Sabrina

“Once upon a time, on the north shore of Long Island, some thirty miles from New York, there lived a small girl on a large estate. The estate was very large indeed, and had many servants. There were gardeners to take care of the gardens, and a tree surgeon on a retainer (...) Also on the estate there was a chauffeur by the name of Fairchild who had been imported from England years ago together with a new Rolls-Royce. Fairchild was a fine chauffeur of considerable polish, like the eight cars in his care, and he had a daughter by the name of Sabrina...''

Without a doubt I can say that the Audrey Hepburn Box I bought a year ago was one of the best purchases I ever did. It includes seven films among which Sabrina. This 1954 movie is a classic, directed by the famous Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, Sunset Boulevard) and starring a young Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and a bit older Humphrey Bogart.

Sabrina is the chauffeur's daughter and lives on the same estate as the rich Larrabee family. She has been in love with the youngest Larrabee son David for all her live, but he doesn't even knows she exist. After a attempt to leave her live for what it is (you'll know what I mean when you see the money, can't give the juiciest details of course!) she goes to Paris to become an excellent cook. In Paris she changes into this sophisticated and elegant woman and when she comes back to Long Island no one recognizes her.

David falls for her the minute after he sees her. Unfortunately, he's engaged to another woman. This soon-to-be marriage is very important because his fiancee is the daugher of the most important business partner of David's brother: the cold entrepreneur Linus.

After a small accident which involves glasses of champagne, David hurts his butt. Linus has to entertain Sabrina while David has to recover and he uses this occurence to make her fall in love with him. That would stop the affair between her and David and that way his deal will be saved. As you can imagine, Linus falls in love with Sabrina and Sabrina is jammed between the two brothers, not-knowing whom she likes more...

Audrey Hepburn is at her best in Sabrina. She takes your heart during the entire movie and gives it back to you when it ends. Audrey is lovely, funny, spontaneous and sophisticated indeed. You'd almost remember she's American (though actually she's Dutch and Belgian) and not French. She outshines her male opponents. But that's also because Humphrey Bogart doesn't really fits into this part. He's old, grumpy and you can hardly imagine someone like Sabrina would fall for him. Besides, he's way too short. Reminds me of that fabulous song, short people ;) Anyway, Humphrey Bogart was a disaster on set. He hated William Holden, thought Audrey Hepburn was too inexperienced and caused a lot of stress. He earned 300.000 dollars for the movie, whereas Audrey Hepburn only got 15.000. Horrible, isn't it?

Audrey is fabulous as Sabrina and Sabrina is a magnificent story, a Hollywood fairy-tale.