Love In the Afternoon
Directed by Billy Wilder
Gary Cooper – Frank Flannaghan
A private investigator reveals to his client that his wife is having an affair with a notorious womanizer, the wealthy Frank Flannagan. His client decides to shoot Flannagan at his hotel. Overhearing this, the investigator's daughter rushes to Flannagan to prevent his murder, and the two eventually become attracted to each other.
Also starring Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver, Van Doude and lise Bourdin
A line was dubbed into the release print to dispel the impression that Audrey Hepburn’s and gary Cooper’s characters actually have sex in their many afternoon meetings in his hotel room. As he is moving out of frame in Maurice chevalier’s office, Cooper obviously replaces a different filmed line in voiceover, and says, "I can't get to first base with her." This appears to be an effort at self-censorship, given the clear implications of sexual intimacy that come before this scene.
Nominated for 4 awards winning 2 Golden Laurels and 1 from WGA
Maria’s Notes
The movie Love in the Afternoon was taken from a popular french story titled “Arianne."
It is a film in which Gary Cooper plays not to his typical film image at all. Every actor wants to ‘stretch his abilities, and take on different personas. He had gotten a piece of advice in the early days from Sam Goldwyn who said in effect-" to be careful Coop and never let your public down. They don’t want to see you as other than the “hero,” in whatever form…”
His character Frank Flannagan in Love in the Afternoon is a tycoon/playboy of a “certain age” who has been definitely around the track many times and is romancing a very young, beautiful, charming cello student, Audrey Hepburn, who lives with her detective father, Maurice Chevalier. It reunites professionally Cooper and the great director Billy Wilder, who were close personal friends (their first film together was with Claudette Colbert in Bluebeards’s Eighth Wife in 1938 ).
Wilders first choice for this role was Cary Grant or Yul Brynner, however schedules didn’t permit, but given Coopers age Wilder felt it could work very well with him portraying such a sophisticated scoundrel. My father was tired playing ‘virtuous” roles, wanted to do the film, work with Billy again, and then--location in Paris was NO hardship!
One of the lovelier scenes takes place when he is having a picnic in the Bois ( the park) in Paris. I was visiting the shoot that day and when the crew took a lunch break my father said to me,” Do you want to go for a row on the lake.? It was beautiful as he got his daily workout by rowing very energetically around the little islands of trees and flowers, but funny to see all the crowds lining the banks of the large lake..all pointing and wondering who was the young lady in the rowboat with Gary Cooper????
Does the comedy give Cooper the chance to redeem himself in the end??. I invite you to watch a kind of magical romance and find out for yourself.
Maria Cooper Janis