Charade (1963)

Charade is one odd cookie of a movie.

Audrey Hepburn is Regina Lampert, who upon returning to Paris from a holiday plans to ask her husband for a divorce. When she returns to their home though she finds it completely empty and is soon notified that her husband was found dead after someone threw him from a train.

Strangers show up at his funeral and test the body to make sure he's really dead. She then finds out from CIA agent Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Mathau) that her husband was part of a group of soldiers who buried money that they were supposed to give to the French Resistance during World War II. Mr. Lampert had recently gone back to the site and dug up the money for himself but no one could find it in his possessions. So now Regina and her new randomly-found friend Peter Joshua (Carey Grant) need to figure out where the money is so they can return it to the US before Mr. Lampert's fellow ex-soldiers hunt them down and take it from them.

If it sounds goofy with serious elements that aren't taken seriously, that's because it is. It's also all over the board.

Regina is threatened and intimidated by the ex-soldiers. But then for no apparent reason they don't scare her anymore. Then they follow suit and become more accommodating.

Regina trusts Peter even though she just met him. Then she thinks maybe she can't. Then again maybe she can. Then again, oh look there's Audrey Hepburn managing to be the most fashionable and out-of-nowhere stealthy person in Paris. (Well she was dressed by Givenchy.)

And after all this dated flightiness, I was ready to write it off. But then, in the last fifteen minutes, it becomes this suddenly gripping, really serious, really interesting film. It's as if the film was a balloon floating around Paris and suddenly someone jumped up on a chair, grabbed the string, tied a rock to it and grounded the darn thing. Really it was for the best.

Rating: 3/5

Recommended for: People who like their well-dressed screwball comedies to have sudden moments of gravitas and violence that doesn't involve animals or a man being hit in the crotch

Notorious (1946)

Alfred Hitchcock directs Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains in this 1946 film-noir thriller. Good news for the squeamish and jumpy: There are no birds pecking anyone, no one being attacked in a shower, no one almost gets mowed down by a plane, and it won't make you dizzy.

Bergman is Alicia, the daughter of a former Nazi, asked by US agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) to spy on some of her father's former friends in Brazil. She leads a willy-nilly life and harbors a bit of guilt over her father's actions, so she drops everything and goes with it. It just so happens that the leader of these "friends", Alexander Sebastian, was once in love with Alicia, so it's pretty easy for her to slip into their group and the next thing she (and the audience) knows he's asking her to marry him. Continuing with her "oh what the heck" attitude, she goes with that too. Alexander's mother suspects something's strange about Alicia that moment she walks in and eventually Alexander comes to be of that opinion too.

So what does a man with a shady past and present do when he figures out he's married to a spy? It's where the movie really gets interesting and the audience feels any investment in the characters start to mature. Alicia definitely isn't the gun-toting, rip-line-using, bustier-wearing Mrs. Smith of the 2005 Jolie-Pitt spy flick. She's in over her head with absolutely no training. Her only back-up is Devlin, who can't tell if she's taking the mission seriously or not and isn't sure if he can get her out before it's too late.

On the other team, we have the elderly Mrs. Sebastian who seems to be just waiting for a chance to put cruel words to actions, and her son, who has the wealth and network to do almost whatever he wants. Even though there's clearly a limited window for everyone involved, the film's pacing doesn't seem to speed up at all which serves to double the tension and make the conclusion all the more dramatic.

Rating: 4/5
Recommended for: Everyone over age 12, even if you don't usually like Hitchcock films

Extended review: Ok. I'll concede this: sending someone on a mission as a spy with no training and no exit plan doesn't seem that realistic. Perhaps that way they thought Alicia would seem more natural/less suspicious? Devlin does a good job of sliding into the scene next to her as an old friend but she meets with him so often right in broad daylight of course it eventually makes people wonder. It's probably why I didn't find myself that involved in the film until she's figured out. As Alicia slowly dies, you think Devlin will figure it out and save the day, but instead, in a moment of great irony, Alicia's well-known drinking habit is what stops Devlin from really checking in to why she seems a bit off. When Devlin finally comes to check on her the slow rescue right in front of the bad guys still infuses a little doubt that she'll be saved. Hitchcock has done something great here with expectations. You expect sneaking and running and you get slowly stepping and eye-to-eye confrontation. Questions of Devlin's aptitude are put to rest when he finally manages not only to save her, but stick Alexander in a no-win situation that'll prove to be his undoing. Cary Grant pulls it off so suavely that you may think he's not such a poor agent after all.