Sabrina

Billy Wilder's Sabrina has been around since 1954 and is back at our favorite theatre. It is a very good film: and, for a "slick comedy of manners, money, and martinis," sensibly written and surprisingly intimate in spots. Unfortunately, some bad jumps in the soundtrack indicate the print that the Brattle has this week is not a terribly good one.

The substance of Sabrina is light as the Laninized music that is wafting through it, but Humphrey Bogart is solidly in the middle and his acting is heavy enough to keep the film from floating away.

This Long Island fairytale is all about the chauffeur's daughter (Audrey Hepburn) who grows up with a case of the loves for the millionaire boss' younger son, David Larrabee (William Holden). He doesn't know she exists, but when Audrey returns from an hilarious interlude at a Parisian cooking school, sporting a tight hairdo and chic black dress, Holden wakes up and starts requiting.

Now Bogart, who runs Larrabee industries and is David's older brother, is working on a plastics merger that requires David to merge with a sugar heiress, so he plans to divert Audrey with some love-making of his own. After Bogie slips into his Yale sweater, takes the uke and Rudy Vallee records out of the closet, and goes courting, he has to determine whether the beautiful nymph will spend the rest of her life regaling him with choruses of La Vie En Rose, or be packed off on the next boat to Paris. Happily, the obviousness of this decision doesn't slow down the pace of the film.

As tycoon Larrabee, Bogart has the appropriate earthiness that was last seen in Robert Ryan's portrayal of Gatsby. He is very good in the role. (Casablanca addicts will probably get a kick out of seeing Bogie sailing with his girl on the Sound and humming Boola-Boola.)

For those who like champagne, Sabrina is an excellent fun film. But, despite some dialogue spots and topnotch quasi-satiric characterizations in the supporting roles, it never does shape up as a "comedy of manners."