Movie Review - Charade

OK, I admit it, when it comes to movies, I can get stuck in the past.  I like a lot of the old movies, even some that aren't really that great, when you look at it objectively.  I like most of the Cary Grant movies, but a couple are really quite good.  Charade is one of the best - right up there with North by Northwest.

Theresa and I watched Charade on Netflix recently.  I remember seeing it years ago, when I was a kid, but I really didn't remember it at all.  I was not disappointed!  It has some interesting characters - a lot of humor, and just a little bit of suspense.  As a romantic mystery, it holds its own with many more modern movies.

I've never been much of an Audrey Hepburn fan, but she's perfect in this role - she has that fragile, aristocratic look that makes it work.  Her Regina Lambert is vulnerable and terrified, but just a little tougher than you might believe at first.

I really liked the heavies in this film, in particular George Kennedy.  He plays Scobie, missing a hand, brooding and menacing - at one point, Hepburn makes a point of mentioning his "ugly, scary face".  He's not the nastiest of the bad guys, or the toughest (that distinction almost certainly goes to James Coburn), but you've got to love a character that's so ugly he has to be evil.  His mother must be so proud!  The third bad guy - Ned Glass as Gideon - isn't big or tough, but somehow you just know he's nasty. 

Another bonus in this movie is the chance to see Walter Matthau, playing it straight as a CIA bureaucrat. 

With the three bad guys after poor Regina, she really needs a true-blue hero to watch out for her.  What she gets is Cary Grant as Peter Joshua (or whatever other name he cooks up - he has several aliases).  Joshua, or whoever he is, is charming, and he always seems to show up at just the right time and place.  The only question is, is he really there to help Regina, or is he just another crook ready to torture/kill/rob her?  You don't really THINK he's a bad guy, but you're never quite sure. 

If you're like me, you'll probably figure this out before the end of the movie, but you won't be sure about it until the very end - in this film, very little is what it seems to be. 

This is a film that could easily be made today.  Oh, there'd be some changes made - we'd have more of a physical romance between Regina and Peter, and there'd be some special effects and probably a bit more violence.  The dialog would be different.  None of that really changes anything, though.  The basic plot and characters would work as well today as they did in 1963.  It's a great movie, highly recommended.