Brew Views: Charade

Parlor games.

CHARADE

Forget Psycho. That flick may have cinema's most harrowing shower scene, but Charade has its most delightful, in the form of a fully clothed Cary Grant lathering himself up as a highly amused Audrey Hepburn looks on. Stanley Donen's 1963 film was the only time the two stars appeared onscreen together, and the result is just as giddy and combustible as you'd expect. The ever-elegant Hepburn, outfitted in Givenchy couture, plays an American in Paris whose husband has just been murdered and who is being trailed by a murderous trio convinced she has some stolen loot. Grant might be out to help her—or he might be in cahoots with the baddies. Walking the line between thriller and romantic comedy, with delicious injections of morbid humor (such as when a police inspector clips his nails during a funeral), Charade has been called Hitchcock lite, but it's more than worthy in its own right. "Won't you come in for a minute?" Hepburn asks Grant. He declines, and her matter-of-fact response is a masterpiece in itself: "I don't bite, you know…unless it's called for."

  1. Playing at: Laurelhurst.
  2. Best paired with: Ninkasi Sterling Pilsner.
  3. Also playing: Before Midnight (Hollywood), The Croods (Academy).

WWeek 2015

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