Sabrina (1954)

Sabrina

Really enjoyed this movie; watched it four times! Happy to have it as a part of my permanant collection. June 27, 2008

Can understand its appeal

*** spoilers ***

Sure, it's sentimatental, predictable, sappy, and you name it. Yes, it is a piece of fluff, but a very well executed piece of fluff. The actors are well defined, as Sabrina tries to woo her childhood crush as Linus makes tries to wean her away so as to make a political marriage happen for the sake of his business. Of course, guess who falls in love with her also, and guess who Sabrina swoons for at the end? I know, real difficult.

What makes this movie excellent in the incredibly witty dialogue, especaially Linus. Though It's unrealistic Sabrina would fall for Linus given his age, the amount of time together, and the extent of her crush on his brother, one doesn't really care because it's so well done. June 5, 2008

A Classic

While it is a bit of a stretch to see Hepburn and Bogart together, this film is a MUCH better version than the modern film with Harrison Ford. Stick to the original. May 29, 2008

Delightful, easy to watch romance

Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn) is the daughter of the chauffeur to the wealthy Larrabee family and is in love with the David Larrabee (William Holden) youngest of the two Larrabee sons, Linus (Bogie!) and David. The two sons couldn't be more different, David the playboy and Linus the stoic, rational business man. To help Sabrina get over her schoolgirl crush on David, her father sends her away to Paris to culinary school. Sabrina leaves Long Island as an awkward waif, and returns a beautiful, elegant Parisian woman still smitten with David. It is the stoic Linus who has fallen head over heals though, but will he recognize it before it is too late? Throw in the complications of a big business deal, family expectations, Edith Piaf songs, and a bit of French joie de vivre (when Americans loved all things Parisian before Freedom Fries became popular!), and you have a great romantic story. This film probably doesn't merit a five star rating, but it is just an easy to watch, light-hearted romance that I never get tired of. There are definitely some plot holes, and Bogie looks like an old man next to Audrey Hepburn, but who cares. Hollywood will be making boy-gets-girl and girl-gets-boy films for the next 1000 years, almost all of them dull, cliched, and forgettable. This film was a hit when it came out and judging from the other Amazon reviews, just as popular today. Highly recommended. April 20, 2008

Flawed Fairy-Tale

I'm probably the only human being in the world who remains immune to the charms of this well-executed piece of fluff from Billy Wilder, whose efforts usually place him among my very favorite directors/writers.

Perhaps I've just gotten too old for this kind of "fairy-tale". But it's one thing to see through a fairy-tale after the lights come up, it's another to see through it while the lights are down. Certainly, realism is not a prerequisite for a fairy-tale (quite the contrary!). But in the case of "Sabrina", to this reviewer it is blindingly evident that absent the unique charm of Audrey Hepburn, whose youthful screen persona could take the pants off a leprechaun with a smile, no one would buy this package. Because Bogart, as Linus Larrabee, is so unpleasant, cold, and physically unappealing, that only his character's enormous wealth makes a relationship between him and the exquisite young Sabrina imaginable, let alone palatable. I suspect most audiences aren't even aware of this , but if you turn Linus into the Larrabee's gardener, or the local traffic cop, or the mailman, or even old man Larrabee's stockbroker, no one would accept the relationship. Linus's wealth is the elephant in the room that was only obliquely acknowledged by murmurs of how "miscast" Bogart was. No one is crass enough to sugggest that without all that money behind him, Sabrina, who is written as not having a venal bone in her body even after growing up on the Larrabee estate, might not have responded to the charm of Linus's sad, late middle-aged need of her. But the idea is nonsensical, especially vis-a-vis the children of domestics raised with the rich. Again, only Hepburn's luminous persona makes this notion even fleetingly plausible.

Taken from Samuel Taylor's original play, "Sabrina Fair", the film showcases Hepburn as Sabrina, daughter of the long-time, loyal British chauffeur (in a familiar portrayal by that master of the caricature Brit, John Dehner) of the filthy rich Long Island Larrabees. Sabrina grows up on the Larrabee estate in that "so near, but yet so far" limbo inhabited by those who serve the very rich. From childhood, Sabrina has loved the younger of the two Larrabee brothers, David (William Holden, with whom Hepburn had a long affair stemming from their work together on this film), watching the debonair playboy woo a string of women of his own social class from her perch in a large tree outside the home over the garage she shares with her widowed father. David's older brother, Linus (Humphrey Bogart) is the businessman of the family, working long hours and caring for nothing but the steady increase in the worth of Larrabee Company's shares.

The entire domestic staff knows of Sabrina's lovesick passion for David, and eventually her father, concerned for her future given her lack of interest in anything but David, sends her off to cooking school in Paris in her mid-teens. There, despite a rough start and homesickness, Sabrina really does learn to cook, and also meets the elderly Baron St. Fontanel (Marcel Dalio), who begins to guide the immature Sabrina through the waters of young adulthood. His lessons are startlingly effective, for, in classic fairy-tale fashion, Sabrina returns home a couple of years later transformed into a chic, self-possessed young woman (not so self-possessed that she has lost her elfin charm - just self-possessed enough to channel it effectively) whose cooking skills are yet far eclipsed by her skill at showcasing that uber-svelte figure in Givenchy-Edith Head creations.

Of course, the first person Sabrina encounters as she returns to the estate, is David - et voila! Love at first sight! David does not realize who Sabrina is until he sees her greeting her father and the rest of the household staff literally on David's own doorstep. He invites Sabrina to the party being held that evening at the Big House, cheerily disregarding that it happens to be his engagement party. As the engagement is more in the nature of a corporate merger engineered by Linus, David can perhaps be forgiven for planning infidelity before the vows are ever spoken. Sabrina is ecstatic: no more staring with her nose pressed up against the bakery window from the other side of the garden wall - this evening, Cinderella is going dancing on the other side.

Sabrina shows up at the party in a couture gown whose Parisian polish puts to shame the fussy creations of the other ladies, and she is instantly surrounded by David's slick Long Island counterparts. (Since Sabrina has yet to earn a penny via the expensive education her father has worked so hard to provide, one can only wonder how she acquired the gown, which is clearly beyond her or her father's means.) As the evening ends, Sabrina's years of longing are at last fulfilled: David Larrabee is now as hopelessly in love with Sabrina as she has been with him for most of her life.

Predictably, when David's family, and most of all, Linus, realize what is afoot, they are appalled: Sabrina is, after all, the daughter of their chauffeur, and, moreoever, there is that upcoming "merger" to consider. Linus decides that emergency action is required, and with David laid up due to an unfortunate accident involving sitting down suddenly, undmindful of a couple of champagne glasses stuffed into his back pockets, Linus sets about breaking up the relationship between Sabrina and David.

Equally predictably, as Linus begins to squire Sabrina about town to "amuse" her while David is recovering from his little accident, Linus himself becomes ensnared by the exquisite-yet-funny, poised-yet-guileless, knowing-but-innocent, Sabrina. Only a young Audrey Hepburn could make us believe for a moment that a young girl who spent years looking dreamily over the wall at the Larrabees' garden parties, clothes, cars, art, mansion, jewels, etc., and who is just back from a worldly education in Paris (the French are known for nothing if not practicality in marital matters) with more than a veneer of sophistication and superb tastes, hasn't the slightest interest in the enormous wealth of the Larrabee brothers.

As played by Bogart, Linus is more dour than a Scotsman on a Sunday night in January, yet we are asked to believe that Sabrina is deeply touched by Linus's loneliness, arid personal life, blind devotion to business, etc. Linus has so little contact with his own psyche, is so unaccustomed to truly enjoying himself, that, in the end, it is David who has to open Linus's eyes to what is going on in Linus's heart.

Linus's plotting, and his feeling for Sabrina, are uncovered in one totally unbelievable scene in the Larrabees' corporate boardroom, necessitating realignments among the three protagonists. Lo and behold! Unsurprisingly to the viewer, who has known all along that Playboy David is too unsubstantial for Sabrina, she discovers that she has been in love with the wrong filthy rich Larrabee brother all this time. The denouement of the film is sillier and less convincing than any fairy-tale can get away with being.

As mentioned above, the persona exibited by Bogart as Linus, far from being sadly appealing, is so cold, hard-edged, dishonest, and more than a little crass, that it borders on the outright ugly. There is too little time for his alleged "other side" to emerge for us to really believe in Sabrina's sudden feeling for Linus. It must be remembered that by this time, Bogart was no longer the unconventionally attractive romantic lead of "Casablanca". No, without all that money to offset his persona, Bogart's Linus simply doesn't convince as the right man for the stunning young Sabrina. Who, it must be reiterated, is perhaps 18 years old, and with her patrician aura, charm, and those cooking skills, could have her pick of any number of equally eligible yet far more appealing men if she only took the time to step off the estate and leave BOTH Larrabee brothers behind. Somewhere out there, Sabrina dear, is a fantastic and well-off man who is neither of these two jackasses.

Whether an actor who might have made Linus more likable would have helped is something about which one can only speculate. The film's problem is that Linus, initially, must present no competition for David in the looks/sex appeal department, yet must emerge as the more desirable "parti". But the fact that I spent so much of the film idly wondering where Sabrina got the money for her expensive Parisian wardrobe, guffawing at the notion that the Larrabee wealth never entered Sabrina's mind as she considered a union with either brother, and imagining the terrific husband she'd have caught if she'd ventured off the Larrabee estate for ten minutes, means that the film failed to make its case with the actors it had.

As I mentioned, I'm aware that I'm in a minority for whom this failure is so manifestly evident. Most people gush over the "fairy-tale" that they think this film embodies. If your fairy-tale standards aren't too stringent, you'll love it. This is Billy Wilder, after all; William Holden is divinely handsome as the debonair and lubricious David; the supporting cast inhabit their stock characters with humor and skill.

But for this reviewer, in the final analysis, only Hepburn's unique screen presence makes the film even watchable, let alone believable. It's a wonder to see her whitewash a story that, underneath it all, is really a wearily familiar one about the exchange of an unattractive old male's wealth for a beautiful young female's flesh.

Wilder gets the blame for this - he changed a few aspects of the original play to suit his lecherous old fantasies, and moreover followed this particular fantasy up with another, "Love in the Afternoon", yet again featuring the dewey Hepburn playing a young girl of about 18, who ends up in the arms of the 56-year-old Gary Cooper - whose character is also filthy rich.

I might have given Wilder a pass on letting his artistic judgment slip on one such film, but two in quick succession are beyond coincidence. The repeated artistic errors in each tell us more about Wilder than they do about the characters with which his wishful thinking has peopled the screen.
March 14, 2008

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