Yesterday we saw Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957). From a review at filmsgraded.com:

Love in the Afternoon is relentlessly criticized for its major casting blunder. Gary Cooper was 56 years old, and looked older. Audrey Hepburn was 28, and looked younger. Of course, such miscasting was hardly unique....The terse and retiring Cooper is not only the wrong age, but he has the wrong temperament for the role of a millionaire playboy. Cooper had been a notorious rake in his long-past day, but by 1957 he looked like he would rather go fishing.

But although I agree that Cooper was too old (and I find something disgusting about May/November matches), once you get past that, it's worth watching. And although some find the movie overly long, we didn't.


"Fascination Waltz" seems to have been used in popular culture a short-hand reference to Parisian romances; I'm guessing it's thanks to this film.


We also liked this priceless quote, available here:

Frank Flannagan: What does he export and what does he import?

Ariane Chavasse: Oh, he uh--he exports perfume and imports bananas. There's a fortune in it. Do you realize that for one bottle of perfume you get twelve bananas?

Frank Flannagan: Twelve bananas for one bottle of--doesn't sound like such a hot deal to me.

Ariane Chavasse: It's a tiny bottle of perfume and very large bananas.