Greetings, Glancers! Today I run a more critical eye over my tenth favourite movie of the year 1954, seeking to ignore my bias and provide a fair score based on the 20 criteria I feel are most important in the creation of a film. Today’s movie is Sabrina, Billy Wilder’s comedy of misplaced love, starring Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.
Sales: 4. This is a questionable 4 given the fact that it wasn’t one of the Top Grossing movies of the year. However, it still made a decent turn against its budget and hit the Number 1 spot in the Box Office for a few weeks.
Critical Consensus: 5. One of the most heralded comedies of its time and type, it was nominated for 6 Oscars, has been added to the US National Film Registry, and when reappraised still receives praise.
Director: 4. 4 or 5, depending on your love for Wilder and the film. Wilder knew how to handle this sort of material in his sleep and as such the film is breezy and races along. He was nominated as Best Director.
Performances: 4. John Williams is a joy in absolutely everything, Audrey Hepburn is a little fresh and you can tell how she grows as a result of this role, Bogart was cast against type as the caring love interest, while Holden is solid as the womanizer.
Characters: 3. Perhaps for the time the characters were more interesting and original for the big screen than they are today, but these sorts of capers and romances had been in text form for decades before – the young romantic who wants the attention of the older man, the womanizer, the world weary father, the forgotten brother etc.
Cinematography: 4. As beautiful as its title character, and nominated for an Oscar.
Writing: 4. It’s gentle, but still fast moving and can wrap even the most jaded modern viewer up in its charms. Surprisingly open for its time, dealing with suicide and obsession (in a slight way, but it’s there), it would take someone extremely hard of hard to score less than a 3 here.
Plot: 3. On the surface, it’s a love triangle with two lines of the shape coming together more sharply than the other, and with quite a few tangents. There’s the more cynical side too, concerning business deals and protecting family assets. You’ve likely seen it all before in later movies and Soap Operas.
Wardrobe: 4. Edith Head. That’s all you really need to say. But to add a little more – iconic dresses, and an Oscar win.
Editing: 3. Sure.
Make up and Hair: 3. Not quite up there with the Costume Design.
Effects: 3. A 3 for N/A.
Art and Set: 4. Great use of a beautiful mansion.
Sound And Music: 3. Not the most exciting and veers most definitely into the whining strings of the era, which even by 1954 felt old-fashioned and overly sentimental. But Hollander was smart enough to imbue the score with jazz and some continental flair so that it didn’t sound like every other forgettable piece of music of the decade.
Cultural Significance: 4. We’ve definitely reached the point – almost 80 years after the film’s release – that it needs to have been incredibly pioneering, iconic, or ground-breaking to still be culturally significant today. The layperson may go 2 or even 1 here, but they’d be unlikely to be scoring the thing in the first place. Any film directed by Wilder and any film starring Bogart or Hepburn is likely going to be a minimum of 3 here, such has been their eternal influence on Cinema. You can’t discount the Oscar win and nominations, and moreover the film has been remade numerous times across the globe, most notably in the US in 1995.
Accomplishment: 3. It’s not the most technically challenging movie to bring to the screen, but making it so entertaining even to someone like me who doesn’t typically care for romantic comedies, is an accomplishment.
Stunts: 3. A 3 for mostly N/A.
Originality: 3. It’s a tale as old as time, albeit brought bang up to date for 1950s, wealthy, America.
Miscellaneous: 3. As much as I could look at Audrey Hepburn all day, and as much as I can laugh at how kitsch and quaint old trailers and posters are, there’s nothing here to take me to a 4.
Personal: 3. On another day I could might get to a 4, but it’s not a film I have much cause to revisit. I like it, and that’s enough.
Total Score: 70/100.
Let us know your scores in the comments!
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