Charade (1963)

Directed by Stanley Donen. Starring Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, Ned Glass, George Kennedy, Jacques Marin, Dominique Minot, Paul Bonifas.

Lightweight but flavorful romantic-mystery caper makes for a dapper dandy, fusing Hitchcockian negotiation with a swing jazz imbalance so that everything fits neatly so long as very little thought is put into its puzzle (dare to crack the brain knuckles, however, and it all spins out of control). The spark is gone from Hepburn’s marriage, but before she has the chance to divorce her hubby, he’s found dead. Soon, multiple dangerous men are making untoward threats in their voracious search for a quarter of a million dollars that the husband had in his possession, to say nothing for the appearance of a duplicitous smoothie played by Grant—he also wants the money, but she wants him instead. Few things don’t work in this crackerjack entertainment, even the potentially dubious pairing of Hepburn with the twenty-five-years-her-senior Grant, but Grant’s nimble charms are ageless, and the two glow and glisten together. In fact, considering how deceit is so central to his character, who else but Grant could so effortlessly get away with the chicanery and always stay likable? The voice of that little kid, though… Sprightly but elegant music by Henry Mancini; he also wrote the title tune with a Johnny Mercer lyric and vocal. Remade in 2002 as The Truth About Charlie.

84/100