Sabrina (1954)

Sabrina
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman from a play by Taylor
1954/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Baron St. Fontanel: A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.[/box]

Audrey Hepburn turns every film she is in into a romance.  The audience falls in love with her.

Sabrina (Hepburn) lives on the enormous Larrabee estate with her father who is the family’s chauffeur.  She has an intense crush on the younger son of the family, David (William Holden).  Although he is an oft-married playboy and a slacker, she believes herself to be in love with him to the extent she contemplates suicide when she cannot have him.  Instead, her father sends her off to Paris to learn cooking and forget him.  One of her fellow students at the academy takes her in hand and grooms her into a sophisticated and beautiful woman.

When she returns home after a couple of years, David does not recognize her and promptly begins wooing her.  But David is engaged to the daughter of a sugar tycoon whose company is necessary to the family’s plastics venture.  Then David suffers a mishap and must be confined to bed for several days.  Serious older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) is enlisted to entertain Sabrina and secretly cooks up a plan to get her out of the picture.  He should have known he was playing with fire.

This is totally charming, thanks largely to Hepburn.  I also love the romantic music.  William Holden looks funny as a blonde.  It’s nice to see Bogart in a romantic role again. Recommended.

Sabrina won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.  It was nominated in the following categories:  Best Actress; Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.

Trailer