Charming stars, witty dialog, and expert direction make Billy Wilder’s Sabrina one of the real romantic gems of the 1950s, as enjoyable today as it was more than seventy years ago.
The Production: 4.5/5
Billy Wilder’s Sabrina is a cool glass of cinematic champagne. It’s a bubbly, utterly sophisticated romantic comedy featuring three movie stars whose collective charisma could jump start a dozen other similar pictures alone. Together, they make movie magic guided by one of the real masters of filmic fairy tales, this one mixing elegance and cynicism with uncanny style and wit.
Sabrina Fairchild (Audrey Hepburn), the daughter of the millionaire Larrabee family’s chauffeur (John Williams), has loved the playboy Larrabee brother David (William Holden) her entire life, but being the child of a servant didn’t exactly put her in David’s sights. After a two-year stint in Paris studying the culinary arts and being taken under the wing of an elderly baron (Marcel Dalio), Sabrina returns home a polished, sophisticated woman, one who knocks the engaged David on his ear. But David’s engagement to a sugar cane heiress (Martha Hyer) is partly business motivated, and David’s business-minded brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) isn’t about to let anyone stand in the way of a financial merger that could spell millions for the family. However, the dour, soulless Linus finds himself being drawn to Sabrina, so the sticky triangle that develops couldn’t be any messier than one of Sabrina’s failed soufflés.
The screenplay for Sabrina was based on Samuel Taylor’s hit Broadway play Sabrina Fair, but Wilder has added some tantalizing spice to this ugly duckling yarn (assisted by screenwriter Ernest Lehman) which keeps the fizzy dialog continually witty and filled with great lines. He’s done some wonderful things with the camera, too, such as shooting part of a scene through the clear plastic of a hammock David is lying in or shooting from high above a couple dancing on a darkened indoor tennis court brightened only by moonlight. The cynical Wilder of A Foreign Affair and Ace in the Hole seems eons away when Hepburn makes her stunning debut at the party in a Givenchy ball gown that puts Cinderella to shame, and her subsequent enchantment at being in David‘s arms slow dancing to “I Don‘t Want to Walk Without You” and “Lover” just breathes romance, perhaps the most purely and sentimentally amorous sequence in Wilder‘s entire oeuvre.
Humphrey Bogart was a last-minute replacement for Cary Grant in the role of Linus, and, truth to tell, he’s miscast in a romantic comedy of this ilk, at least at this stage of his career. He seems less than committed at certain moments as well, never quite getting into the sparkling mood of the piece. William Holden (who pundits say was despised by Bogart in real life and which made filming difficult) is a much better fit as David, casually charming and handsome enough to imagine Sabrina being swept off of her feet. But the picture truly belongs to Audrey Hepburn. Transforming from an unsophisticated doe-eyed schoolgirl with an annoying crush to a heart-stopping sophisticate with a gamin quality that would make most men rush to protect her, Hepburn’s total ease and believability in both guises is still astonishing to watch even after seeing so many other fantastic performances of hers on screen. Little wonder that the world took her to its heart after her work in Roman Holiday and in this marvelous follow-up vehicle. John Williams does his droll best as her starchy father (winning the National Board of Review’s Best Supporting Actor award), and Walter Hampden has some marvelous moments as the Larrabee paterfamilias constantly sneaking off to have a cigar and a cold martini (with olives). Other actors in smaller roles also make wonderful impressions: Ellen Corby as Linus’ devoted secretary, Martha Hyer as the heiress caught in the middle of David and Linus’ love triangle with someone else, and Marjorie Bennett, Emory Parnell, and Nancy Kulp as other Larabee staff rooting for Sabrina throughout the film.
Video: 5/5
3D Rating: NA
The film has been framed properly at its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.75:1 and is presented in 2160p/1080p using the HEVC/AVC codecs. Taken from a 4K scan of the original camera negative and enhanced with Dolby Vision/HDR on the UHD disc, image quality is gorgeously appealing. True, the main titles still look a bit soft, but the transfer resolves grain quite nicely throughout, and the grayscale is rich and solid, with specular highlights especially in nighttime scenes particularly noticeable. Details in facial features and hair are always apparent and much appreciated. The movie has been divided into 8 chapters.
Audio: 4.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono sound mix is typical for its era. Bass is a bit on the sparse side, but the soundtrack is otherwise first-rate. Dialogue has been expertly recorded and has been mixed with classic tunes from Paramount’s holdings and Frederick Hollander’s background score very professionally. There are no problems at all with age-related hiss, pops, crackle, or flutter.
Special Features: 5/5
Audio Commentaries: there are two on each disc. In the first, Billy Wilder scholar Joseph McBride gives biographical information on the director as well as analyzing the film, giving production history of it, and mentions some parallels between actors, characters, and plot points in Sabrina compared to other Wilder projects. In the second, film historian Julie Kirgo is joined by filmmaker Peter Hankoff. They have a fun and satisfying camaraderie, but in their enthusiasm to talk, they make several mistakes (Martha Hyer did not win the Oscar for Some Came Running; Francis X. Bushman was not the first Tarzan). It’s a looser commentary than the first. Fans of the movie will likely want to hear both.
Audrey Hepburn – Fashion Icon (17:36, HD): features a host of designers discussing Hepburn’s sense of fashion in her films and in real life. Two designers, Eduardo Lucero and Trina Tirk, present new creations inspired by Audrey in her various films.
Sabrina’s World (11:29, HD): a mini-history of the Gold Coast area of Long Island, specifically Glen Cove, where Sabrina takes place. This luxurious resort area was home to the likes of the Astors, Vanderbilts, Woolworths, Morgans, and many of our country’s wealthiest families, and photographs and movie footage of some of the grandiose estates make for fascinating viewing.
Supporting Sabrina (16:36, HD): offers mini-biographies of several of the famous character actors who were a part of the film’s cast. Profiled are John Williams, Ellen Corby, Nancy Kulp, Marcel Dalio, Walter Hampden, Francis X. Bushman, and Martha Hyer.
William Holden – The Paramount Years (29:53, HD): profiles the life and career of William Holden with excerpts from many of his Paramount films. Stephanie Powers, Bob Thomas, A.C. Lyles, and Patricia Crowley all offer warm recollections on him as a man and an actor.
Behind the Gates (5:12, HD): an entertaining mini-lesson on the history of cameras used at the studio from the hand-cranked Bell and Howells through the Mitchell cameras and into the VistaVision years. We’re given a tour of the storage facility at Paramount and shown several of the cameras discussed in the featurette.
Paramount in the ‘50s (9:38, SD): a mini-documentary on the studio’s hit films of that decade, all of which are coincidentally available on home media.
Sabrina featurette (11:46, HD): a short documentary on the making of the film.
Theatrical Trailer (2:11, HD)
Kino Trailers: Sabrina (1995); The Apartment; One, Two, Three; The Fortune Cookie.
Overall: 4.5/5
Charming stars, witty dialog, and expert direction make Billy Wilder’s Sabrina one of the real romantic gems of the 1950s, as enjoyable today as it was more than seventy years ago. The Kino Lorber combo UHD and Blu-ray release offers a fine package for this classic romantic comedy and comes with the highest recommendation.
Matt has been reviewing films and television professionally since 1974 and has been a member of Home Theater Forum’s reviewing staff since 2007, his reviews now numbering close to three thousand. During those years, he has also been a junior and senior high school English teacher earning numerous entries into Who’s Who Among America’s Educators and spent many years treading the community theater boards as an actor in everything from Agatha Christie mysteries to Stephen Sondheim musicals.
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