Love in the Afternoon (1957)

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The first must-see film of the year.

For anyone who thinks "Love in the Afternoon" is a nice romance or love story, I posit the following questions to ask yourself. As a mother or father, would you want your daughter to go out with – or "fall" for Frank Flannagan, or someone like him in real life? Or, as a brother or sister, would you want your beloved sister to fall for such a man? I think Maurice Chevalier's character, Claude Chavasse, got it right. He told his daughter, Ariane (played by Audrey Hepburn) that Flannagan was a cad, despicable character – that he was no good. Flannagan, played by Gary Cooper, is an aged American millionaire playboy. He has no qualms or regrets about his many affairs with women – married or not. "Love them and leave them." That's his motto. Is that the type of man anyone would want a daughter, sister or friend to go for? I think not. Of course, we viewers know that Ariane knew about Flannagan's character (played by Gary Cooper), because she sneaked into her father's files. Yet she falls for this guy anyway. Is that romance or love? It may be romantic daydreaming or fantasizing, but love or real romance it isn't. We parents, grandparents and others who have experienced such things ourselves have known it by another term – infatuation. Ariane's father cautions his daughter, but she pursues Flannagan anyway. The demure Hepburn's character feigns a nubile persona, but we audience members can't disregard her puerile innocence, if the Flannagan character can't see through her. So, the first big problem with this film is that it is not a love story, or even a romance. It is a slice of life, of course, with some comedy. I am not averse to a story of young and old love. Some other films have handled this very well. "Battle Circus" was a 1953 film that had a young Army nurse fall for an older Army doctor during the Korean War. Humphrey Bogart (late 40s to early 50s) and June Alyson (late 20s) were very believable in their roles. On the other hand, some other films also have treated age differences quite well – as infatuation. "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" was such a film in 1947. It starred Cary Grant as a late-30s or early-40s playboy artist and professor, with Shirley Temple as the teen sister of Myrna Loy. Most reviewers have noted the huge age difference between the two leads in this film. Many found it a problem that takes away from the films' believability. And thus, its appeal. Audrey Hepburn was 28 playing an 18-year-old; Gary Cooper was 56 playing a 65-year-old – at least he looked it, for that time. And the script never tries to specify what his age is – just that he's an older playboy millionaire. Try as they do, with the old news clips of a wild Flannagan (played by Cooper), the movie makers couldn't convince this viewer – or most viewers – that Flannagan was in his 40s. As "hip" as the script tried to paint him, Flannagan definitely was not so. And that is the problem. A 35 to 45- year-old would have been an older man for a teenage girl in the 1950s. Another reviewer commented that Gary Cooper's was a grandfather character. I agree. Audrey Hepburn and her performance are the main reasons this film earns even 5 stars from me. Maurice Chevalier did very well with his role. Cooper was wooden. The idea of the film was OK and had possibilities. But it needed a younger character and actor as the playboy who could find true love and mend his ways. As it is, this script is terrible. That and the big age differences, and the casting of Gary Cooper as Flannagan made this film a dud.

This film is irritating and tedious to watch. It's an old man's wet dream, specifically, Billy Wilder's. In short, a beautiful young woman finds a much older man improbably irresistible. Whatever charm Gary Cooper had as a leading man was spent by the time he made this picture. In fact, he was suffering with undiagnosed cancer and it shows. He seems exhausted, pale and flabby. That Audrey Hepburn makes her enchantment with him at all believable is a tribute to her determination as an actress. In an interview, she said that it was Chevalier who wouldn't stop ogling her and that he might have been better cast as her suitor than her father. The whole thing is very squeamish and gives you the idea of how invincible men believed themselves to be and how subjugated women were to them. They held all the cards so to speak, especially if Wilder could make a smug, distasteful film like this without having people walk out on it.

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.