'Love in the Afternoon' - Movie Review

What is it about Audrey Hepburn that made the studios feel compelled to star her opposite men thirty years her senior - in rom coms? "Sabrina" (Humphrey Bogart), "Charade" (Cary Grant), "Funny Face" (Fred Astaire) and this one. Her big splash was "Roman Holiday" - Gregory Peck was 15 years older than her, but at least in that case they looked great - she didn't look like she was standing beside her father and/or a cadaver. I feel compelled to mention that there were exceptions: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (George Peppard) and "How to Steal a Million" (Peter O'Toole).

Hepburn plays cello student Ariane Chavasse, who lives with her father Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) who is a private detective. She listens in on a conversation her father has with a client, and learns about Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper), an American millionaire businessman with a habit of seducing wives all over every continent. When the client - who is one of Frank's cuckolded husbands - declares he's going to shoot Flannagan, Ariane decides to warn him. And so they meet.

I'm a big fan of Cooper's, but aside from being too old for this role, he was flat-out wooden this time out. Hepburn is typically charming, although not great, and the chemistry between the two is less than convincing. It's Chevalier who steals the show - mostly in the first half, where he's utterly hilarious.