Sunday 7 April 2013

Charade (1963 Stanley Donen)

Finally the time was right for CHARADE which has a very funny script by Peter Stone. "Let me know what you're eating and I'll wear a suit to match".

Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy, Ned Glass, Jacques Marin (Marathon Man). The little boy is not from Belle and Sebastian.






Great score by Mancini includes an atonal chord which seemed to set the way for jazzy thrillery music like Dirty Harry, with vibes etc.

Jim Clark edits trendily, cutting in a modern sixties style, using the device where a conversation continues over different locations (probably quite innovative, though I daresay Zazie had already done it). Also love the expert cutting on pillars as Grant chases Hepburn at end.

An alternative end would have been if the stamp dealer had said "No, I've never seen this boy and didn't buy any stamps".

The stamps are real ones, but raised by a value of one (for some odd reason).

Charles Lang's photography looks great on BR, back projection good (an unfortunate side-effect of BR is to expose the poorness of a lot of back-projection). And I like the reverb on voices when they go through tunnels, and background sound fading when they face to face in orange passing scene.

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