Charade
About Charade
Regina Lampert meets Peter Joshua on a holiday in the French Alps. She returns to Paris and finds her apartment stripped and her husband Charles murdered. At the funeral, Herman Scobie, Leopold Gideon, and Tex Panthollow inspect the body. A man calling himself Hamilton Bartholomew tells her that Charles and those three, with a fifth man named Dyle, stole $250,000 in gold meant for the French Resistance, and that Charles double-crossed them. Peter keeps changing his name, from Joshua to Alexander Dyle to Adam Canfield. The fortune turns out to be rare stamps Charles stuck on an envelope. Scobie, Gideon, and Tex are killed. Bartholomew is Carson Dyle, after revenge. Adam, a U.S. Treasury agent, traps him and asks Reggie to marry him.
Cast & crew
More about Charade
Stanley Donen produced and directed. Peter Stone wrote the screenplay from a story by Stone and Marc Behm, first published as the novel The Unsuspecting Wife and serialized in Redbook under the title Charade. Charles Lang photographed it, Jim Clark edited, and Universal distributed it. Maurice Binder designed the animated titles. The ski-hotel scenes were shot at the Résidence Le Mont d'Arbois in Megève; the rest of the exteriors are in Paris.
Themes
Background
The stolen gold is wartime money intended for the French Resistance. The Washington benefit screening came two months before the Kennedy assassination; the dialogue change followed it.
In film history
The Library of Congress placed it on the National Film Registry in 2022.
Making
Henry Mancini wrote the waltz in under an hour with Hepburn's return to the empty apartment in mind, then played it for her and Donen. Johnny Mercer added the lyric. Mercer later called it his favorite Mancini melody. Donen had wanted Mancini after hearing "Baby Elephant Walk."
Reviews
Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times on 6 January 1964, praised the twists, gags, and brittle lines, and put Donen's direction halfway between 1930s screwball comedy and North by Northwest. He objected to what he called the grisly touches.
Audiences
After the Radio City opening it led the U.S. box office for five January weekends and ranked fourth for 1964.
Look
Charles Lang shot the picture on Paris streets, including the stamp market at Carré Marigny, Les Halles, the Palais-Royal colonnade, and the Comédie-Française, with studio work at Billancourt and Boulogne.
Technique
Maurice Binder's animated titles open the film. The missing word in the copyright line is what put the feature itself in the U.S. public domain.
Music
Henry Mancini wrote the score and the title waltz. Johnny Mercer wrote the lyric. The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and lost. RCA Victor issued Mancini's recording, with "Orange Tamoure" on the B-side, in December 1963.
Preservation
In the U.S. public domain since release because the copyright notice was defective. Selected for the National Film Registry in 2022. Universal and the Criterion Collection have both issued official editions.
Notes
- Universal allowed one advance screening on 24 September 1963 at the Palace Theatre in Washington, D.C., a benefit at which Ella Fitzgerald sang.
- The public run opened as the Christmas film at Radio City Music Hall on 5 December 1963 and broke that theater's box-office record.
- It was the highest-grossing film in the country for five weekends in January and finished as the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1964.
- The U.S. copyright notice read "MCMLXIII BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES COMPANY, INC. and STANLEY DONEN FILMS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" and left out the word "copyright" or the © symbol, so the picture entered the public domain in the United States on release. The Mancini-Mercer song stayed under copyright apart from the film.
- After the Kennedy assassination, a line of Hepburn's was changed from "assassinated" to "eliminated" in some prints. Official later releases restored the original word.
- James Coburn plays Tex, George Kennedy plays Scobie, with a metal hand, and Ned Glass plays Gideon. Walter Matthau plays Bartholomew.
- The Truth About Charlie (2002) is a remake.
Awards
- BAFTA Award for Best British Actress (Audrey Hepburn)
- David di Donatello Golden Plate
- Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (Peter Stone)
Scenes
- Reggie walks into the Paris flat and finds the furniture gone.
- Scobie, Gideon, and Tex file past Charles's coffin and check the body.
- The $250,000 is in rare stamps glued to an envelope.
- Adam traps Carson Dyle in the prompt box of a theater.
Influenced by
- The Unsuspecting Wife (Peter Stone and Marc Behm)
Influenced
- The Truth About Charlie (2002)
Also available
- Internet Archive (Charade19631280x696)
- Criterion Collection
