Sabrina (1954) ***Directed by Billy WilderMy tweet:Sabrina (1954)- Enjoyable enough, but I'm still waiting for Bogart's transformation to be believable. *** out of 5Other thoughts:First of all, let me agree with the consensus that Audrey Hepburn is ravishingly beautiful in Sabrina. Second, let me disagree with the consensus that Sabrina is a great film--it's not. We're expected to buy into the fact that this gorgeous young woman is so daft that she would try and kill herself over a schoolgirl crush on the moronic David Larrabee (William Holden), and then spend three years of her life in Paris thinking of nothing but him only to return sophisticated enough to catch David's eye. Then, because David's ! marriage to another woman is important for business, his older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) plans to win Sabrina over and convince her that the two of them will move to Paris where he plans to send her alone in order to continue his life as a bachelor. I'll put aside the fact that someone who looks like Humphrey Bogart in 1954 would never be able to win over someone who looks like Audrey Hepburn in real life, but I won't overlook Linus' horrible personality and the unbelievable transformation he goes through at the end. Granted, the movie floats along with significant charm and Hepburn's presence on screen is enough to make the movie watchable; however, Sabrina deserves better than either of these two idiots, and if Wilder had more brains, he would have reached this conclusion as well. 
Witness for the Prosecution (1957) **** Directed by Billy WilderMy tweet:Witness for the Prosecution (1957)- Charles Laughton is truly amazing in this fun, convoluted courtroom mystery. **** out of 5Other thoughts:Towards the end of his career, Charles Laughton was often accused of overacting and hamming up his performances. Maybe this is true, but considering that I'm not too familiar with his work, his huge, Oscar-nominated performance in Witness for the Prosecution absolutely blew me away. He plays Sir Wilfred Robarts, the greatest defense lawyer in England who just suffered a debilitating heart-attack. This is clearly a man who doesn't appreciate being handled, which is driving his control-freak nurse, played by the Bride of Frankenstein herself Elsa Lanchester, crazy. Sir Wifred is supposed to take on the easy civil cases due to his health, but the day he returns from the hospital, he's presented with one of the most intriguing and sordid mur! der defense cases against a mild-mannered egg beater inventor named Leonard Vole, played by Tyrone Power. Leonard is accused of murdering a wealthy old spinster, and supposedly his German wife will back up his innocence, though she's about to surprise everyone by being the character the film's title suggests. Her name is Christine, and she's played with icy precision by Marlene Dietrich. Though Power and Dietrich received top billing, this is Laughton's movie hands down. The ending presents a twist that's perhaps not as clever as it thinks it is, and the final resolution by Sir Wilfred to defend a character with everything he's got doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but as courtroom dramas go, this one delivers not only the tension, but also a great deal of comedy for an unqualified good time all around.
Irma la Douce (1963) **1/2Directed by Billy WilderMy tweet:Irma la Douce (1963)- Ending made me chuckle, but plot is preposterous & Lemmon's completely miscast--a mess of a film. **1/2 out of 5Other thoughts:Why oh why did I decide to choose Irma la Douce as my final addition to Filmspotting's Billy Wilder marathon? This sad exercise in miscasting and miscalculation took that spot over other lauded late Wilder films which I haven't yet seen such as One Two Three (1961), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Avanti! (1972). Also, I could have given my time over to 1951's Ace in the Hole, which some hail as a masterpiece. I chose Irma la Douce precisely cause I heard the guys on Filmspotting mention it, and it somehow stuck in my mind. On paper, reuniting The Apartment's Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in a non-musical adaptation of a successful Broadway musical might sound like gold, but let me assure you, other than MacLaine's Oscar! -nominated performance, there's really nothing worth seeing in this painfully long comedy of errors. Jack Lemmon, God love him, has never been more ridiculously wrong for a role. His goofy, clumsy everyman persona is applied with complete integrity to a character who is supposed to start out a pathetic cop and end up as the most feared pimp in the dangerous streets of Paris. That's right folks... Jack Lemmon as a feared pimp. The entire plot lives or dies based on the single concept that MacLaine's title character, a dog-clutching prostitute, is a complete idiot with no self-worth whatsoever. Lemmon's character deceives her in the most convoluted ways into believing he's a British Lord. The machinations of the plot during the climax are meant to be comically absurd, but the comedy doesn't work and the absurdity comes off so smug that it's almost aggressively unpleasant. Some day I will watch the films I mentioned above and curse myself for not having chosen one of them soon! er.All the movie reviews. The best films
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