Sabrina and Sabrina

Yesterday my wife and I watched Sabrina (1956) and Sabrina (1995) back to back. They are very different movies. All things considered I think the Billy Wilder-direct 1956 version starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden the better picture but the 1995 version starring Julia Ormond, Harrison Ford, and Greg Kinnear has much to recommend it, in particular Greg Kinnear’s charming performance as Sabrina’s obsession, David, Maude Larrabee played by Nancy Marchand, and the location shooting in Long Island, Paris, and Edgartown.

But Julia Ormond’s performance is not the star-making turn that Audrey Hepburn’s was in the 1956 version. And I’m glad that we have Humphrey Bogart’s performance on film just as I’m glad we have his performance, repeating his stage triumph, playing Duke Mantee in Petrified Forest. Linus is probably more like the real Humphrey Bogart, the child of privilege, than any of the heavies he played in the movies was. Or, indeed, as Rick was.

Neither of the two movie versions has the heft of their source material, Samuel Taylor’s Sabrina Fair, although to my eye the 1995 version takes more from it.

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