This past weekend, my family (me, my wife, our four kids and daughter-in-law, all in their 20s) started a new tradition: a "Final Friday of the Month" get-together in which we'll meet for dinner and then watch a movie of someone's choice, according to a rotation that we drew up. Since Julie and I suggested the idea, and with this film being next up in my blogging queue, I took it upon myself to nominate Charade, the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn comedy-spy-thriller produced and directed by Stanley Donen, as our inaugural selection. It turned out to be quite a hit. Four of us had watched it probably five or six years ago, long enough for most of the plot twists and surprises to have been mostly forgotten since then. My recollection of the film led me to believe that it had a little something for everyone - a clever and unpredictable story line, glamorous star power, witty banter, playfully morbid humor, adventure and suspense, glamorous locations, great background music, solid cinematic craftsmanship at all levels of the production and a timeless classic style that would make the film fun and accessible to our group without forcing anyone to work all that hard.
That's pretty much what I expected, and exactly what we got. We laughed, we gasped, we said "whoa!" in all the right spots, and when the various pieces of this intelligently constructed puzzle fell into place, arriving at a satisfying ending with impeccable timing and confident execution, we had already reached an instant, easy consensus. Charade is a great film, one worth turning around and rewatching right away just for the sake of admiring how efficiently all those elements come together to provide a swift and charming piece of entertainment.
Having said that, I'm not sure that I have a whole lot more to offer in terms of in-depth analysis of its message or significance. Recapping the story seems pointless - there are plenty of plot summaries already posted elsewhere online, but the point of the film is to be taken by surprise, so I have no desire to spoil it, even for those who like me may have seen the film already but lost track of some of the pivot points or simply forgotten many of the snappy one-liners. Beyond that, the impact of the film is so light and frivolous that mere admiration seems sufficient - like the party game it's named after, the film only aspires to be an amusing diversion.
Compared to the thematic heavier lifting required in films I've recently reviewed here like The Insect Woman (poverty, incest, prostitution), The Organizer (workers' rights), The Fire Inside (suicide), The Silence (God's apparent indifference to suffering humanity and our failure to adequately communicate with each other), Hands Over the City (political corruption) or even Shock Corridor (racism, atomic paranoia and insanity), Charade is a breezy romp, even though the story involves multiple murders committed by a dangerous and highly efficient serial killer. That's because its characters are little more than cartoon cut-out figures developed for the express purpose of functioning in the roles required of them to make the mystery engaging and surprising as the narratives unfolds. The only character with any degree of psychological depth to speak of is Reggie, the female protagonist around whom the whole plot revolves.
We meet her as a woman contemplating divorce due to an unsatisfying marriage marred by her husband's excessive secrecy. A chance encounter with a handsome grey-haired stranger reveals her to be aggressively flirtatious toward a man old enough to be her father. When she learns that her husband's been found dead alongside some railroad tracks, her reaction is strangely muted, and when she's questioned by a police inspector about her spouse's personal wealth and acquaintances, she can only say "I don't know." Once the intrigues begin, she finds herself being pursued by a hostile gang of thugs who suspect her of possessing a fortune that belongs to them. To ensure her safety, she must rely on the conflicting directions of a pair of advisers more experienced at these sorts of spy games. Though she's in terrible danger and utterly confused as to who she can trust, Reggie's predatory pursuit of a man she finds irresistibly attractive overrides both her common sense and her survival instincts, as she continually throws herself into the clutches of a stranger she barely knows, who just might be harboring a malicious intent...
That's all quite fascinating for those of us who like to psychoanalyze the motivations of our favorite movie characters, but this somewhat transgressive, female-empowering dimension of the story isn't ever explored with any depth... and no wonder. It wasn't even part of the original story - Reggie's forthrightness only came about as a last-minute rewrite of the script, a result of Cary Grant's reluctance to be the sexual aggressor toward Audrey Hepburn, as would have normally been the custom in caper films like this one. But he was 26 years older than her and concerned that he'd look too creepy or absurd in the eyes of the audience, going after an attractive young widow so shamelessly.
In the context of "Criterion films of 1963" (or really, the entire Criterion Collection itself), there really isn't anything that quite compares to Charade. The three titles that Criterion suggests as "Related Films" on their website's Charade page (The 39 Steps, Hopscotch and The Lady Eve) do make sense, and they're all very fine movies. But none of them strike today's viewer with the same level of glistening pizzazz that we get in this top-notch Hollywood production. Carey Grant (near the end of his career) and Audrey Hepburn (right at the top of her game, right between Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady) remain, some fifty years later, iconic movie stars with a broad contemporary appeal. The supporting cast boasts solid performances from relatively familiar names like Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy. Stanley Donen is perhaps the most celebrated director of 20th century Hollywood musicals, but, like Hepburn, this is his only CC offering - aside from the old laserdisc of Singin' in the Rain. (Grant was also featured in Notorious, one of the three American Hitchcock films that Criterion had ever-so-brief access to in the early 2000s before MGM snatched the rights out of their hands.) Add the draw of a Henry Mancini soundtrack (again, one of only two Criterion offerings that feature music the legendary film composer) and Maurice Binder's dazzling opening credit sequence, and you have the kind of movie that an operation like Universal Studios wouldn't ordinarily hand over to a boutique imprint in order to share in the profits.
But an infamous technical oversight back when Charade was first released helped to create an opportunity for Criterion to publish their own edition and probably even gave the studio some motivation to support the project in order to set the record straight. The lack of a simple © symbol (or any other mention of the word "copyright" in those flashy opening titles) put Charade immediately in the public domain, since US law at that time required some kind of text to be visible in order for a rights holder to claim that privilege. Though that loophole was closed in 1978, the film had been subjected to a flood of low-quality home video releases. After all, what bootlegger can resist the opportunity to feature such talent on the cover of a shitty "20 movies on three flip-discs" DVD compilation, with no legal culpability whatsoever? So somehow or another, the dismal fate that Charade had been consigned to as a result of this screw-up must have provided incentive for Universal to collaborate with Criterion for an authorized edition back in 1999, back when studios were a lot more generous and willing to let someone else come up with the deluxe packaging and bonus features. And of course, nobody did it any better back in the dawn of the DVD era than the Criterion Collection.
The Universal/Criterion partnership has been renewed twice since that original DVD release, once back in 2004 after the disc was re-issued with an anamorphic transfer and again in 2010 when Universal bequeathed the privilege of making Criterion's version the only blu-ray edition of the film currently available, even though Universal has also released Charade on their own label with different supplements focusing more on the history of their studio than on the movie itself. They also have a blu-ray line of their own that they continue to infuse with selections from their impressive catalog of all-time classics, including Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection, which I hear some people would expect to include Charade because of its Hitchcockian accents. I'm glad that it worked out the way it did - the Criterion edition features a wonderful commentary track with Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone exchanging anecdotes and, every so often, some argumentative barbs that hint at some lingering tensions between them after all these years. I suppose that's just what happens when towering egos with nothing left to lose are free to say what's on their mind, regardless of who might be listening in. The insights they offer on the making of the film elevates my respect for the creative forces behind the Charade. Their willingness to reverse traditional gender roles (regardless of considerations of contractual expediency and placating the anxiety of their desired male lead) and inject edgy macabre humor into a mainstream star vehicle intended for mass consumption carried more risk than we might give them credit for without taking the times into consideration. Beyond being simply a charming nostalgia blast from Hollywood's past, Charade forged into new territory, making it truly "an important classic and contemporary film."