Sabrina (1954 film)

Sabrina (Sabrina) is a 1954 American film. It is an adaptation of the 1953 play Sabrina Fair (subtitled A Woman of the World), written by Samuel A. Taylor (1912 - 2000).

The film was directed by Billy Wilder, and featured Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden as lead actors. She was nominated for six Oscars, including best director, best leading actress (Hepburn) and best adapted screenplay, but ultimately only won best black and white costumes.

Plot

Audrey Hepburn and William Holden in an advertising picture of the movie.

Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the daughter of Thomas, the Larrabee family chauffeur, and has been madly in love with David Larrabee (William Holden) since she was a child. David is a playboy and womanizer, divorced three times, who, however, has never noticed her, which causes her, disconsolate, to decide to commit suicide by poisoning herself with carbon monoxide, locking herself in the garage and starting all eight cars at the same time. of the family. She is prevented by Linus (Humphrey Bogart), David's older brother, a man dedicated to his family and his business.

Sabrina leaves for Paris to study at a cooking school. When she returns to the Larrabee residence two years later, she has become a sophisticated and attractive woman who catches David's attention when he happens to meet her at the station, despite not recognizing her at first. That same afternoon, he invites her to a reception at the mansion. Linus, knowing his brother's character, fears that David's engagement to Elizabeth Tyson (Martha Hyer) agreed to by the Larrabee patriarch is in jeopardy, and with it the merger between Larrabee Industries and Elizabeth's father's company. Linus argues with David about his responsibility to the family, but he does not want to know anything beyond his own interest, so Linus decides on an alternative maneuver: he will try to seduce Sabrina, so that she falls in love with him and forgets her brother, and then send her back to Paris to secure David's marriage and business deal.

Aided by David's accident, Linus and Sabrina begin to spend more time together, and she realizes that he's not just a businessman with no time for feelings. However, Linus also ends up falling in love with Sabrina, and driven by her remorse, he tells him of her plan directed above all by the interests of family businesses. Sabrina, deeply disappointed, agrees to leave the Larrabee mansion the next morning. Linus talks to David to bring him up to date on the situation; David understands that Linus is in love with Sabrina but he will always put the needs of the family before his own happiness.

The next day the meeting of the board of directors of the company is called to formalize the signing of the merger. When David doesn't show up at the appointed time, Linus assumes that he has escaped to Paris with Sabrina, but at the last moment the younger brother appears, apologizing for the delay, and confirms his decision to marry Elizabeth Tyson and go through with the merger. the companies. Released from her commitment to the business, Linus accepts her feelings for Sabrina and rushes to meet her at the ship to set sail together for Paris.

Cast

• Humphrey Bogart... Linus Larrabee
• Audrey Hepburn... Sabrina Fairchild
• William Holden... David Larrabee
• John Williams... Thomas Fairchild, father of Sabrina
• Walter Hampden... Oliver Larrabee, father of Linus and David
• Nella Walker... Maude Larrabee, mother of Linus and David
• Martha Hyer... Elizabeth Tyson, promised by David
• Marcel Dalio... Baron St. Fontanel
• Marcel Hillaire... Sabrina Instructor
• Ellen Corby... Miss. McCardle, secretary of Linus
• Francis X. Bushman... Mr. Tyson, father of Elizabeth
• Joan Vohs... Gretchen Van Horn
• Emory Parnell... Charles, butler (Without Accreditation)

Production

Sabrina marks Wilder's return to the sophisticated romantic comedy, in the style of Ernst Lubitsch and Wilder's early days at Paramount. Wilder wanted to highlight an underdeveloped aspect in the work of Samuel Taylor: the idea that Bogart uses himself to get the girl to give up on her brother so that he can marry the daughter of a sugar magnate and thus guarantee a lucrative merger for the family.

Wilder focuses on the character of Bogart, turning him into a masculine Ninotchka who turns his back on life and whose grim demeanor is the fruit of his dedication to work. Many of the memorable visual touches highlight his take on a life spent in business (for example, he calls on a dozen middle-aged secretaries to jump on a plastic sheet and test their stamina before an embarrassed William Holden). Disconnected shots of Bogart pacing his cavernous office underscore a successful but lonely life. When he resigns to follow Hepburn on her European tour, Wilder has him running through a long prospect of opening doors, the end of his empty executive life. ^{[citation needed ]}

Bogart agrees to trick Hepburn by substituting for Holden for purely selfish reasons, thinking about his business, but once he meets her, he feels as guilty as Charles Boyer in If It Didn't Dawn, at the time she admits to needing love, like Greta Garbo in Ninotchka. Wilder and Lehman dress these revelations with great refinement.

During the filming of the film, relations between Bogart and the rest of the cast were quite strained. Bogart accepted the role because his agent convinced him to do a comedy, to mitigate his tough image. Instead, the relationship between Hepburn and Holden was excellent throughout filming.^{[ citation required]}

New version

There is a remake from 1995, directed by Sydney Pollack, with Julia Ormond as Sabrina, Greg Kinnear as David and Harrison Ford as Linus.

Photo Gallery

• 

  Audrey Hepburn

• 

  Audrey Hepburn and William Holden

• 

  William Holden and Audrey Hepburn

• 

  Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn

• 

  William Holden and Humphrey Bogart

• 

  Humphrey Bogart

Awards

Oscar