Charade is a film made by an accomplished director, Stanley Donen, who was here venturing into Hitchcock territory with a light thriller starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The movie was a commercial success and boasted a theme song by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer. When I first saw it, the mix of crime with romance and comedy slightly underwhelmed me, and the same was true (as I said on this blog twelve years ago) when I took another look.
But time passes and views change and on a recent third viewing - intended as light relief in the lockdown era - I enjoyed it more. It's a well-crafted confection of highly commercial if highly derivative ingredients although not in the same league as, say, Hitchcock's North by North West, which is by far my favourite Cary Grant film.
The source material was a short story called "The Unsuspecting Wife", written by Peter Stone. He and Marc Behm (best known as author of The Eye of the Beholder) turned it into a screenplay. When this didn't sell, Stone turned the story into a novel, Charade, which did. Donen secured a high-calibre cast, including Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy.
Hepburn plays Regina, whose marriage is on the rocks at the start of the film. She's not too heartbroken to learn of the death of her husband Charles or to meet a charming man (Grant) who calls himself Peter Joshua. When it turns out that Charles was a crook who nicked a quarter of a million dollars that assorted villains want for themselves, Regina finds herself in danger. Peter comes to her aid - but what's his real game?
There are some good set-piece scenes and I enjoyed George Kennedy's steel claw, which reminded me of Major Whitlow in Mortmain Hall, not to mention Louis Crandell, the inspiration for my character! The Parisian backdrop adds to the movie's charm and overall it ranks as an agreeable piece of escapism. Very suitable at the moment!
Showing posts with label The Eye of the Beholder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Eye of the Beholder. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Friday, 31 August 2018
Forgotten Book - The Eye of the Beholder
Around the time that I was dreaming of seeing my first novel appear in print, I studied a good many books which my contemporaries had managed to get published. Examples included Ann Cleeves and Peter Robinson, whose careers I followed right from the start, and Lesley Grant-Adamson. I also bought a novel by Minette Marrin called The Eye of the Beholder; like Lesley, she was published by Faber, which seemed a good recommendation.
However, for reasons I can't now recall, I put Marrin's book (first published in 1988 and paperbacked a year later) aside - and, alas, never got back to it. Until now, that is. I was curious to catch up with it at long last for a number of reasons, not least because Marrin has never returned to the genre. Her name was, however, familiar for many years as a Sunday Times columnist; no doubt she decided she preferred to concentrate on journalism.
The protagonist is a television producer, and while working in France she stumbles across a slightly mysterious death; later, another death occurs, which seems to her to be linked. The story begins pretty well, but suspense falters in the middle, a sign perhaps of Marrin's inexperience as a writer. There's some stuff about art history which I found less than gripping. But then the book picks up pace and interest, and the later scenes are genuinely gripping. The date that the book first appeared is relevant, because of the Cold War aspect of some parts of the plot. And there's a low-key feeling about the way the story unfolds that reminded me a bit of a book I read long ago, Roy Fuller's The Second Curtain.
Marrin is a capable writer, and there are some witty and thought-provoking lines which make me regret that she didn't continue as a novelist. Her heroine reads mysteries, so Marrin must like the genre, but perhaps she found it insufficiently rewarding financially. The Eye of the Beholder is, I think it's fair to say, a book of promise rather than major achievement, but the promise is so considerable that one wishes it had marked the start of a crime writing career.
However, for reasons I can't now recall, I put Marrin's book (first published in 1988 and paperbacked a year later) aside - and, alas, never got back to it. Until now, that is. I was curious to catch up with it at long last for a number of reasons, not least because Marrin has never returned to the genre. Her name was, however, familiar for many years as a Sunday Times columnist; no doubt she decided she preferred to concentrate on journalism.
The protagonist is a television producer, and while working in France she stumbles across a slightly mysterious death; later, another death occurs, which seems to her to be linked. The story begins pretty well, but suspense falters in the middle, a sign perhaps of Marrin's inexperience as a writer. There's some stuff about art history which I found less than gripping. But then the book picks up pace and interest, and the later scenes are genuinely gripping. The date that the book first appeared is relevant, because of the Cold War aspect of some parts of the plot. And there's a low-key feeling about the way the story unfolds that reminded me a bit of a book I read long ago, Roy Fuller's The Second Curtain.
Marrin is a capable writer, and there are some witty and thought-provoking lines which make me regret that she didn't continue as a novelist. Her heroine reads mysteries, so Marrin must like the genre, but perhaps she found it insufficiently rewarding financially. The Eye of the Beholder is, I think it's fair to say, a book of promise rather than major achievement, but the promise is so considerable that one wishes it had marked the start of a crime writing career.
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