Audrey Hepburn films on TCM: ‘Summer Under the Stars’ continues with the Best Actress Oscar winner
Audrey Hepburn movies all day on Tuesday, Aug. 11, on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Hepburn is the day’s “Summer Under the Stars” movie star. (See Audrey Hepburn Movie Schedule further below.)
All of the scheduled Audrey Hepburn star vehicles have been shown before on TCM; but there are two premieres all the same: Laughter in Paradise (1951) and The Secret People (1952), two British productions in which Hepburn has small roles. (Actually, she has a mere bit part in Laughter in Paradise.) The former title is a comedy with a first-rate cast that includes Alastair Sim and Fay Compton; the latter is a thriller starring the capable Valentina Cortese and Serge Reggiani.
As for the major Hepburn vehicles, all of them are worth checking out because, well, Audrey Hepburn is in them – even if Hepburn’s performances don’t always work. But when they do, she can be as good an actress as the best of them. And when her performances aren’t quite up to par, there’s always that big smile, big doe eyes, elongated neck, high cheekbones, and velvety voice.
Hepburn is badly miscast in her then-husband Mel Ferrer’s dismal Green Mansions (1959), but those who’ve never seen this tedious potboiler costarring a pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins may find it unintentionally humorous. Hepburn is almost as poor in Billy Wilder’s disappointing romantic comedy Love in the Afternoon (1957), whose subtlest performance comes courtesy of – gasp! – Maurice Chevalier. A tired-looking Gary Cooper is the leading man.
Hepburn is a pleasant sight – but not more than pleasant sight – in William Wyler’s romantic bittersweet comedy Roman Holiday, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar; an Oscar that should have gone to Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, Leslie Caron in Lili, or Ava Gardner in Mogambo.
Same style, eclectic roles
Moving up the scale, I think Audrey Hepburn is just fine in John Huston’s The Unforgiven, which some consider one of the director’s worst films. I found it an enjoyable Western, boasting several good performances, including those of Lillian Gish and Audie Murphy. Burt Lancaster costars. Hepburn plays a half-Indian.
Hepburn is equally fine in William Wyler’s much-panned The Children’s Hour (1961), which I find just as good as (if not better than) Wyler’s previous film version of Lillian Hellman’s play, the bowdlerized These Three (1936). Lesbianism is the theme here, with Shirley MacLaine delivering an achingly real performance as the teacher who loves her pretty coworker (Hepburn) in an “unusual” way. Also in the top-notch cast: James Garner, Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Fay Bainter, and These Three’s Miriam Hopkins. (MacLaine has Hopkins’ role in the remake.)
Audrey Hepburn is also effective as Natasha Rostova in King Vidor’s filmization of Tolstoy’s never-ending novel War and Peace (1956). The problem with this mega-production is that even though it looks beautiful (cinematography by Jack Cardiff), for the most part the film sounds phony. (David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago suffers from that same illness.) A pitiably miscast Henry Fonda as Pierre Bezukhov – a role written to order for Robert Morley – doesn’t help matters any. But then again, not even the great Morley could have made believable Tolstoy’s absurd ending for his most revered work.
George Cukor’s multiple Oscar-winning My Fair Lady (1964) has lost some of its prestige in the last two or three decades. I saw the mammoth Warner Bros. musical on the big screen, and I couldn’t find anything wrong with it – except for the unconvincing finale. Hepburn had her voice dubbed by Marni Nixon, but her mimicking/mouthing is charming all the same. (Check out Biggest Oscar Snubs: Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady.)
And finally, Audrey Hepburn is at her best as the nun who starts questioning her vows in Fred Zinnemann’s sober 1959 religious–psychological drama The Nun’s Story, costarring Peter Finch. That was the year Hepburn should have won the Best Actress Oscar – which went instead to Simone Signoret for Jack Clayton’s British melodrama Room at the Top.
Audrey Hepburn films: TCM schedule (EDT) – Aug. 11
6:00 AM Laughter in Paradise (1951)
Director: Mario Zampi.
Cast: Alastair Sim, Fay Compton, Guy Middleton, George Cole, Hugh Griffith, Ernest Thesiger, Beatrice Campbell, Mackenzie Ward, Joyce Grenfell, A.E. Matthews, John Laurie, Veronica Hurst, Anthony Steel, Audrey Hepburn.
97m8:00 AM The Secret People (1952)
Director: Thorold Dickson.
Cast: Valentina Cortese, Serge Reggiani, Audrey Hepburn.
95m10:00 AM The Children’s Hour (1961)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, Miriam Hopkins, Fay Bainter, Karen Balkin, Veronica Cartwright, Mimi Gibson, Hope Summers.
108m12:00 PM The Nun’s Story (1959)
Director: Fred Zinnemann.
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Mildred Dunnock, Beatrice Straight, Patricia Collinge, Rosalie Crutchley, Barbara O’Neil, Colleen Dewhurst, Lionel Jeffries.
152m2:30 PM The Unforgiven (1960)
Director: John Huston.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, Lillian Gish, John Saxon, Charles Bickford, Doug McClure, Albert Salmi, Joseph Wiseman, June Walker.
121m5:00 PM My Fair Lady (1964)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett, Theodore Bikel, Mona Washbourne, Isobel Elsom, Henry Daniell, Lillian Kemble-Cooper.
172m8:00 PM Love in the Afternoon (1957)
Director: Billy Wilder.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver, Van Doude, Lise Bourdin.
130m10:30 PM Roman Holiday (1953)
Director: William Wyler.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams, Margaret Rawlings, Tullio Carminati, Paolo Carlini, Claudio Ermelli, Alfredo Rizzo.
118m12:45 AM War and Peace (1956)
Director: King Vidor.
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer.
208m4:15 AM Green Mansions (1959)
Director: Mel Ferrer.
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Perkins, Lee J. Cobb, Sessue Hayakawa, Henry Silva, Nehemiah Persoff, Michael Pate, Estelle Hemsley.
104m
“Audrey Hepburn Films on TCM” notes
Audrey Hepburn film schedule via the TCM website.
Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn The Children’s Hour image: United Artists.