Charade (1963 film)

While on holiday in the French Alps, Regina "Reggie" Lampert, an expatriate American working as a simultaneous interpreter, tells her friend Sylvie that she is divorcing her husband, Charles. She also meets Peter Joshua, a charming American.

On her return to Paris, she finds her apartment stripped bare. A police inspector says Charles sold off their belongings, then was murdered while leaving Paris. Their money is also missing. Reggie is given Charles's small travel bag, containing a letter addressed to her, a ship ticket to Venezuela, four passports in multiple names and nationalities, and other miscellaneous personal items. At Charles's sparsely attended funeral, three men show up to view the body. One sticks a pin into the corpse to confirm Charles is really dead.

Reggie is summoned to meet CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew at the American Embassy. She learns that the three men are Herman Scobie, Leopold W. Gideon, and Tex Panthollow. During World War II, they, Charles, and Carson Dyle were assigned by the OSS to deliver $250,000 ($4.2 million in current dollars) in gold to the French Resistance, but instead stole it. Carson was fatally wounded in a German ambush, and Charles double-crossed the others, taking all the gold. The three survivors are after the missing money, as is the U.S. government. Hamilton insists Reggie has it, even if she does not know what or where it is—and that she is in great danger.

Peter finds Reggie and helps her move into a hotel. The three criminals separately threaten her, each convinced she knows where the money is. Herman then shocks her by claiming that Peter is in league with them, after which Peter says he is Carson Dyle's brother, Alexander, and is trying to bring the others to justice, believing they killed Carson. As the hunt for the money continues, Herman and Leopold are murdered. Hamilton tells Reggie that Carson Dyle had no brother. When she confronts Alexander, he says he is actually Adam Canfield, a professional thief. Although frustrated by his dishonesty, Reggie still trusts him.

Hepburn's character trapped in the prompt box

Reggie and Adam go to an outdoor market where Charles's last known appointment was. Spotting Tex, Adam follows him. At the stamp-selling booths, Adam and Tex each realize that Charles bought some extremely valuable stamps and affixed them to the envelope found in his travel bag. Both men race back to Reggie's hotel room, only to discover the stamps missing from the envelope. Reggie, who gave the stamps to Sylvie's young son, Jean-Louis, suddenly realizes their significance. She and Sylvie find Jean-Louis, but he has already traded the stamps to a dealer. They find the dealer, who says the rare stamps are worth $250,000 and returns them to Reggie.

Reggie returns to the hotel and finds Tex's body with the name "Dyle" scrawled next to it. Convinced Adam is the murderer, a frightened Reggie telephones Hamilton, who says to meet him at the Colonnade at the Palais-Royal. Adam sees her and gives chase. At the Colonnade, Reggie is caught out in the open between the two men. Adam claims Hamilton is really Carson Dyle: surviving the German ambush, he became obsessed with revenge and reclaiming the treasure. Reggie runs into an empty theater and hides in the prompt box. Carson is about to shoot her, but Adam activates a trapdoor under him.

The next day, Reggie and Adam go to the embassy to turn over the stamps, but Adam declines to go in. Inside, Reggie discovers that Adam is really Brian Cruikshank, a U.S. Treasury agent responsible for recovering stolen government property. With his true identity now revealed, he proposes marriage to Reggie.

The film ends with a split-screen grid showing flashback shots of Cruikshank's four identities; Reggie says she hopes they have lots of boys, so they can name them all after him.

Grant and Hepburn at the Théâtre du vrai Guignolet

• Cary Grant as Brian Cruikshank (alias Peter Joshua, Alexander Dyle, and Adam Canfield)
• Audrey Hepburn as Regina "Reggie" Lampert
• Walter Matthau as Carson Dyle (alias Hamilton Bartholomew)
• James Coburn as Tex Panthollow
• George Kennedy as Herman Scobie
• Dominique Minot as Sylvie Gaudel
• Ned Glass as Leopold W. Gideon
• Jacques Marin as Inspector Edouard Grandpierre
• Paul Bonifas as Mr. Felix, the stamp dealer
• Thomas Chelimsky as Jean-Louis Gaudel

The soundtrack album for the film, featuring Henry Mancini's score, was released in 1963 and reached No. 6 on Billboard magazine's pop album chart.

The film was slated for a Christmas release, but Universal consented to a one-time advance showing at the Palace Theatre in Washington, D.C., which was a benefit to raise money to help low-income children stay in school. Singer Ella Fitzgerald performed, and, according to Jet magazine, $50,000 was raised,[1] equivalent to almost a half-million dollars in 2023 money.

Hepburn publicity photo

Charade receives generally positive reviews, from 21st-century critics as well as contemporaries. The film has a 94% approval rating based on 54 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 8.50/10 and the consensus: "A globetrotting caper that prizes its idiosyncratic pieces over the general puzzle, Charade is a delightful romp with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn's sparkling chemistry at the center of some perfectly orchestrated mayhem."[6] On Metacritic the film has a score of 83% based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[11]

The movie premiered at the Radio City Music Hall, and in a review published January 6, 1964, in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther criticized the film for its "grisly touches" and "gruesome violence", but also praised it for its screenplay with regard to its "sudden twists, shocking gags, eccentric arrangements and occasionally bright and brittle lines" as well as Donen's direction,[12] said to be halfway between a 1930s screwball comedy and North by Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock, which also starred Grant.[12]

In a Time Out review, the film was rated positively, with the assertion that it is a "mammoth audience teaser [...] Grant imparts his ineffable charm, Kennedy (with metal hand) provides comic brutality, while Hepburn is elegantly fraught".[13] While reviewing the blu-ray DVD version of the film, Chris Cabin of Slant Magazine gave the film a three-and-a-half out of five rating, calling it a "high-end, kitschy whodunit"[14] and writing that it is a "riotous and chaotic take on the spy thriller, essentially, but it structurally resembles Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None as well as describing it as "some sort of miraculous entertainment".[14]

American Film Institute list nominations

• 2001 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills
• 2002 – AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions
• 2005 – AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores

The film includes a notice reading "MCMLXIII BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES COMPANY, INC. and STANLEY DONEN FILMS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" but omitting the word "Copyright", "Copr." or the symbol "©". Before 1978, U.S. law required works to include such a word or symbol in order to be copyrighted.[19][20][21] Because Universal failed to properly display the copyright notice, the film entered into the public domain in the United States immediately upon its release.[22] As a result, copies from film prints of varying quality have been widely available on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. The film is also available for free download at the Internet Archive.[23] However, while the film itself is in the public domain, the original music remains under copyright if outside the context of the film.[24]

• List of American films of 1963
• The Truth About Charlie, a 2002 remake of Charade

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charade.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Charade.

• Charade at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Charade at IMDb
• Charade at AllMovie
• Charade at the TCM Movie Database
• Charade is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
• Charade: The Spy in Givenchy, an essay by Bruce Eder at the Criterion Collection