Heroin! Peppermint-flavoured heroin!"
