Film Intuition Poll: Billy Wilder's Masterpieces -- The Results

I think it's safe to say that-- given the overwhelming number of diverse classics from which readers selected in pinpointing Billy Wilder's "masterpiece"-- there was no limit to what Wilder could do as a filmmaker.

But how did he do manage to make such a wonderful body of work which topped every single genre? Was it magic? An undeniable gift for creativity? The constant drive to challenge himself from one "picture" to the next?

Perhaps it's all of the above but before we get into the results, here's a little something from Mr. Billy Wilder himself that perhaps gives us a small insight into that genius for filmmaking, which we still celebrate many, many decades later. Or, if not that-- than at the very least words that celebrate his love for writing, craftsmanship, and how to best engage an audience.

From Conversations With Wilder
by Cameron Crowe
(pg. 357)




Wilder's Tips for Writers

1) The audience is fickle.
2) Grab 'em by the throat and never let 'em go.
3) Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
4) Know where you're going.
5) The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
6) If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
7) A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They'll love you forever.
8) In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they are seeing.
9) The event that occurs at the second-act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
10) The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then--
11) --that's it. Don't hang around.

So to heed his advice, I'm not hanging around-- here you go:

Billy Wilder's "Masterpieces"
As Determined By Film Intuition Readers

1) Double Indemnity

2) Sunset Boulevard

3) TIE: The Apartment; Some Like it Hot

4) The Lost Weekend

5) Love in the Afternoon

6) TIE: The Seven Year Itch; Stalag 17; Witness for the Prosecution

DVD Review: Sabrina (1954) -- The Paramount Centennial Collection

Available in a Deluxe Collectible 2-Disc Set
From the Paramount Centennial Collection

Own It:

Click Here to View Video Clips from the Film

On Audrey Hepburn:

"That's the element X that people have, or don't have. You can meet somebody and you can be enchanted, and then you photograph them and it's nothing. But she had it. And there will not be another. She exists forever, in her time. You cannot duplicate her, or take her out of her era. ... She started something new, she started something classy. But no actress should be expected to be Audrey Hepburn. That dress by Mr. Givenchy has already been filled."

--Billy Wilder
As quoted from Cameron Crowe's book
Conversations With Wilder (pg. 52)

In the third release from Paramount's gorgeously packaged 2-Disc DVD Centennial Collection offerings, serving up some of their most acclaimed and best loved films-- following Sunset Boulevard (#1) and Roman Holiday (#2), we encounter Audrey Hepburn in her second American film. The quintessential Hepburn film-- a Cinderella story or Ugly Duckling Story (although nobody could ever use those words to describe Ms. Hepburn)-- master writer/director Billy Wilder adapted Samuel Taylor's play Sabrina Fair along with Ernest Lehman and managed to give it his unique brand of sharp wit, edge, and Ernst Lubitsch inspired charm.

While being a product of my generation, my first introduction to Sabrina was by way of Sydney Pollack's gorgeously photographed color remake, updated for the '90s with the lovely Julia Ormond (whom Wilder told Crowe he disliked), Harrison Ford, and Greg Kinnear. However, as someone who cherishes Hepburn, especially after I read numerous biographies and realized the grace behind the beauty, I was curious to seek out the original. And although it's not my favorite Hepburn film, perhaps due to its wickedly dark set-up which finds the young chauffeur's daughter, Sabrina Fairchild (Hepburn) so in love with the playboy bachelor David Larrabee (William Holden) that she attempts suicide as well as what Crowe described as the incessantly "sour disposition of Humphrey Bogart," it's a sophisticated romantic comedy that I've grown fonder of over time.

Framing it as a modern fairy tale, the young chauffeur's daughter leaves her father and residence living above the garage on the gorgeous and sprawling Larrabee's North Shore Long Island estate for cooking lessons in Paris, where she falls under the kindly tutelage of a baron who remakes her into Audrey 2.0, the Givenchy attired version complete with another updated, chic haircut (similar to Roman Holiday), and much more confidence. Yet, upon her return, complete with a dog she's named David (which was thankfully left out of the remake), she's spotted by none other than the dashing young object of her affection who-- having barely noticed her throughout their mutual childhood spent around one another-- predictably, cannot recognize this perfectly coiffed version standing at the train station two years later.

Although he's engaged to the wealthy and beautiful Elizabeth Tyson (Martha Hyer) in a match that has found his older brother Linus (Bogart) gleefully solidifying with a multimillion dollar business merger, the impulsive David seems ready to throw it all away for Sabrina until Linus takes over and tries to seduce her into-- if not attraction-- than confusion and enough distraction that she'd begin to have doubts. Needless to say, his plan works a little too well as Linus and Sabrina realize that there may be more than just a tiny spark between them, leading to a witty, rushed, and characteristically breakneck conclusion by Wilder as he brings the love triangle to the front burner leading to some terrific scenes by our leads.

However, the film stumbles considerably due to what can no doubt have been Bogart's attempts to sabotage his first Paramount role. Loathing the film, Wilder, Holden, and Hepburn's relative inexperience and need for multiple takes especially given the fact that he knew he was a last minute replacement for Wilder's first choice and the ideal Linus (Cary Grant), although he was the highest paid actor of the three, his disdain shines through. Of course, the trouble rested not just on Bogart, whom it was later discovered was battling a wickedly intense cancer privately as after the film and via Lauren Bacall, he and Wilder mended fences (Crowe, pg. 11) but also the film's script which was constantly changing and at times, the crew would arrive to find there were zero pages to shoot. Always loyal to her director, Hepburn was willing to flub a line or two to buy time as Wilder told Crowe, he remarked that the film "was a difficult time for me... [and the] picture was still being... shaped as we went."

However, there were other legendary battles of egos both onscreen and off, which resulted in some terrific back-stories involving a professional snub of the Oscar winning costume designer Edith Head who created all of Audrey's pre-Paris wardrobe (including that wonderful and perfect character defining dress in her introduction longingly staring at David from a tree) yet forbid Hubert de Givenchy from receiving a much-deserved credit for his work on all of her post-Paris looks. Additionally, the film's plot was echoed in reality as the married Holden began an off-screen affair with Hepburn. Despite the rough edges, however, Sabrina is still a sumptuous work of unparalleled beauty.

Additionally nominated for four other Oscars including one for Wilder's direction, Hepburn's performance (although she'd won previously in Roman Holiday), the extraordinary art direction and Charles Lang Jr.'s cinematography, which make Sabrina one of the best looking films of Hepburn's in the '50s and the one that still holds up remarkably well in this DVD presentation. Yet, aside from the film's flaws in regards to the lack of chemistry between Bogart and Hepburn, it's Audrey who captures our heart from the first moment we see her onscreen and even more so when she returns evolved into something in the same realm as exotic royalty, managing to liven up couture and make it seem irresistible and as natural as a second skin for the actress.



As Crowe noted, "...the picture is... a high-water mark of modern style. An issue of Vogue still rarely goes by without a referencing photo of Sabrina and rightfully so. It is also the definitive display of its beguiling strengths," (pg. 343). And indeed, the film's groundbreaking introduction of fashion into film which would catapult its iconic young star into one of today's most recognizable and still best-loved actresses, is celebrated in a wonderful roughly eighteen minute extra on the DVD's second disc. In "Audrey Hepburn: Fashion Icon," the mini-featurette incorporates the expert evaluations of top designers, historians, and professors including such well-known and respected professionals as Isaac Mizrahi, Cynthia Rowley, and Eduardo Lucero who still cite their endless inspiration from Hepburn's long-time collaboration with Givenchy and the way she changed the rule of the traditional '50s "curvaceous" body shape.

Also featuring six additional featurettes including a great thirty minute biographical look at "William Holden: The Paramount Years," which is a profile of the young gymnast turned soldier turned Hollywood Golden Boy who earned an Oscar nomination with his first Wilder collaboration in Sunset Boulevard. Likewise, there's also a great love-letter to the North Shore of Long Island architecture, history, and location in "Sabrina's World," the many character actors who worked "Supporting Sabrina," a film documentary, as well as a "Behind the Gates" special focusing on the camera department at Paramount ,and a short "Paramount in the '50s-- Retrospective Featurette," which showcased the studio which earned nearly two hundred Oscar nominations and thirty wins in major categories during the decade.

Including a beautiful fact and photograph filled booklet and a keepsake box, Paramount Pictures pulled out all the stops in this tremendous release that is sure to appeal to both Audrey fans and film buffs who are collecting the other works in the Centennial Collection series which will be releasing additional titles in the near future.

Love in the Afternoon (1957)

Director:
Billy Wilder

To borrow an adage my grandfather was fond of repeating, anything can be cured except for a broken heart. Despite this warning, cinema is my favorite prescription for anything that ails. Often, I’ve referred to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours as the perfect antidote to lifting one’s spirits after a horrible date since the film’s poor lead played by Griffin Dunne experiences unspeakably hellish and surprisingly hilarious misunderstandings over the course of one very bad night in New York. Yet another one of my favorite films to cure romantic ills is Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon.

A decidedly cynical yet irresistibly sophisticated romantic comedy—it’s the ideal film for women still weary from the lies told by wooing men-- especially when faced with any of the following on a sliding scale of misdeeds comprised of scoundrels whose eyes follow anything in a skirt even when in the company of another woman, sins of omission regarding men who flirt while neglecting to mention they’re the opposite of single, and worst of all, the revelations of either infidelity or the clichéd but ever-present (especially in this era of Viagra) over-the-hill philandering lothario.

How’s a woman to cope with a constant barrage of calculating manipulation? My remedy is taking great delight and comfort in the lovely, understated performance by Audrey Hepburn as the deceptively naïve, young Parisian girl Ariane Chavasse, who finds herself drawn to a notorious American playboy and decides to beat him at his own game—not through tacky promiscuity but by using intellectual strategy and mental manipulation of her own, taking a cue from right out of her lover’s playbook.

As the daughter of a respected private detective played by the always charming Maurice Chevalier, the motherless, precocious student Ariane finds her imagination working overtime when she’s relegated to practicing her cello in an adjoining room whenever her father discusses his findings with a constant parade of betrayed clients whose spouses have embarked on illicit affairs while making the most of France’s penchant for l’amour. When she learns that Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper), the international jet setting American businessman responsible for most of the marital carnage—not to mention whose dalliances keep her father in business—has become the intended target of an enraged, gun-toting, jealous husband, Ariane embarks on a secretive adventure to intervene in order to save the man’s life, only to lose her heart in the process.

While as far as romantic experience goes, Ariane is definitely a babe in the woods, she’s so familiar with Frank’s dossier that she knows his romantic scorecard by heart yet, much as she tries to prevent becoming ensnared by his smooth, well-rehearsed charms, she finds herself overwhelmed by the attention. And equally, Cooper’s Flannagan becomes utterly fascinated by the nameless waif who intervenes on his behalf, even more so when she refuses to give her name so as not to let Flannagan trace her back to her father’s home, leaving him no choice but to dub the mysterious beauty “Thin Girl.”

Although the two spend an unforgettable day together, as predicted, she’s completely devastated when he must leave Paris, but when he returns much later, Ariane has decided to keep up her mysterious charade by adopting a similarly promiscuous, philandering persona of her own, teasing the much older man with tales of her own “past lovers,” until it’s Flannagan who has ended up even more obsessed with the girl than she had been with him originally.

Intriguingly due to the moral code of the time: While it’s inferred that the two characters whose frequent romantic rendezvous in Flannagan’s Parisian hotel suite and idle dates aboard a boat in the water (in an homage to the impressionist painter Manet; Crowe 144) had been sexual in nature, due to threats from the Catholic church, IMDb reports that Wilder was forced to dub in dialogue indicating the contrary as Cooper is overheard stating, “I can’t get to first base with her” as well as an extra voice-over in the film’s concluding scene.

In an effort to craft his own cinematic version of the “sophisticated wit and style” which led to the term the “Lubitsch Touch,” invented by Wilder’s beloved Ninotchka and Shop Around the Corner writer/director Ernst Lubitsch, he embarked on a tremendously creative collaboration with long time writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond. And as the result of their nearly perfect effort, Love in the Afternoon, the overlooked gem boasts one of Hepburn’s greatest performances in a feminine role that would not only become quintessential to Wilder (she seems like an earlier version of McClaine’s character in The Apartment) but also seems to have had a major influence on writer/director and Wilder devotee Cameron Crowe.

Crowe who cited Jerry Maguire as his own Wilder homage in frequent interviews, seems to have drawn even greater inspiration for his Oscar nominated character Penny Lane (played by Kate Hudson) in Almost Famous from Hepburn’s Thin Girl. In addition, he’s often shared the story of the now late Billy Wilder’s impressed reaction to Hudson’s memorable sequence illustrating Penny’s seriocomic heartache upon learning she was bartered in a poker game scene in Famous, making this parallel seem much stronger if you view Afternoon right before Famous. Additionally, the mutual respect the two share for each other is on excellent display in the nonfiction book I cited earlier, Cameron Crowe’s Conversations With Wilder.

Sadly, although the film always makes me recall the bittersweet and heartrending finale of Thin Girl running alongside Flannagan’s train until he makes the impulsive decision to pull her aboard (one of the most underrated romantic moments in movie history), most of the critical analysis given to the film concerns the staggering age difference from a far too old Cooper and his much, much younger love interest. Ironically, it’s rumored that Cary Grant was Wilder’s first choice for the role but he’d turned the film down because of the age issue himself. And while I do feel the chemistry would’ve benefited from pairing Hepburn with someone a bit younger or who possesses equally fiery intensity (possibly like Gregory Peck whom she sizzled with in Roman Holiday or even—to name two of her other costars—William Holden or Henry Fonda), Cooper does a fine job. In fact, in her autobiography, Hepburn stated that Gary Cooper had lost none of his sex appeal with age. And admittedly, although I do cherish the film, some scenes are a bit cringe-worthy when you realize that Cooper looks—if not as old—than in the same genuine bracket as Chevalier (who portrays her father), which does hinder its believability slightly.

Still, in a way, it makes his performance as Flannagan seem all the more fragile and therefore irresistible when the shy, innocent, yet love-struck Thin Girl manages to beat the manipulative, sneaky, philandering man at his own game by knocking him off his feet, all with the power of a few well chosen words and of course, the incalculable dazzling charisma possessed by Audrey Hepburn herself. Thus in the end, it's the delicate Hepburn and not tough High Noon star Cooper who manages to score one for the heartsick ladies.

For-- as The Beach Boys sang in “I Get Around”-- unless you’re willing to pay the price, “It wouldn’t be right, to leave your best girl home now on Saturday night,” so henceforth, Thin Girl gets around… if only in her imagination and only with the best of intentions. And after all, is there a greater intention than love?