Sabrina

Sabrina is a fairytale love story set around themes of rivalry and class. Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is a chauffer’s daughter, living on a large Long Island Estate. For some time she’s been in love with the rich and careless David Larrabee (William Holden) who barely notices her. After two years studying in Paris, the grownup Sabrina returns a beautiful and sophisticated woman and David falls in love. The couple’s relationship threatens to derail a big merger for the family company so David’s brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) decides to woo the girl himself before packing her back off to Paris.

This film is one of several in my girlfriend’s DVD collection that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while. Hepburn is her favourite actress but it was Sabrina I chose over other films because of the male stars. I’ll happily watch anything Bogart and Holden are in but have to say that I was a little disappointed with this film. The stars failed to gel on screen and a little reading tells me that Bogart was unhappy for the duration of the shoot with both director Billy Wilder and his co-star Hepburn who he believed needed too many takes to get her dialogue right. There was better chemistry between Holden and Hepburn which isn’t surprising as the two began a brief affair while shooting the movie.

Dial M for Murder

A classic Hitchcock mystery thriller, Dial M for Murder was released in the same year as Rear Window but isn’t as well known and didn’t make as much money as the latter film. The movie threads themes of mystery, betrayal and most notably the search for the perfect murder, a theme which permeates much of Hitchcock’s work but most notably Rope, Strangers on a Train and Shadow of a Doubt. The plot centres around a London flat where a husband, Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) blackmails a former college acquaintance (Anthony Dawson) into murdering his Wife (Grace Kelly) who he believes is having an affair with an American crime novelist (Robert Cummings). Wendice plans the perfect murder but when things go wrong he is quick to think and finds another way of dispatching of his wife.

Like the majority of the dozen or so Hitchcock films I’ve seen so far, Dial M for Murder is very good. Although it is no Psycho or Rope it is a well above average mystery film which features a terrific plot and some decent performances.

Rear Window

Based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story It Must be Murder, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 Mystery film is regarded as one of the Director’s finest. Having broken his leg while away on an assignment, photographer Jeff Jefferies (James Stewart) whiles away the hours watching his neighbours from the window of his apartment. One day he wakes up to discover that a woman across the courtyard is no longer there and her husband is acting suspiciously. With the help of his girlfriend Lisa Freemont (Grace Kelly), Jeff investigates his suspected murder case from the confines of his window side wheelchair.

I’ve only seen around half a dozen of Hitchcock’s films but I’ve found that my favourites are those which I have heard nothing about. I was a little bit disappointed by North by Northwest but loved Rope and Shadow of a Doubt. Rear Window falls somewhere in between. I can certainly see why it is considered so great but there are films in the Director’s extensive cannon which are just as if not more impressive.

On the Waterfront

The winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1954, On the Waterfront is a crime drama about urban violence and corruption amongst longshoremen in the New York docks. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a former prize fighter turned longshoreman with links to mob connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). After the death of a dock worker in suspicious circumstances, his sister (Eva Marie Saint) begins sniffing around and becomes involved with Terry which causes him to be torn between two worlds and right and wrong.

The film was nominated for an impressive twelve Academy Awards, winning eight including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando) and Best Supporting Actress (Saint). With eight wins it joined Gone with the Wind and From here to Eternity as the most highly decorated films in history at that time. The film itself was a fairly low budget expose of the corrupt underworld of the New York docks and bought to light the now common themes of mob racketeering and deaf and dumb police cooperation.

Seven Samurai

"I've got nothing out of fighting; I'm alone in the world"

During the late sixteenth century a poor farming village hires seven masterless Samurai to help to combat a group of forty bandits who return each year after harvest to steal their crop. After much searching the farmers eventually discover a wise and experienced Samurai called Kambei (Takashi Shimura) who agrees to not only help them but also find six more Samurai to protect the village.

Along with Kambei the villagers recruit a band of warriors which includes the young and untested Katsushiro (Iaso Kimura), a skilled archer called Gorobei (Yoshio Inaba), Kyuzo (Seiji Miyaguchi) – a solemn and stone faced master swordsman and my favourite, the drunk and unpredictable Kikuchiyo (Toshirō Mifune). Along with Heihachi and Shichirōji they become the Seven Samurai. I hadn’t seen this film before now but had always been aware that it was considered one of the best films of all time. While I’ve definitely seen a lot of films that I prefer, I can understand why it is held in such high regard.