Sabrina review

 Number 520 on the top 1000 films of all time is Billy Wilder's 1954 romantic-comedy 'Sabrina.'

Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn) is the daughter of Thomas Fairchild - the chauffeur to the wealthy Larabee family. All her life, she has held an unrequited love to younger brother and playboy David (William Holden.) Also present is David's older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) who soon starts harbouring feelings of his own towards Sabrina.

Never mind 520 on the top 1000 films of all time, this film should be number one on the most boring films of all time. Seriously, it was as dull as your average period drama. And I'm not hating on romantic-comedies - I thoroughly enjoyed Breakfast at Tiffany's and Roman Holiday - but Sabrina was insufferably dull.

It was all so flat. There was so little drama. And so little conflict. Okay, fair enough, Sabrina's broken heart at David's constant womanising leads to her trying to commit suicide by locking herself in a garage with a running car, but she is quickly rescued by Linus, no harm done.

She is shipped off to a French-finishing school where she takes some cooking classes for a couple of years, before returning home where David finally starts taking an interest in her. It's hardly on the some levels of drama as the Notebook.

*Spoilers* It's later revealed that Linus has macchinated a marriage between David and Elizabeth Tyson - wealthy heiress to a business empire, all to serve the Larabees' business interests. In doing so, he falls in love with Sabrina and she him, creating a love triangle between David, Linus and Sabrina. Yet this never worked due to the lack of on-screen chemistry between the three leads, probably due to Bogart's dislike of Hepburn and Holden.

Hepburn is an obviously charming and accomplished actress especially in performing her verbose lines, so it's a shame I didn't like this film more. There was just nothing to interest me.

The Big Sleep review

 Number 214 on the top 1000 films of all time is Howard Hawks' 1946 film noir 'The Big Sleep.'

Based on the 1939 Raymond Chandley book, the Big Sleep follows the exploits of Private Detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart.) Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to investigate the person who is blackmailing his daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers.) But soon Marlowe becomes involved with Sternwood's other daughter Vivien (Lauren Bacall.) And, not before long, he stumbles upon a conspiracy involving murder, gambling and organised crime.

I have to admit that I had a lot of trouble following this film. That's probably because of my poor watching abilities rather than Howard Hawks' film-making. Yet I wonder if things are needlessly complicated. The Big Sleep has a convoluted plot as is often the case with many crime films, especially noir films, that throw in characters and subplots willy-nilly. 

I haven't read the book, so maybe Hawks was just being faithful to Raymond Chandler's source material, but I still think things were needlessly complicated. There are plenty of morally-grey characters who are constantly double-crossing each other. And I did have trouble distinguishing the characters from one another. Characters like Geiger are introduced to later be quickly killed off.

I understand that a lot of the writing, acting and direction was very much of the time, but it still bordered on very cheesy. It seems like Humphrey Bogart's only direction was to flirt with every single female cast member from his love triangle with Carmen and Vivien to the girls working at the book shops he visits. The fight and murder scenes were also hardly the most convincing either.

Perhaps I am being very unfair with my review. I'm sure the right audiences would find this a very entertaining and thrilling film. I guess there has to be a reason it made it into this list. Maybe I shouldn't be judging the Big Sleep by modern standards, but I just wasn't the right audience.