Love in the Afternoon

source: Love in the Afternoon

Love in the Afternoon

This is totally improbable. Today I suspect this movie would not even be made in the US. Cooper looks like he is approaching seventy and Hepburn appears as a teenager. Their relationship today would be considered totally inappropriate. The scene with the husband ready to shoot Cooper is an obvious weak attempt at comedy but comes across as bad farce and is so unbelievable you wonder how the director accepted that part of the script. From there it drags on and on waiting for the final match up with Cooper and Hepburn and the totally unrealistic outcome of marriage. Maurice and Audrey give rather good performances, Gary as usual acts like a wooden door.

Critics originally said this film was no good based largely on Gary Cooper's age. I concur with that assessment. I kept wondering why Audrey Hepburn's character would be attracted to an old man. But more so, why is she attracted to a man who makes his life nothing but a series of conquests? I have seen almost all of Billy Wilder's films and enjoyed them (some immensely), but this one just never felt right with me. The attraction seemed too awkward, the film ran a bit too long... I just could not see it. And for the father to support such a thing was even more astounding. If I have to say one nice thing about the movie, it is how it brings out the classic double standard of men and women with dating. The playboy travels from country to country, glorified in the newspaper for being a man of loose morals. But when he confronts a woman who has seemingly done the same, he panics.