Charade (1963 film)

Charade
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stanley Donen
Screenplay by	Peter Stone
Based on	The Unsuspecting Wife 1961 short story[1] by Peter Stone Marc Behm
Produced by	Stanley Donen
Starring	Cary Grant Audrey Hepburn Walter Matthau James Coburn
Cinematography	Charles Lang
Edited by	Jim Clark
Music by	Henry Mancini
Production company	Stanley Donen Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	December 5, 1963 (1963-12-05) (United States)
Running time	113 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3 million[2]
Box office	$13.4 million[3]

Charade is a 1963 American romantic comedy mystery film directed by Stanley Donen,^[4] written by Peter Stone and Marc Behm, and starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The cast also features Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy, Dominique Minot, Ned Glass, and Jacques Marin. It spans three genres: suspense thriller, romance and comedy.

The film has a sparkling screenplay, especially the repartee between Grant and Hepburn. It was filmed on location in Paris. Henry Mancini's score features the popular theme song Charade. It has animated titles by Maurice Binder. Charade has received generally positive reviews from critics. It has been described as "the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made".^[5]

Plot[]

While on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, expatriate American simultaneous interpreter Regina "Reggie" Lampert tells her friend Sylvie that she has decided to divorce her husband Charles. She also meets a charming American stranger, Peter Joshua.

On her return to Paris, she finds her apartment stripped bare. A police inspector notifies her that Charles sold off their belongings, then was murdered while trying to leave Paris. The money is missing. Reggie is given her husband's travel bag, containing a letter addressed to her, a ship ticket to Venezuela, four passports in multiple names and nationalities, and other items. At Charles' sparsely attended wake, only three men show up to view the body—all to ensure that he is dead.

Reggie is summoned to meet CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew at the American Embassy. She learns that the three men at the wake are Herman Scobie, Leopold W. Gideon, and Tex Panthollow. During World War II, they, Charles, and Carson Dyle went on an OSS operation to deliver $250,000 ($3.7 million in current dollar terms) in gold to the French Resistance, but instead, they stole it for themselves. Carson was fatally wounded in a German ambush, and Charles double-crossed the others, taking all the gold. The three survivors are after the missing money, as is the U.S. government. Hamilton insists she has it, even if she does not know where—and that she is in great danger.

Peter locates Reggie and helps her move into a hotel. The three criminals separately threaten her, each convinced that she knows where the money is. Herman then shocks her, claiming that Peter is in league with them, after which Peter confesses to her that he is really Carson Dyle's brother Alexander, trying to bring the others to justice as he believes they killed Carson.

As the hunt for the money continues, Herman is found murdered, then Leopold. Then Hamilton tells Reggie Carson Dyle had no brother. When confronted, Peter admits he is actually Adam Canfield, a professional thief. Although frustrated by his dishonesty, Reggie still trusts him.

Reggie and Adam (alias Peter) go to the location of Charles's last appointment and find an outdoor market. Spotting Tex there, Adam follows him. At the sight of stamp-selling booths, Adam and Tex each realize that Charles must have bought several extremely rare and valuable stamps and affixed them to the envelope in his travel bag. Both men race back to Reggie's hotel room, only to realize that she has given the stamps to Sylvie's son Jean-Louis for his collection. Suddenly Reggie, at the outdoor market, realizes the envelope's significance. She learns that Jean-Louis sold the stamps to a trader, who gave the boy 10 francs' worth of stamps in return. The trader admits the stamps are worth $250,000 in total and happily returns them.

Back at the hotel, Reggie finds Tex's body with the name "Dyle" scrawled next to it. Convinced that Adam is the murderer after all, a frightened Reggie telephones Hamilton, who tells her to meet him at the Colonnade at the Palais-Royal. Adam spots her leaving the hotel and gives chase. At the Colonnade, Reggie is caught out in the open between the two men. Adam tells her that Hamilton is really Carson Dyle: after surviving the German ambush he became obsessed with revenge on his ex-comrades and reclaiming the treasure. After another chase that ends in an empty theater, Reggie hides in the prompt box. Carson almost shoots her but Adam activates a trapdoor under Carson and he falls to his death.

The next day, Reggie and Adam go to the embassy to turn over the stamps, Adam refusing to go in. Inside, Reggie discovers that Adam is really Brian Cruikshank, the government official responsible for recovering stolen property. Now that his true identity is revealed, he proposes.

The film ends with a split-screen grid showing flashback shots of his four identities (Peter, Adam, Alexander, Brian), while Reggie says she hopes they have lots of boys, so they can name them all after him.

Cast[]

• Cary Grant as Brian Cruikshank (alias Peter Joshua) (alias Alexander Dyle) (alias Adam Canfield)
• Audrey Hepburn as Regina "Reggie" Lampert
• Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle (alias Hamilton Bartholomew)
• James Coburn as Tex Panthollow
• George Kennedy as Herman Scobie
• Dominique Minot as Sylvie Gaudel
• Ned Glass as Leopold W. Gideon
• Jacques Marin as Inspector Edouard Grandpierre
• Paul Bonifas as Mr. Felix, the stamp dealer
• Thomas Chelimsky as Jean-Louis Gaudel

Production[]

When screenwriters Peter Stone and Marc Behm submitted their script The Unsuspecting Wife around Hollywood, they were unable to sell it. Stone then turned it into a novel, retitled Charade, which found a publisher and was serialized in Redbook magazine, as many novels were at the time. The series caught the attention of the same Hollywood companies that had passed on it earlier. The film rights were quickly sold to producer/director Stanley Donen. Stone then wrote the final shooting script, tailored to stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, with Behm receiving story co-credit.

Hepburn shot the film in the fall of 1962, immediately after Paris When It Sizzles, which was filmed that summer in a number of the same locations in Paris, but difficulties with the earlier production caused it to be released four months after Charade.

When the film was released at Christmas time, 1963, Audrey Hepburn's line, "at any moment we could be assassinated", was dubbed over with "at any moment we could be eliminated" due to the recent assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The dubbed word stood out quite clearly, so official video releases of the film have since restored the original dialogue, though some public domain videos taken from original release prints still carry the redubbed line.

Cary Grant, who turned 59 during filming, was sensitive about the 25-year age difference between Audrey Hepburn (33 at the time of filming) and himself, and was uncomfortable with their romantic interplay. To satisfy his concerns, the filmmakers agreed to add dialogue that has Grant's character comment on his age, and Regina — Hepburn's character — is portrayed as the pursuer.^[6]

The screenwriter, Peter Stone, and the director, Stanley Donen, have an unusual joint cameo role in the film. When Reggie goes to the U.S. Embassy to meet Bartholomew, two men get on the elevator as she gets off. The man who says, "I bluffed the old man out of the last pot — with a pair of deuces" is Stone, but the voice is Donen's. Stone's voice is later used for the U.S. Marine who is guarding the Embassy at the film's ending.

Critical reception[]

Charade received generally positive reviews from critics, receiving a 94% approval rating based on 50 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.40/10 and the consensus: "A globetrotting caper that prizes its idiosyncratic pieces over the general puzzle, Charade is a delightful romp with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn's sparkling chemistry at the center of some perfectly orchestrated mayhem."^[7] On Metacritic the film has a score of 83% based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[8]

In a review published January 6, 1964, in The New York Times by Bosley Crowther, the film was criticized for its "grisly touches" and "gruesome violence" despite receiving praise for its screenplay with regard to its "sudden twists, shocking gags, eccentric arrangements and occasionally bright and brittle lines" as well as Donen's direction,^[9] said to be halfway between a 1930s screwball comedy and North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock, which also starred Cary Grant.^[9]

In a Time Out review, the film was rated positively, with the assertion that it is a "mammoth audience teaser [...] Grant imparts his ineffable charm, Kennedy (with metal hand) provides comic brutality, while Hepburn is elegantly fraught".^[10] While reviewing the blu-ray DVD version of the film, Chris Cabin of Slant Magazine gave the film a positive three-and-a-half out of five rating, calling it a "high-end, kitschy whodunit"^[11] and writing that it is a "riotous and chaotic take on the spy thriller, essentially, but it structurally resembles Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None as well as describing it as "some sort of miraculous entertainment".^[11] '

Accolades[]

Award	Category	Subject	Result
Academy Awards	Best Original Song ("Charade")	Henry Mancini Johnny Mercer	Nominated
BAFTA Awards	Best Foreign Actor	Cary Grant	Nominated
	Best British Actress	Audrey Hepburn	Won
David di Donatello	Golden Plate		Won
Edgar Award	Best Motion Picture	Peter Stone	Won
Golden Globe Awards	Best Actor – Musical or Comedy	Cary Grant	Nominated[12]
	Best Actress – Musical or Comedy	Audrey Hepburn	Nominated[12]
Laurel Awards	Top Comedy		3rd place
	Top Male Comedy Performance	Cary Grant	2nd place
	Top Female Comedy Performance	Audrey Hepburn	3rd place
	Top Song ("Charade")	Henry Mancini	5th place

American Film Institute list nominations

• 2001 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills
• 2002 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions
• 2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores

Public domain status[]

The film includes a notice reading "MCMLXIII BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES COMPANY, INC. and STANLEY DONEN FILMS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED", but omitting the word "Copyright", "Copr.", or the symbol "©". At the time (before 1978), U.S. law required works to include the word, abbreviation, or symbol in order to be copyrighted.^[13][14][15] Because Universal put no proper copyright notice on Charade, the film entered public domain in the United States immediately upon its release.^[16] Copies from film prints of varying quality have been available on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray based on its status in the public domain. The film is also available for free download at the Internet Archive.^[17] However, while the film itself is public domain, the original music remains under copyright if outside of the context of the film.^[18] The film remains fully protected by copyright outside the U.S.^{[citation needed]}

Soundtrack[]

The soundtrack album for the film, featuring Henry Mancini's score, was released in 1963 and reached No. 6 on the Billboard magazine's pop album chart.

See also[]

• List of American films of 1963
• The Truth About Charlie, a 2002 remake of Charade

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charade.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Charade

• Charade at IMDb
• Charade at AllMovie
• Charade at the TCM Movie Database
• Charade at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Charade is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• Charade: The Spy in Givenchy an essay by Bruce Eder at the Criterion Collection