Silver Screen in a Red Envelope: A Diary of Time Wasted

 This black-and-white film about an aging American playboy who becomes interested in some French jail-bait had the script, but not the amusement factor of Daddy Long-Legs. The lines were great, and Maurice Chevalier especially delivered them perfectly, but my interest and belief waned severely in the final scenes. Although the scene at the train-station was heart-wrenchingly beautiful, and certainly calculated to make the little sympathetic heart go pit-a-pat, Audrey Hepburn's acting showed there its greatest inconsistency. During the film, her character has Gary Cooper's character completely fooled; he knows she's a little vixen - a woman of the world, and yet, suddenly she's unable to find the strength to keep back a few tears as he leaves Paris? It's implausible, and a little frustrating to those of us who wanted to enjoy the ending. Still, Rottentomatoes gave it an 80%. We shrug.

 Apparently William Holden spend most of this production drunk, which works out just fine, because so was his character. The appeal of this film is its only marginally controlled lambaste (is that a word? probably just the wrong part of speech) of Hollywood back in the era in which the film was made. I'm not sure how pertinent it would be for Hollywood today, but it's certainly amusing to those of us who study old films. It's not just amusing, it's very, very funny. The jokes come quickly, but they exhibit such a wry and pointed sense of humor, that you definitely giggle. Tony Curtis's role was probably my favorite, as the main love story, much like the medieval rom coms it mocked, made very little sense, ultimately. This film's a must for classic movie lovers.