BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Tacticalin
An absolute waste of money
Hayleigh Joseph
This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.
clanciai
For once, Billy Wilder strikes home concerning the music. Usually the music was the weak point in his films, his best films are those without any music, and sometimes his lack of musicality and terrible use of music, sometimes even degrading music itself, ruined the entire picture, like in "The Seven Year Itch" where he vulgarized Rachmaninov almost to prostitution. But here Franz Waxman saves the show and fills the whole picture with not only "Fascination" but with a number of other endearing evergreens as well. It has been pointed out in any number of reviews how Gary Cooper spoils the picture by being miscast, but it's worse than that. His whole character is a failure, and he isn't even convincing as such. Billy Wilder had a penchant for cheap vulgarizations, and here Gary Cooper is the means. They excuse him for being old and sick, he was 56 and Audrey 28, and he had only about 5 years left to live. Here he is an old pathetic playboy, spoiled beyond hope as a millionaire, and Maurice Chevalier is more right about his character than he is aware of. Also Maurice saves the show by turning serious for a change - and saving the situation. Audrey Hepburn, the script and the music save the picture most of all and turn it into perhaps Billy Wilder's most delightful comedy in spite of Gary Cooper's insufficiency. I saw it fifty years ago, but it was a greater pleasure to see it again - especially for the very outstanding music. After all, Audrey Hepburn is here a cellist.And not only Audrey and the music save the picture, but there is John McGiver as well. He would make another decisive appearance in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" as the jeweller, a minor supporting character but the most important spice for the whole film.
atlasmb
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.
jakerresq
Hepburn at her best-Chevalier too-need say no more. Cooper miscast? Not so fast. This is 1957 and the strong, silent American is still in vogue- especially with impressionable young French women who remember these supermen dispatching the Nazis. Does he seem tired? Yes-he's aging, unhappy and has turned to a desperate hedonism with dubious success. He doesn't really like himself but doesn't know what else to do. He meets Audrey and is reborn (who wouldn't be?). And yes-he is very much a father figure-the tall, impregnable father Audrey never had-oh Maurice was kind, knowing and lovable, but hardly heroic.Connery and Eastwood would have worked as well but they weren't around yet. Peck?-too "good"- Grant?-too charming and glib. O'Tool?-too flip. Bogart?-not exactly heroic.It's a classic and perfect for its time. Only weakness-no "happily ever after" could ever live up to the departing train scene-his facial expressions were Oscar worthy and Wilder knew enough to keep him mute.An Oscar for that too.
enochpsnow
I agree with most of the IMDb reviewers in their appreciation for "Love in the Afternoon." It is a charming love story, made especially touching by the beautiful performance of Audrey Hepburn. A fine actress throughout her career, Hepburn's golden age was clearly the 1950s when her youthful innocence and eager, expectant face made the vulnerability of her characters seem entirely believable and very sympathetic. Having the aging Maurice Chevalier as her father in "Love in the Afternoon" was an inspired bit of casting, and the two of them seemed to fit perfectly as father and daughter.But, of the major actors of the late fifties, Gary Cooper was probably the worst possible choice to play the young Hepburn's first great love, Mr. Flannagan. It is not so much that Cooper was too old a man to be the love interest of Hepburn's character, Ariane, although Cooper certainly looked very old and tired in the movie. Because Ariane is shown to be both innocent and impressionable, one could imagine her falling in love with an older and more sophisticated gentleman. In the movie "Funny Face," Hepburn plays a character like Ariane who falls in love with the equally aged Fred Astaire, and that relationship seems quite believable.The problem with casting Cooper in "Love in the Afternoon" is that Mr. Flannagan is supposed to be a rather heartless, love-'em-and-leave-'em kind of guy, while Cooper's entire career in later life was devoted to playing honest, honorable, loyal men of strong and unshakable convictions. Perhaps the definitive Cooper role in the 1950s was the sheriff in "High Noon." To have him play an aging, indifferent roué was an almost absurd bit of miscasting which, for me, did not seem believable for a minute."Love in the Afternoon" is a beautiful love story – often touching and, thanks to the gypsies, sometimes very funny. What a shame that Cary Grant, Tyrone Power, and Fred Astaire himself were not available to play the movie's leading man.
