Charade

Romance and suspense in Paris, as a woman is pursued by several men who want a fortune her murdered husband had stolen. Who can she trust?

• Director: Stanley Donen
• Genre:Comedy / Crime / Mystery / Romance / Thriller
• Runtime:114 minutes

Cast

Cary Grant : Peter JoshuaAudrey Hepburn : Regina LampertWalter Matthau : Hamilton BartholemewJames Coburn : Tex Panthollow George Kennedy : Herman Scobie

Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) meets a charming stranger calling himself Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in Megève. She returns to Paris, planning to ask her husband Charles for a divorce, but finds all of their possessions gone. The police notify her that Charles has been murdered, thrown from a train. They give Regina her husband’s travel bag. At the funeral, Regina is struck by the odd characters who show up to view the body, including one who sticks the corpse with a pin and another who places a mirror in front of the corpse’s mouth and nose, both to verify he is dead.

She is summoned to the U.S. Embassy, where she meets CIA agent Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau). He informs her Charles was involved in a theft during World War II. As part of the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA), he, “Tex” Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass) and Carson Dyle were parachuted behind enemy lines to deliver $250,000 in gold to the French Resistance. Instead, they buried it, but were then ambushed by a German patrol. Dyle was badly wounded and left to die; the rest got away. Charles doublecrossed them, digging up the gold and selling it. He was killed but the money remains missing – and the U.S. government wants it back. Reggie recognizes the oddballs from the funeral in pictures shown to her by Bartholomew. He insists she has the money, even if she doesn’t know where it is.

Peter appears and offers to help her figure out what to do. Reggie becomes attracted to him, even though he keeps changing his name (simultaneously amusing and confusing her) and unabashedly admits he is after her late husband’s money as well. The dead man’s partners in crime assume Reggie knows where the money is and demand their share. Unbeknownst to her, Peter is in league with them (under the pseudonym Alexander Dyle, Carson’s brother), though none of the men trust each other. Read more