Day Two Hundred and Thirty-four - Charade, "For crying out loud... Audrey, you slay me with my own desire."

Where the rest of the world is enamored with Breakfast at Tiffany's, I think I prefer this Audrey most of all. She's sophisticated, witty... of course, very lovely... and has the best lines that run contrary to what you would expect in conversations concerning stolen gold, murder, and espionage.

And there's Cary Grant, too! Double trouble!

Set in Paris of the 60's, Audrey is the jilted widow of a man who seems to have been both a spy and a thief. Of course, she didn't know that when she married him, and was about to divorce the cad when she managed to escape the marriage the old fashioned way... he died.

Or rather, he was murdered, by persons unknown.

Having just returned from a ski holiday with a friend, she finds her husband has been killed, her apartment shuttered and divested of all property, and a fortune she never knew she had twisting in the wind somewhere. She's not the only one curious as to what's going on, though, as not only does the Paris police have questions, but also the CIA (Walter Matthau) and quite a few ruffians (in the form of James Coburn, George Kennedy, and Ned Glass).

If that's not enough, she's assisted and/or possibly hindered by a man of many names and trades, but who happens to be played by the always debonair Cary Grant. Within the confines of the film, the two of them alternately swoon and snap at each other for the duration as Grant's Peter (or Alexander or Adam or...) seems to be working for all parties, most especially himself.

I love this film for every scene but one.

From the moment we meet Audrey's Regina Lampert, we fall in love... which is standard procedure for anything she does... and watching her go from scared widow to giddy adventurer and back again is a delight. Of course she is a delight to watch, but she's not just an empty dress as her wit and good humor are almost always about her, even as her violent suitors begin to drop like so many flies.

And Grant? Well, Grant can carry just about any film as we've seen before. Sure, the one scene that I just cannot stand is his comical clothes-on shower scene as he tries to deflect Audrey's attempts at seduction... I mean, honestly, who wouldn't need a cold shower after any of her attentions? I could almost forgive him if it wasn't so ridiculous and terribly unfunny. He almost loses me again when he gives her a goofy face during the falling action (ugh!), but I survived... in part thanks to Audrey's reaction when she catches up in the conversation.

While the supporting cast isn't numerous, the names they got were great. Sure, James Coburn is a little hammy as Tex, but I really enjoyed Walter Matthau as Bartholomew, the CIA contact who keeps popping back up to warn Reggie. He does a great job of keeping her (and her romance with Peter... or Alexander... or Adam) off balance.

It's also fun to have George Kennedy in a much more malicious role than I'm used to seeing him in (like in is work in The Naked Gun series). While his fight with Grant on the Paris rooftops is silly, it's still a great scene between them.

The mystery itself needed a few more references so it didn't come as such a shock when the whereabouts of the fortune were revealed... especially since they emphasized the dental appointment a little too much, but it flows pretty naturally once it does start rolling. It just seems a bit too convenient a wrap up... especially considering other, better heist movies like To Catch A Thief.

Charade is also notable for its almost Hitchcockian shots, such as the shadowed dialogue scene just after Reggie returns from being interrogated the first time... and the morgue scene with the POV shot from the corpse's perspective.

When it comes down to it, though, Charade is a dazzingly film. Not quite up to the levels of perfection it probably could have been, but Audrey is in fine form and Grant only just below his normal levels of charm. I can't really blame him for that, though, as it seemed more an issue of writing than anything else. There are a few plot holes unfilled and character threads left dangling, but nothing too egregious.

Definitely worth the watch, I think... especially if you're a fan of classic suspense films.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Sixty-nine - The Wonder Years: Pilot, "Young, awkward, petulant love. It's beautiful."

I have to confess that Danica McKellar was my TV crush when I was a kid.

The girl next door who blossomed into a beautiful young woman who not only liked you, but forgave you when you were acting like an idiot (which, at that age, was all the time), Winnie was the ideal adolescent love match that I never actually got to participate in.

On top of that, Danica has made a name for herself as a mathematician after she finished her tenure on the show... brains and beauty! I might as well just melt in my chair simply from thinking about her.

In any case, The Wonder Years was one of those witty, coming of age family dramas posed as the narrator (voiced by Daniel Stern) flashes back to his heady days as a youth growing up in the suburban 60's and 70's. What the Wonder Years did for their era is fairly similar to what the Apatow crew did ten years later at the turn of the decade into the 80's with a fresh generation. Both shows focused on the true problems of kids going through puberty and trying to find direction in the world.

A struggle for pretty much everyone involved.

In addition to my crush on Danica McKellar, this was also the show that kept Fred Savage in the limelight after his endearing role as the sick boy in The Princess Bride as the show's main character Kevin Arnold. The kind of everykid for my generation, he was only supplanted when the wider appeal of a different Kevin... Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin)... stole his thunder in the Home Alone series.

Personally, I think Fred was the better actor (Kieran being the stronger of the Culkin brothers at the craft, IMHO), but the market spoke and there you have it.

The pilot is a little rough in places... with the play punches from Kevin Arnold's older brother, Wayne (Jason Hervey) being obviously too soft and fake, a mistake that was not repeated over a decade later in Malcolm in the Middle. Still, the combination of realistic behavior and perfectly timed inner monologue/narration made for a much stronger adolescent drama than ABC's other teen coming of age drama of the era, Doogie Howser, MD.

I love you, NPH, but Fred and Daniel did it better.

The Wonder Years always reminds me of a more wholesome take of the era than Steven King's Stand By Me. Both feature wise, older men looking back on their adolescence wistfully and portraying those childhoods realistically, it's just that The Wonder Years seems a bit more tame in comparison. Granted, it makes sense, considering one was a rated-R film and the other a primetime family drama on ABC.

I think, if I were looking to bond with my children, I'd have this and Freaks and Geeks primed and in the queue in the hopes that some of the wisdom would rub off. It probably wouldn't as, now that I think about it, when I watched it back then I was more concerned with how cute Winnie was than anything else, but still... osmosis occasional works.

And who knows... maybe the narration style would enamor them to Neil Simon plays and we'd have that, too.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~