Love in the Afternoon (1957) User Reviews (135)

It Was Fascination I Know

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 12 October 2006]

Love in the Afternoon was conceived and brought to the screen by Billy Wilder as a homage to his friend and mentor in Hollywood, Ernest Lubitsch. This French novel Ariane had been filmed before in fact, by the Germans just before the Nazis took over and had starred Elizabeth Bergner.

Audrey Hepburn proved to be a worthy successor to Bergner. Whatever success Love in the Afternoon has is due to her performance. She radiates beauty and charm and no wonder Gary Cooper is so fascinated by her. Wilder would consider no one else for the lead and waited for Hepburn to be free while she was on a lengthy location shooting for War and Peace.

But it's Cooper who's the weak one here. He was not Billy Wilder's first choice. Cary Grant for the third and final time missed out on being in a Billy Wilder film having previously turned down Five Graves to Cairo and Sabrina. The part was offered to Yul Brynner also. But Gary Cooper turned out to be available when Hepburn was and he got the role. Wilder later admitted the bad casting, but he also said that it was his ill luck to get Cooper at the start of the health problems that would eventually kill him. He said Cooper got old overnight. In fact he looks as old as Maurice Chevalier and Chevalier as Hepburn's father was 13 years older than Cooper.

Maurice is a detective who specializes in tracking down and confirming spousal infidelities. He's been hired by John McGiver to find out if his wife has been seeing millionaire playboy Cooper. Daughter Hepburn however is crushing out on Gary big time and unbeknownst to Maurice she takes it upon herself to warn him.

The old popular standard Fascination is heard through out the film and in the same year it came out, the 20+ year old standard was revived in a million selling hit by Pat Boone.

It was not an easy shoot despite those familiar Parisian location. In a recent biography of Wilder, the story is told that he had tremendous difficulty in shooting the picnic and row boat scenes. It seems as though the location was a breeding ground for mosquitoes and they were unmerciful to cast and crew. Wilder took several takes just to get enough usable footage.

Audrey Hepburn fans will be mad for Love in the Afternoon, Gary Cooper's though might wince when seeing it.

An Unusual Combination Held Together By Hepburn & Wilder

[Snow Leopard · 1 November 2004]

This odd combination of story, characters, and cast could easily have fallen apart irretrievably in the first few minutes. That it holds together is due primarily to Audrey Hepburn's unsurpassed charm and Billy Wilder's resourceful story-telling technique. It ends up being enjoyable most of the time, sometimes very much so, in spite of itself.

The story is rather strange - for it to "work" you have to buy into a number of unlikely possibilities, and even then, you have to accept the main characters as sympathetic even when they don't deserve it. It's the kind of hollow concept that you see much more often in present-day movies, which are made for audiences who don't care about plausibility, and who are easily persuaded that a shallow, pseudo-romantic attraction between two characters automatically makes them sympathetic.

None of that is to imply anything against the stars. Audrey Hepburn is so engaging as Ariane that it makes you want her to be happy, even though much of her behavior is fatuous. Maurice Chevalier is enjoyable and is obviously well-cast, and John McGiver also adds some good moments. Gary Cooper's character doesn't work very well, but that should not be blamed at all on Cooper. The character just is not as appealing as the scriptwriters presume him to be, and Cooper should actually be commended for making him as likable (or as un-unlikable) as possible.

Wilder's skill made some strange stories work pretty well in his time, and he also deserves much of the credit for keeping this one afloat. There are also some very good sequences in the screenplay, for all that it was uneven in general. The odd thing about "Love in the Afternoon" is that if you can tolerate the poor setup and get past the obvious flaws, you can really enjoy most of the movie, because it does have several positive things to offer.

Miscast Cooper Undermines This Billy Wilder Film

[atlasmb · 6/10 · 17 June 2016]

This film by Billy Wilder features beautiful B&W photography. Gary Cooper stars as a supposedly smooth womanizer (Frank Flannagan) who cares little for the women he beds. Audrey Hepburn plays a younger woman (Ariane Chavasse) who is intrigued by his intrigues and becomes personally involved.

Shot in France, the film conveys a cosmopolitan air that almost sells the idea that these two might connect emotionally. But Cooper is not smooth enough to pull if off (no surprise) and the relationship between the two does not convince. It's not an issue of age; it's about chemistry and personality. Bogart in "Sabrina" offered the same problem, though less so. As an example of another pairing that worked well despite a sizable age difference, consider Stewart and Kelly in "Rear Window".

Frankly, I'm surprised that such obviously poor pairings plague numerous films, but apparently some believe that box office draws can overcome such issues.

Paris When it Fizzles

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 20 October 2011]

In Paris, teenage cellist Audrey Hepburn (as Ariane Chavasse) goes for grandfatherly playboy Gary Cooper (as Frank Flannagan). Detective father Maurice Chevalier (as Claude Chavasse) does not approve. This is supposed to be one of those "May/December" romances, but it looks more like "January/December". Appearing even older than his actual age, Mr. Cooper should have declared himself done with these roles. For several reasons, he has no on-screen rapport with Ms. Hepburn. Writer/director Billy Wilder had previously paired youthful Hepburn with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.

The dog is poorly dubbed.

*** Love in the Afternoon (5/29/57) Billy Wilder ~ Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver

Audrey Hepburn is sublime as the Parisian private eye's daughter who decides to investigate a philandering millionaire

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 18 February 2022]

Immensely charming comedy set in Paris where a Cinderella-type role masterfullly played by Hepburn gets closely involved with a wealthy womanizer . As the rich playboy called Flannagan (Gary Cooper) becomes interested in the daughter , Ariane Chavasse (Audrey Hepburn) , of a sympthetic private detective , Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) , who has been hired to entrap him with the wife of a client (John McGiver) who decides to shoot him . To be aware the beautiful daughter rushes to Flannagan to prevent his murder . And of course , she winds up falling in love with him . An oh-so-very shy young girl , but she lists 20 men in her past! . It's got the hit tune "Fascination" .Love is a game any number can play... especially in the afternoon...It's more likely in Paris and more LOVELY IN THE AFTERNOON!

Amusing and funny movie in ¨Billy Wilder's Sabrina¨ style also starred by Audrey Hepburn about the classic love story in which a duo of oppossite characters , after a series of incidents resulting in the two eventually become attracted to each other . This romantic comedy is intelligently and pleasingly written to gives us lots of fun , laughters and smiles . The hit of the show is undoubtedly Audrey Hepburn who gives one of the best screen acting as the naive and good girl , while Gary Cooper gives a nice acting in his usual style as a middle-aged playboy becomes fascinated by the daughter of a private detective. Here Gary Cooper seems more relaxed and agreeable than usual ; however , Cooper's a little old for the Casanova role , but Hepburn is always enchanting . And , of course , Maurice Chevalier is awesome as likeable and understanding father .

Emotive and romantic musical score and atmospheric black and white cinematography by cameraman William Mellor . This slick, smooth comedy is stunningly written I. A. L. Diamond and Billy Wilder himself , based on the novel "Ariane, jeune fille russe" by Claude Anet . Being competently directed by the genius Billy Wilder . It belongs his first and better period during the 40s and 50s when realized sensational and acerbic films as ¨Double indemnity¨, ¨Ace in the hole¨ , ¨Sunset Boulevard¨, ¨Stalag 17¨ and ¨Seven year itch¨ ; subsequently in the 60s and 70s he realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨. Rating : 7/10. Above average , essential and indispensable watching ; extremely funny and riveting film and completely entertaining . It justly deserves its place among the best romantic comedy ever made . It's the kind of movie where you know what's coming but , because the treatment , enjoy it all the same .

Sparkling if a Bit Overlong Boulevard Comedy Shows Wilder and Hepburn in Top Form

[EUyeshima · 8/10 · 23 August 2006]

There is likely no more romantic ending to a Hollywood movie than the one in this soufflé-light 1957 romantic comedy, where Audrey Hepburn tries to keep up with a departing train upon which Gary Cooper stands and listens intently to her babbling about her fictitious sexual conquests. Hepburn plays Ariane, a young cellist and the daughter of a Parisian private investigator named Claude Chevasse. She has an unbridled interest in her father's often tawdry cases, chief among them the affairs of Frank Flannagan, a millionaire industrialist and aging playboy who finds himself in various trysts with married women around the world. A certain Monsieur X has come to Chevasse to catch his wife in a suspected extramarital fling with Flannagan. Overhearing Monsieur X's intention to kill his wife and her lover, Ariane decides to warn Flannagan, and they embark on an afternoons-only affair under the pretense that she is as much a worldly bon vivant as he is. Things come to a head when Flannagan becomes infatuated with this mysterious "thin girl" and recruits Crevasse to find out who she is.

Master filmmaker Billy Wilder leaves his unmistakable stamp on this confection with a clever, ironic script co-written with his long-time partner I.A.L. Diamond in their first collaboration. The dialogue is full of their trademark sparkling banter, and leave it to Wilder to use a Gypsy string quartet to act as a chorus for Flannagan's sexual shenanigans. Hepburn is her usual impeccable self as Ariane and especially good fun when she layers the deceptions about her checkered past. Cooper played this type of boulevardier role in the 1930's under masters like Ernst Lubitsch, and it is quite enjoyable to see him come back to this milieu two decades later as an aging lothario. Looking weather-beaten after years of Westerns and adventure pictures, he was given a lot of grief because of the age difference between him and Hepburn, but I actually find the gap quite touching and Cooper surprisingly game. Maurice Chevalier is ideally cast as Crevasse even if has to play down his naturally effervescent manner. Granted the film runs a little too long at 126 minutes, but it is fine, light entertainment similar to Wilder and Hepburn's previous collaboration, the classic 1954 "Sabrina". The print transfer on the 2005 DVD is fine though not outstanding. Unfortunately there are no extras included.

Stay away from this terrible movie

[Red-125 · 5/10 · 18 June 2018]

Love in the Afternoon (1957) was co-written and directed by Billy Wilder. It stars Audrey Hepburn as Ariane Chavasse, a young student at a Paris conservatory. Maurice Chevalier is her father, a skilled private detective.

Gary Cooper portrays Frank Flannagan, a fabulously rich American who never appears to work because he's too busy being a serial seducer.

This is a terrible movie in almost every respect. Audrey Hepburn was a brilliant actor. However, at age 28, she was too old to play an ingenue whose mind clouds over every time she thinks of Cooper as her dreamboat.

Cooper, at age 56, didn't look or act like an international playboy who would sweep a young woman off her feet.

Only Chevalier looked right, and acted his role with reasonable skill.

This movie was shown in 35mm as part of a "Youth in Love" series at the Dryden Theatre of the George Eastman Museum. We weren't able to see it that evening, so we watched it on DVD. At least we didn't have to make the trip into Rochester to see this truly bad movie.

Incidentally, my low rating of this movie is a minority report. Love in the Afternoon has a very good IMDb rating of 7.3. Did the raters see the same movie that I saw?

*BIG SPOILER* Reader, she married him. *BIG SPOILER*

Great 'Coop'; Beguiling Hepburn

[twanurit · 8/10 · 7 February 2002]

The first thing I noticed about this lilting romance (on the widescreen DVD) was the beautiful, shimmering, black and white photography. Set in Paris, with some scenes filmed there, Director Billy Wilder weaves a captivating, simple tale of a 20ish woman (Hepburn), who lives with her father (Maurice Chevalier), who schemes to snag a 50ish cad (Cooper). At first the age difference is very apparent, with Cooper seemingly mis-cast as a womanizer, but he grows on you, with a sweet, gentle, quiet, attractive performance. Hepburn is stunning and spunky in one of her best performances. The song "Fascination" is used to great effect. Filmed in 1957, the only way to show the title occurrence is to have a camera shot following Hepburn's dis-robed fur coat falling to the hotel room's floor, as she embraces Cooper. The ending is suspenseful, with cute narration epilogue by Chevalier. A wonderful film.

My favorite Gary Cooper movie

[HotToastyRag · 8/10 · 4 July 2020]

It's no surprise that Love in the Afternoon is my favorite Gary Cooper movie: I'm a sucker for May-December romances. Plus, pitting him against someone as glamorous as Audrey Hepburn helps sand down his wooden edges.

In this romantic comedy filmed on location in Paris, Maurice Chevalier runs a detective agency for people with unfaithful spouses. His daughter is the innocent, sweet Audrey, and of course, she falls for the one man her father would completely disapprove of: an older American playboy who was caught cheating with the wife of one of her dad's clients! Audrey finds out that the wronged husband, John McGiver, is planning on killing Gary, so she rushes off to warn him in time. She becomes both a savior and a woman of mystery to Gary, since she doesn't reveal her real identity with her warning. Wanting to make herself more attractive to the experienced gentleman, Audrey pretends to be a woman of the world.

This is a very funny, very cute, and very French romance. It's a must-see for Audrey fans, and it's enough to make anyone, even me, like Gary Cooper.

Wilder made some brilliant movies, but this isn't one of them

[rhoda-9 · 4/10 · 20 November 2009]

While Billy Wilder idolised Ernst Lubitsch (he worked on the script for that director's Ninotchka), he did not have his tenderness and romantic charm. Audrey Hepburn is lovely in this movie, but it is painful to see her opposite Gary Cooper, who was nearly 30 years older than she and looks in bad shape for his age.

When Hepburn began her career, the Hollywood studios had a lot of male stars in their forties and fifties and sixties who had been popular before World War II but had not developed young male stars. So Hepburn was paired with these much older men--Humphrey Bogart in the so-so Sabrina, Fred Astaire in the charming Funny Face. This movie is distasteful and unpleasant, not just because Cooper's character is so much older but because he is an immature, vulgar boor. He shows up at the opera with another woman and, when his date goes to the ladies' room, sees Hepburn in the lobby and makes a date with her, and tells her that he is at Tristan and Isolde by mistake--he thought he was getting tickets to the Folies Bergere! (If he meant this, he is an idiot; if he meant it as a joke, he has a puerile sense of humour.) When his date returns, he winks at Hepburn behind the woman's back.

At another point in the movie, he is caressing Hepburn in his hotel suite when the phone rings and it is twins with whom he has been sexually involved in the past. In front of Hepburn, he makes a date with them, causing her to leave the room in distress.

One could go on and on, but I think this is enough to establish the point. Treating any woman like this is disgusting. Treating Audrey Hepburn like this--the most exquisite, delicate woman ever to have become a film star--is unbelievable. It is like watching someone kick a puppy. The rave review for this film in the NY Times when it first appeared is an illustration of the male chauvinism of the time, and the comments here from people who think it is a delightful romantic film show that this condescension to women and contempt for their feelings is still with us.

Wilder had some talent for romantic comedy, but his heart was really in the sordid and nasty, as in such masterpieces as Ace in the Hole or Sunset Boulevard. The ending of this film might have been intended as a homage to the ending of Lubitsch's film Cluny Brown, but is in fact a clumsy imitation of it. Both films end with the same device for bringing the hero and heroine together at the very last moment, but in Cluny Brown (with Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer) the device was extravagantly romantic, and you felt thrilled that the two of them were together. In this film, the scene feels completely phony and you think, oh, dear, poor Audrey is letting herself in for a lot more mistreatment and humiliation.

Can't Audrey get a man her own age?

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 22 March 2013]

Poor Audrey Hepburn. Her waif-like persona keeps the older gentlemen interested, from William Holden and Humphrey Bogart in "Sabrina", Fred Astaire in "Funny Face", Cary Grant in "Charade" and Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady". I guess they feel she needs a father figure. Here, her papa is Maurice Chevalier, playing against type, and very amusing doing so. He's a private detective whose client (John McGiver) discovers his wife is having an affair with an American playboy (Gary Cooper). Hepburn rushes off to warn Cooper that his lover's husband intends to shoot him and as a result falls head over heels for him. This provides the funniest sequence in the film, McGiver's seemingly drunk hubby sneering like Edward G. Robinson has he creeps through the halls of Cooper's hotel. But this is where the amusement ends. The film seems to drag for the next hour and a half as Hepburn pretends that Cooper is only one in a long line of daddy types. She is never convincing in that area, which she isn't supposed to be, and Cooper's befuddled amusement only indicates that he is actually bored.

This update of Ernest Lubitsch's 1930's sex comedies provides roles for two stars of some of those films, Cooper and Chevalier. This is basically an update of the character that Cooper played in the film version of Noel Coward's "Design For Living" while Chevalier ("Love Me Tonight", "One Hour With You") takes away the rascally romantic scoundrel and plays a much more serious part. He would return to the old type of roles in his next film with "Gigi". Some people may be put off by Olga Valéry as the hotel guest who keeps spanking her barking dog. She is meant to be comic relief, but the repetitive joke simply goes on too long.

I've always been disturbed by the ending, always utilized in Hepburn tributes, which has an air of lechery to it.

Love before nightfall in Paris!

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 8/10 · 17 November 2002]

Ariane Chavasse, daughter of a French detective, loves to read her father's private dossiers... She becomes fascinated with the file concerning American playboy millionaire Frank Flannagan and a certain Madame X... She soon learns that Monsieur X has sworn to kill the American, so she goes to his hotel suite to warn him... Flannagan, intrigued by the attractive mysterious girl, dates her for the following afternoon... Ariane is captured by his sophistication, and a succession of many 'afternoon rendezvous' follows...

Concealing her identity, Ariane tells Frank of the many lovers in her past... He now becomes concerned about her... One day, in a steam bath, Flannagan meets Monsieur X, who advises him to consult detective Chavasse... He does, asking the detective to find out about the mysterious girl...

Reunited with Billy Wilder, Audrey Hepburn once again finds herself cast opposite a father figure in the person of Gary Cooper... Their vehicle is a gay comedy that derived from a Claude Anet novel called 'Ariane,' and it had been filmed twice before... Both adaptations clung to the novel's concept of an innocent young girl's winning over a middle-aged Don Juan by pretending a romantic past of her own to equal his, and eventually reforming him altogether...

With the most popular French entertainer of the last century Maurice Chevalier as the loving father, and John McGiver as the jealous husband, and considering its slight plot, 'Love in the Afternoon' maintains an atmosphere of sly charm and amusing details that almost sustains the film's length...

Director Wilder is helped immensely by the luminous black-and-white photography of William Mellor and by musical composer Franz Waxman, whose various arrangements of the movie's long-playing leitmotif 'Fascination' lend so much to the resulting effect...

Adorable hilarious Hepburn with older Gary Cooper

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 22 August 2014]

Parisian private detective Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) finds evidence of a woman cheating with the infamous American womanizer millionaire Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper). The husband Mr. X (John McGiver) threatens to kill Flannagan. Claude's daughter Ariane (Audrey Hepburn) overhears the threat and calls the cops. When they won't help, she goes to warn Frank herself. She saves the day by pretending to be his date and falls for the older man. The next day, she returns pretending to be a nameless socialite with many lovers. He leaves Paris continuing his womanizing ways. After some time, he runs into the mysterious girl at a concert and she lies to him with a long list of former lovers. He hires Claude to investigate her.

It's a charming rom-com by the great Billy Wilder. Audrey Hepburn is adorable. Perhaps Cary Cooper is a little bit too old and not up to the standard at the time. It's more than the age difference. He's a little bit stiff and not that debonair. His character is quite cold and unromantic. The problem is that the older Cooper fits and it's harder for him to grow out of that cold character. It doesn't help that he's getting ill which would eventually kill him a few years later. However the list is hilarious and Hepburn is so very adorable with her fake french accent. She is so funny. It's a nice rom-com with a couple of really good laughs.

Implausible Wilder Misfire That Even Hepburn Can't Save

[davidgarnes · 4/10 · 17 May 2015]

I expected to like this film...Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Billy Wilder, Paris...But I was disappointed by its cynical manipulation and totally contrived ending.

The great age difference between Cooper and Hepburn, made even more so by the fact that she's supposed to be a young student in this film (making him more like her grandfather), was remarked on, I believe, in some contemporary reviews. But this is not a reason to find fault with the relationship. It's more that it is difficult to understand how an intelligent young woman, albeit one who is somewhat naive and romantic, could be infatuated by, continue to be beguiled by, and eventually fall in love with the unpleasant lecher played by Cooper. Despite the charm that Gary Cooper has shown in many of his films, here he seems...well, tired and not really acting as though he at all believes in the rancid character he's playing, and he's right.

The premise of the film is sour and cynical and the farce doesn't work. The ending injects a jarring sentimental note that only confirms the earlier implausibility of the "relationship" that the script would have you believe the two leads have. Doesn't work.

Audrey Hepburn is her usual magical self, but even she can't make me believe in her character. She is certainly worth watching, however, for the moments when she is, indeed, someone who might appeal to the Cooper character as more than a one-night stand.

Maurice Chevalier is surprisingly appealing here and doesn't lay on the French accent and mannerisms that he continued to polish over the years. But, again, he's done in by the script. In his very last scene in the film, he does a total flip-flop in point of view, again demonstrating the screen writers' (Wilder and Diamond) manipulation to ensure a romantically satisfying and totally unbelievable ending.

So...nice musical score, lovely black and white cinematography, a charming Hepburn, an appealing Chevalier...but a Wilder misfire, big-time.

Very Old Man and Young Girl

[JTegeur · 15 November 2012]

This is totally improbable. Today I suspect this movie would not even be made in the US. Cooper looks like he is approaching seventy and Hepburn appears as a teenager. Their relationship today would be considered totally inappropriate. The scene with the husband ready to shoot Cooper is an obvious weak attempt at comedy but comes across as bad farce and is so unbelievable you wonder how the director accepted that part of the script. From there it drags on and on waiting for the final match up with Cooper and Hepburn and the totally unrealistic outcome of marriage. Maurice and Audrey give rather good performances, Gary as usual acts like a wooden door.

Yuck! 2.0

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 5/10 · 28 August 2019]

Another of our reviewers titled their review "Yuck!" I whole heartedly agree.

Before I get to Gary Cooper, I have to comment on two production issues. This was some of the worst cinematography I've ever seen...not something I usually even notice. And the matte paintings of the square beneath the hotel room...so fake looking to be laughable, and so amazing that nothing ever moved in that busy square in front of an important hotel. Sad.

But the problem here is Gary Cooper. Don't get me wrong. I generally admire Cooper. From the 1930s to 1960...so many fine performances. Fine Westerns. Fine dramas. Fine comedies. And then, toward the end of his career he allowed himself to play a dirty old man. That's what this role really was with him nearly 60 romancing a woman 30 years his junior. But that's the kind of joke that Billy Wilder loved. I'm just surprised Cooper accepted the role. I truly disliked him in this film, although as the film came to a close it was possible to perhaps like his character a little bit more.

Hepburn here was fine. Very good performance. And Maurice Chevalier, as well. I enjoyed seeing him in this role as a father and detective.

But Cooper...no. You know who could have pulled this off? Perhaps Cary Grant (my god...he could do anything and make it look good). But I was thinking William Holden. Far more mature than Hepburn, but not in a creepy way.

And by the way, what was WRONG with John McGiver's voice here. I remember the character actor well, and while he had a distinctive voice, here it was out of control.

I dislike the film. For me, the worst of a usually wonderful actor.

Probably my Least Favorite Billy Wilder

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 25 July 2012]

Critics originally said this film was no good based largely on Gary Cooper's age. I concur with that assessment. I kept wondering why Audrey Hepburn's character would be attracted to an old man. But more so, why is she attracted to a man who makes his life nothing but a series of conquests?

I have seen almost all of Billy Wilder's films and enjoyed them (some immensely), but this one just never felt right with me. The attraction seemed too awkward, the film ran a bit too long... I just could not see it. And for the father to support such a thing was even more astounding.

If I have to say one nice thing about the movie, it is how it brings out the classic double standard of men and women with dating. The playboy travels from country to country, glorified in the newspaper for being a man of loose morals. But when he confronts a woman who has seemingly done the same, he panics.

Defending Cooper

[PedroJT · 27 December 2003]

Love in the Afternoon is a late 50s Wilder classic. At least semi-classic. The story is about a French girl who falls in love with a swinger from Paris. The girl is Audrey Hepburn and the man is Gary Cooper. The first act lags. The only thing keeping me glued to the screen is Hepburn, who has such a screen presence (she's pretty).

Recent comments have also noted Gary Cooper's miscasting. I'm not sure. I agree it's hard to believe Hepburn's character falls for him. The movie just doesn't work in his favor in the first act. It does begin to work eventually. The turning point would have to be at the picnic where he obviously starts to fall for her. Cooper falling for Hepburn: more realistic. From that point everything takes off. Cary Grant could have pulled off the attraction, but I don't think he could have pulled off the 2nd and 3rd act, and Cooper did. When he's sad (dictaphone/wine cart/sauna scenes) he's a top form comic actor. Anyways - I digress.

No one can produce the feeling of heartache with so much sadness and glee as Wilder can. The gypsy band should have earned a best supporting actors nomination.

A Movie that works with a miscast lead!

[wgie · 26 November 2004]

This has always has been my all time favorite romantic comedy. Thanks to Billy Wilder's creative genius this film works despite Gary Cooper being miscast as the leading man. Regrettably, Gary Cooper was not only too old, but lacked the charm and suaveness needed for the role. Cooper was also in the twilight of his career and was suffering from health problems when the film was made. Cary Grant or Gregory Peck would have been more appropriate for the role of Frank Flannagan, the womanizing jet setter who falls madly in love with the daughter of a detective who has been investigating him. Nevertheless even with a miscast Gary Cooper the film works ....thanks to the marvelous performances of Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier, who play the young innocent musician daughter and her snooping, pooping private detective father. The title song "Fascination" with original music by F.D. Marchetti and Franz Waxman serve as a romantic thread that runs tightly through out the entire cinematic heart throbbing experience. Billy Wilder's more noted films such as "The Apartment" and "Some Like It Hot" may have garnered more recognition than this film over the years, but in my opinion none of them have the charm that this film has to offer. In fact if one is willing to "What if?", and trade off Gary Cooper for Gary Grant for the role of Frank Flannagan, I suspect that that this film would have been right up there with the best romantic comedy of all time, "It Happened One Night".

One romantic movie I love

[gerry-russell-139 · 8/10 · 28 September 1999]

I am not a fan of romantic movies but there are a small handful that I love and by far the one I love most (of the less bigger scale types like "Gone With the Wind") is "Love in the Afternoon". I love the story, the camerawork and especially the lead players...Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn. I love these two so much that it's hard to put another great screen couple above them. They make the whole story come alive in their own way. Coop with his dry but lovable wit and charming good looks, and Audrey with her universal charm, wholesomeness and great beauty. I have read in the book "The Complete Films of Audrey Hepburn" that Cary Grant and Yul Brynner were the first two choices to play Coop's part. Thank God that neither were able to. Coop as the character of Frank Flannagan makes the film more romantic and his ever-popular sweet-guy, no-airs-of-any-kind persona makes the film less stuffy than it would with Grant or Brynner. Audrey of course is the perfect Ariane and they shine together in each other's arms. Call it a cliche but that comment fits this film perfectly. See it if you're in the mood for good, romantic farce.

Terrible Miscasting

[gbheron · 7/10 · 10 April 1999]

The plot is very cute and romantic. A private detective's innocent young daughter lives vicariously through her father's case files. Predominate among them is millionaire jet-setting Frank Flannagan, stealer of women's hearts. The detective gets involved when the stolen hearts belong to married women. One day the daughter overhears a jealous husband swear blood vengeance against Flannagan. The daughter devises a plan to thwart the killing, and in the process falls heads-over-heels in love with him. At first she's just another fling to him...but then love blossoms in his heart too.

Shot on location in Paris, Maurice Chevalier plays the detective, and John McGiver the jealous husband. They are both great. Audrey Hepburn is wonderful as the daughter, but.....a Gary Cooper looking every one of his 56 years is cast as the the playboy!

This miscasting is just too much to overcome. There are only four characters in the movie which runs over 2 hours. When one is so unbelievable as Cooper the movie is irreparably damaged. It's a crying shame.

It's infatuation, not love; wishful daydreaming, not romance

[SimonJack · 5/10 · 7 August 2014]

For anyone who thinks "Love in the Afternoon" is a nice romance or love story, I posit the following questions to ask yourself. As a mother or father, would you want your daughter to go out with – or "fall" for Frank Flannagan, or someone like him in real life? Or, as a brother or sister, would you want your beloved sister to fall for such a man? I think Maurice Chevalier's character, Claude Chavasse, got it right. He told his daughter, Ariane (played by Audrey Hepburn) that Flannagan was a cad, despicable character – that he was no good. Flannagan, played by Gary Cooper, is an aged American millionaire playboy. He has no qualms or regrets about his many affairs with women – married or not. "Love them and leave them." That's his motto. Is that the type of man anyone would want a daughter, sister or friend to go for? I think not.

Of course, we viewers know that Ariane knew about Flannagan's character (played by Gary Cooper), because she sneaked into her father's files. Yet she falls for this guy anyway. Is that romance or love? It may be romantic daydreaming or fantasizing, but love or real romance it isn't. We parents, grandparents and others who have experienced such things ourselves have known it by another term – infatuation. Ariane's father cautions his daughter, but she pursues Flannagan anyway. The demure Hepburn's character feigns a nubile persona, but we audience members can't disregard her puerile innocence, if the Flannagan character can't see through her.

So, the first big problem with this film is that it is not a love story, or even a romance. It is a slice of life, of course, with some comedy. I am not averse to a story of young and old love. Some other films have handled this very well. "Battle Circus" was a 1953 film that had a young Army nurse fall for an older Army doctor during the Korean War. Humphrey Bogart (late 40s to early 50s) and June Alyson (late 20s) were very believable in their roles. On the other hand, some other films also have treated age differences quite well – as infatuation. "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" was such a film in 1947. It starred Cary Grant as a late-30s or early-40s playboy artist and professor, with Shirley Temple as the teen sister of Myrna Loy.

Most reviewers have noted the huge age difference between the two leads in this film. Many found it a problem that takes away from the films' believability. And thus, its appeal. Audrey Hepburn was 28 playing an 18-year-old; Gary Cooper was 56 playing a 65-year-old – at least he looked it, for that time. And the script never tries to specify what his age is – just that he's an older playboy millionaire. Try as they do, with the old news clips of a wild Flannagan (played by Cooper), the movie makers couldn't convince this viewer – or most viewers – that Flannagan was in his 40s. As "hip" as the script tried to paint him, Flannagan definitely was not so. And that is the problem. A 35 to 45- year-old would have been an older man for a teenage girl in the 1950s. Another reviewer commented that Gary Cooper's was a grandfather character. I agree.

Audrey Hepburn and her performance are the main reasons this film earns even 5 stars from me. Maurice Chevalier did very well with his role. Cooper was wooden. The idea of the film was OK and had possibilities. But it needed a younger character and actor as the playboy who could find true love and mend his ways. As it is, this script is terrible. That and the big age differences, and the casting of Gary Cooper as Flannagan made this film a dud.

Boring Afternoon

[srfotog · 3/10 · 22 December 2004]

The only reason I could watch this movie was the incredible cinematography by William C. Mellor. The black and white photography is so beautiful, the lighting so dramatic that I couldn't take my eyes off it until the bitter end. To suspend disbelief to this extent was as bad as "As Good As it Gets" was, with a nearly dead, nasty old man and a woman 20-30 years younger than he who, inexplicably, is madly in love with him. Somehow I can't not think of the flabby skin, the sagging jowls and the bad behavior, to top it off, as rather unattractive. I guess we are to suppose money makes a man sexy. To me, that means the woman is a prostitute. Ah, Hollyweird. Audry Hepburn was exquisitely photographed and looked like a work of art in this film.

Yuck!

[piedbeauty37 · 3/10 · 29 August 2012]

This movie sickened me. I've always liked Gary Cooper, but he is horribly miscast as the aging, corrupt Don Juan, Flanagan. The sight of him pawing Audrey Hepburn, who doesn't look a day over 16 is not appealing.

Maurice Chevalier, who plays Audrey's father,(who I have never liked) actually does an adequate job.

The movie takes place in France, but Chevalier is the only one who has a French accent.

I think this movie was supposed to make us laugh. It just made me disgusted.

Not recommended. 3/10

A fake Lubitsch, decades too late

[mart-45 · 4/10 · 4 January 2016]

This film has aged badly. Actually, it must have looked outdated even in 1957. The story might have worked under Lubitsch, some 25 years earlier, but this time the effort comes across as forcibly cute, with dainty situations and precious giggles crammed into the boring and predictable narrative, all drowned under a syrupy score of soaring violins. The pretentious sweetness is often nauseating. Chevalier is too old to be a young girl's father; he (over)employs his famous bedroom smile, but what was sexy 25 years earlier opposite Jeanette McDonald, is now downright creepy, especially since the girl is supposed to be his own daughter. Cooper is too old too and knows it, appearing very uncomfortable and letting some rather embarrassing moments slip in (I've never actually seen him act badly before). Hepburn is the only one to enjoy, but she doesn't really have very much to do.

There are so many better romantic comedies... if you feel like saluting Lubitsch, just watch a Lubitsch instead.