"Sabrina Fair" was a very successful Broadway play, written by Samuel A. Taylor, before Taylor and Ernest Lehman turned it into a well-remembered (1954) screenplay for Billy Wilder who also produced the movie. Under Wilder's direction, the project turned into a vehicle film for Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart, instead of Betsy Drake, Van Helflin and Charles Drake,m who could have played the parts believably opposite John Williams as Fairchild (the butler whose daughter Sabrina happens to be). The film retails the story of a girl lost between two worlds who has always been in love with one of the Long Island Larrabee brothers, the oft-married non-working David, but then has to choose between him and his dour, homburg wearing, umbrella toting nose-to-the-grindstone brother Linus as well. Frederick Hollander wrote a breezy score and Charles Lang Jr, provided fine B/W cinematography for the resulting romp. Edith Head provided the high-fashion costumes with uncredited assistance from Hubert de Givenchy. Hal Pereria's and Walter Tyler's Art Direction succeeded throughout, while Sam Comer's and Ray Moyer's set decorations played a subtle but powerful role in bringing the world of the Larrabees to cinematic life. Eugene Loring's choreography enlivened several scenes as well. Among the fine supporting cast, one can notice Emory Parnell, Nancy Kulp, Marjorie Bennett, Marcel Hilaire as the chef, Marcel Dalio as the Baron, Martha Hyer, Joan Vohs, Francis X. Bushman and Nella Walker, Kay Riehl, Walter Hampden as the family patriarch, a miscast Ellen Corby, Raymond Bailey and more familiar favorites, all else well-employed. This is a play with unusually intelligent dialog, whose sub-theme is the degeneration of the U.S. under public-interest lawmaking into what it was to become--an elitism of corporation CEOs, bureaucrats and unworthy gatekeeper 'bosses'. The film's best line may well be the one that suggests that no one ever called a chauffeur's daughter enlightened for marrying a millionaire. The problem with the main actors I suggest is that they are all somewhat miscast. Of the three, Humphrey Bogart gives the best line readings, but he cannot play a successful upper-class professional of any sort. Audrey Hepburn is pretty, fey and surprisingly adept at reading comedy lines for her age, but she never quite seems like an intelligent person who happens to be a chauffeur's daughter who can belong as a grownup to a world of any elite. And William Holden is simply too everything for his part--a bit too old, too polished and too charismatic, as well as trying too hard; his fine steps forward as an actor, however, moving toward "Picnic" and his noteworthy later work need to be commended here as well. The film is more thoughtful than one might expect and quite clever in its characterization of human beings stuck in class types within a country that was supposed to have none. Recommended.
Review of Sabrina
Sabrina
(1954)
Intelligent dialog and a fine supporting cast aid this "class war" comedy
27 April 2008