Love in the Afternoon

Starring:Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, Van Doude, John McGiver, Lise Bourdin, Bonifas, Giadon, Olivia Chevalier, Jeanne Papir, Christian Lude, Georges Perrault, Michel Kokas, Betty Schneider, Filo, Claude Ariel, Vera Boccadoro, Monique Saintey, Marcelle Broc, Simone Vanlancker
Director: Billy Wilder
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Fairy-tale Paris doesn't get more enchanting than Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon, an ode to picnics on the grass and champagne at the Ritz. Audrey Hepburn (who had already made Sabrina with Wilder) is at her best as the inexperienced cellist with a fascination for millionaire American playboy Gary Cooper. Maurice Chevalier (who else?) is Hepburn's father, a private detective with ample evidence of Cooper's crowded history of l'amour. Alongside the sheen of the romance is Wilder's unerring sense of craftsmanship; watch how inanimate objects such as a liquor tray, a white carnation, or the little dog in the suite next door are developed into sublime running gags. The age difference between the two leads has often been questioned, but perhaps this is what gives the gossamer material the whiff of welcome melancholy. The final three minutes leave no doubt that Wilder hatched the best endings in Hollywood history. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews:

Love in the Afternoon.......2007-06-26

This is a delightful outing for Hepburn, who'd already been featured opposite an established, aging Hollywood star in another Wilder film ( "Sabrina" , with Humphrey Bogart). "Love" is a sophisticated romantic comedy with lots of Gallic joie de vivre that will brighten any rainy day. Chevalier, one of France's biggest stars, is marvelous as Hepburn's protective Dad. And Cooper, even at an advancing age, is charming in the extreme. Don't miss that famous ending at the train station- it's one of Wilder's cutest closers.

Love before nightfall in Paris!.......2007-01-07

Ariane Chavasse, daughter of a French detective, loves to read her father's private dossiers... She becomes fascinated with the file concerning American playboy millionaire Frank Flannagan and a certain Madame X... She soon learns that Monsieur X has sworn to kill the American, so she goes to his hotel suite to warn him... Flannagan, intrigued by the attractive mysterious girl, dates her for the following afternoon... Ariane is captured by his sophistication, and a succession of many 'afternoon rendezvous' follows...

Concealing her identity, Ariane tells Frank of the many lovers in her past... He now becomes concerned about her... One day, in a steam bath, Flannagan meets Monsieur X, who advises him to consult detective Chavasse... He does, asking the detective to find out about the mysterious girl...

Reunited with Billy Wilder, Audrey Hepburn once again finds herself cast opposite a father figure in the person of Gary Cooper... Their vehicle is a gay comedy that derived from a Claude Anet novel called 'Ariane,' and it had been filmed twice before... Both adaptations clung to the novel's concept of an innocent young girl's winning over a middle-aged Don Juan by pretending a romantic past of her own to equal his, and eventually reforming him altogether...

With the most popular French entertainer of the last century Maurice Chevalier as the loving father, and John McGiver as the jealous husband, and considering its slight plot, 'Love in the Afternoon' maintains an atmosphere of sly charm and amusing details that almost sustains the film's length...

Director Wilder is helped immensely by the luminous black-and-white photography of William Mellor and by musical composer Franz Waxman, whose various arrangements of the movie's long-playing leitmotif 'Fascination' lend so much to the resulting effect...

Love in the Afternoon.......2006-11-20

Pleasant movie but nothing special, a very ordinary story. Audrey Hepburn's charisma is what puts some life to the movie. Some subtle humour though.

Incredibly Alluring.......2006-09-04

Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper make an unlikely pair for a lot of reasons in this film but that does not stop the relationship from working. It sizzles.

Audrey is a young Parisian girl, the daughter of a private investigator played by Maurice Chevalier. She is young, beautiful, innocent and plays the cello and is a bit bored. She treats herself to adventure by reading the case files of her father. A good proportion of these case files involve the character played by Gary Cooper. He is a rich American playboy who is always got women. Often, these women are married.

Cooper is the single largest source of income for Chevalier and Chevalier cannot help be admire his style. Having gypsy musicians on call to serenade the mark day and night is just one example.

When Hepburn learns that an outraged husband plans to kill Cooper, she secretly goes to warn the lovers. In doing so, she falls for Cooper herself and manages to arouse his interest. She knows that any sort of clinging will just turn him off so she tries to play his own strategy against him. She plays the mysterious playgirl with more beaux than she can count. She will not even give him her name.

The strategy works. Cooper falls for her in a big way but still she remains silent. In desperation, Cooper hires a private investigator to learn more about her. Naturally, this would be her father.

Things do not work out as expected but they do work out well. Hepburn portrays beauty and innocence and not a little female cunning. She is a delight to behold. So are Cooper's fits of uncertainty. Chevalier lends the whole episode a degree of class and dignity. It's a first fate story all around.

Sparkling if a Bit Overlong Boulevard Comedy Shows Wilder and Hepburn in Top Form.......2006-08-20

There is likely no more romantic ending to a Hollywood movie than the one in this soufflé-light 1957 romantic comedy, where Audrey Hepburn tries to keep up with a departing train upon which Gary Cooper stands and listens intently to her babbling about her fictitious sexual conquests. Hepburn plays Ariane, a young cellist and the daughter of a Parisian private investigator named Claude Chevasse. She has an unbridled interest in her father's often tawdry cases, chief among them the affairs of Frank Flannagan, a millionaire industrialist and aging playboy who finds himself in various trysts with married women around the world. A certain Monsieur X has come to Chevasse to catch his wife in a suspected extramarital fling with Flannagan. Overhearing Monsieur X's intention to kill his wife and her lover, Ariane decides to warn Flannagan, and they embark on an afternoons-only affair under the pretense that she is as much a worldly bon vivant as he is. Things come to a head when Flannagan becomes infatuated with this mysterious "thin girl" and recruits Crevasse to find out who she is.

Master filmmaker Billy Wilder leaves his unmistakable stamp on this confection with a clever, ironic script co-written with his long-time partner I.A.L. Diamond in their first collaboration. The dialogue is full of their trademark sparkling banter, and leave it to Wilder to use a Gypsy string quartet to act as a chorus for Flannagan's sexual shenanigans. Hepburn is her usual impeccable self as Ariane and especially good fun when she layers the deceptions about her checkered past. Cooper played this type of boulevardier role in the 1930's under masters like Ernst Lubitsch, and it is quite enjoyable to see him come back to this milieu two decades later as an aging lothario. Looking weather-beaten after years of Westerns and adventure pictures, he was given a lot of grief because of the age difference between him and Hepburn, but I actually find the gap quite touching and Cooper surprisingly game. Maurice Chevalier is ideally cast as Crevasse even if he has to play down his naturally effervescent manner. Granted the film runs a little too long at 126 minutes, but it is fine, light entertainment similar to Wilder and Hepburn's previous collaboration, the classic 1954 "Sabrina". The print transfer on the 2005 DVD is fine though not outstanding. Unfortunately there are no extras included.

Average customer rating:

Chloe in the Afternoon
no easy answers for life's great questions
A delightful bon bon of a French film. The ending is refreshing, but is it plausible?
"Since I've been married, I find all women beautiful"
Love in the afternoon

Chloe in the Afternoon
Starring: Bernard Verley , Zouzou , Françoise Verley , Daniel Ceccaldi , and Malvina Penne
Director: Eric Rohmer
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 1572522437
Release Date: 1998-03-31

Amazon.com

A low-key, slightly creepy meditation on infidelity and adjustments to social expectations, Chloe in the Afternoon (1972) marks the culmination of director Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" series. The film, which traces the trajectory of Frederic, a married businessman, through temptation and an altogether standard midlife crisis, feels remarkably ham-handed, and fails to offer anything more than platitudinous responses to complex problems. Zouzou proves fetching as the title character, a bohemian drifter bent on seducing, and arguably transforming, the comfortably bourgeois protagonist (the dull-looking Bernard Verley); the rest of the cast, given indistinct characters to interpret, rarely provides much excitement. Several scenes--particularly a revelatory encounter between Frederic and Chloe in the basement of a dress shop--do manage to catch fire, but Rohmer dodges the implications of his own creative instincts and undermines his own point by grafting on a pat conclusion that feels cheap and sudden. Lost in the slide toward obviousness is a genuinely intelligent script--one that manages to feel bright without ever resorting to cleverness--and foggy-surreal location shooting in some of the less fashionable areas of Paris. Best suited for repentant philanderers and hardcore Francophiles. --Miles Bethany

Customer Reviews:

Chloe in the Afternoon.......2007-07-03

The final installment in Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" series, "Afternoon" is a wonderfully acted, deeply thoughtful meditation on the idea of marital infidelity. Frederic and his alluring afternoon companion voice every possible perspective on this ubiquitous temptation, enlightening us as to whether it is a desirable choice or not, and keeping us in prolonged suspense over what will happen between the two of them. Rohmer's understated, emotionally intelligent handling of this platonic affair makes for a thoroughly compelling "Afternoon."

no easy answers for life's great questions.......2007-01-18

The last of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales begins with a man, Frederic (Bernard Verley) watching his wife step out of the shower. She continues to towel herself off, glancing back over her shoulder at him the doorway. It's the kind of genuine, uncontrived eroticism Frederic would find sexy if he weren't married to her.

"Since my marriage," says Frederic, "I find all women attractive. In their mundane tasks, I accord them that mystery I once denied almost all of them." Frederic spends a lot of time observing the opposite sex (for someone with a presumably demanding occupation, we see him doing surprisingly little work), fantasizing about what it would be like to engage these ladies with flirtatious conversation. In this invented world, he is the sort passionate, dangerous figure he imagines beautiful women find irresistible. It's a marked contrast to the person he actually is, this being a Paris lawyer who stays home most nights, reads books on the train, and wears the same style of turtleneck every day.

In an unusually impulsive act, Frederic allows himself to be talked into buying a plaid dress shirt by an attractive salesgirl. "The salesgirl was very clever. She pretended not to give a damn." It won't be the last time in the picture a character gets what they want by feigning disinterest in it (the converse is also true). The shirt isn't particularly becoming, truth be told - it's too tight and Frederic looks out of place in it. But he wears it anyway. It's not long afterwards that a woman named Chloe (Zouzou) reintroduces herself to his life.

Often what makes films great are the questions they pose, not the ones they solve. Love in the Afternoon is full of questions. Can a man love two women at the same time? Where is the divide between innocent flirtation and adultery (it's not as simple as I'd imagine many think)? Is infidelity always morally licentious? Is monogamy by its very nature unsustainable without a certain degree of dishonesty, not to mention an elaborately fantastical interior life?

Love in the Afternoon respects its audience enough not to give any easy answers, allowing us to come to our conclusions about the characters and their motivations. Indeed, the picture is refreshingly free of any kind of musical score, the hack filmmaker's bludgeoning tool to beat viewers into lockstep submission. Rohmer, per usual, takes what could be tiresome and formulaic (Rohmer himself has used the central conceit of the romantically-conflicted man in numerous other films, notably My Night at Maud's) and gives it a new life, a new perspective, and a new understanding. When Chloe reclines spectacularly, a vision, beckoning us from across the room, there is no reductionist moralizing, no wagging of fingers. There is just a beautiful woman, a married man, a bed, and ourselves.

Interesting footnote: Actress/model/musician Zouzou was an icon of the swinging 60s in Europe, engaging in a fairly public romance with Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Problems with heroin saw Zouzou's professional life take a rather ignominious downturn, culminating with her incarceration during the early 90s.

A delightful bon bon of a French film. The ending is refreshing, but is it plausible?.......2006-10-30

Zouzou, the actress who plays Chloe, bears an uncanny resemblance to Hilary Swank, so during most of the movie I was preoccupied with visions of Hilary in 'Boys Don't Cry' and whether men find her sexy. But I digress...
The way in which Frederic, the male protagonist, vacillates between wanting to be completely seduced by Chloe and remaining true to his perfect Parisian wife & life is skillfully presented, and the viewer is left to ponder what s/he would do if thrust in a similar situation. We all know what is right, and we can only hope that we will behave appropriately when confronted by our own version of Chloe.

"Since I've been married, I find all women beautiful".......2006-08-15

"Chloe in the Afternoon" (= "L'amour l'apres-midi", 1972) is the last of Eric Rohmer's "Six moral tales". It is not a long film, but it manages to deal with issues such as love, monogamy, infidelity, and the impact that small decisions can have on couples.

The main character is Frederic (Bernard Verley), a typical bourgeois immersed in his routine, married with one child, and with a wife that is expecting another son. Everything seems perfect, even though somehow monotonous, until the reappearance in his life of an old acquaintance, Chloe (Zouzou). That event suddenly tempts Frederic to be unfaithful to his wife Helene (Francoise Verley), something he merely thought about previously.

Chloe is everything Frederic and Helene are not: spontaneous, volatile and bohemian. That is probably the reason why she seems to attract and repel Frederic at the same time. Chloe, who starts to meet Frederic in the afternoons, is a woman on a mission: she wants to have a child with blue eyes, like Frederic, and has decided that her former friend will be a perfect absent father. So, both Frederic and Chloe seem inclined to have an affair, albeit for different reasons... But will that happen?

All in all, I think that "Chloe in the Afternoon" is a movie you might enjoy. It is slow, but has some interesting dialogues, and it is the kind of film that gives food for thought. This is far from being my favourite Rohmer film, but I don't regret watching it, and I consider that it deserves at least 3.5/5 stars. Recommended!

Belen Alcat

Love in the afternoon.......2005-11-14

The last of Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" and among the best. As in the others, the plot revolves around a married man who has convinced himself, through his own rationalized thinking, that he is happy and content with his life - yet is on the brink of having an affair, which at the last moment refuses he to go through with. There's lots of talk, as in all Rohmer movies, but it's always interesting.

It's fascinating to see this man (Bernard Verley) go through the agonies of his conscience vs. his feelings. And Chloe (Zouzou) is equally fascinating as the sexy seductress. Verley's contradictions, usually of fairly minor concern (for example, at the beginning of the movie he thinks to himself how much he loves the solitude of his afternoons, and then at the end he tells his wife he hates them), always come as a disconcerting shock - and are perfectly timed. Rohmer pays very close attention to the little details which in retrospect add up to quite a bit. An excellent movie.

Average customer rating:

Chloe in the Afternoon
no easy answers for life's great questions
A delightful bon bon of a French film. The ending is refreshing, but is it plausible?
"Since I've been married, I find all women beautiful"
Love in the afternoon