Sabrina

 Sabrina is a 1954 film comedy-drama starring Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart, in a much different role than last month's In a Lonely Place.  The film was written and directed by Billy Wilder.

In the film, Sabrina (Hepburn) is the daughter of a rich family's chauffeur and is in love with David (Holden), the rich family's younger son.  Because of her youth and lack of sophistication, David never pays any attention to Sabrina.  

Distraught that David plans on seducing another woman at their home on Long Island,  Sabrina attempts suicide by turning on all eight cars in the family's garage and closing the doors.  

One bitter cold day when I was an ignorant teenager, I almost did the same thing without knowing what I was doing.  I did not have a key to my family's house, but was able to enter our garage and turn on one of the family's cars to get warm.  I did not know enough to open the garage door.  I could have died from carbon monoxide had not my parents arrived soon after.

In Sabrina's case, she was saved by David's older brother Linus (Bogart) who discovers what she has done.    

Two years later, Sabrina returns from an education in Paris as an attractive and sophisticated young woman.  At first, David does not recognize her, but when he finally realizes who she is, he invites her to his engagement party (to his fourth wife) where he plans on attempting to make love to her.

The marriage to David's fourth wife was arranged by Linus as a sort of business deal.  The two families that would be joined together would form a profitable venture.  As such, Linus wants to prevent David from having a rendezvous with Sabrina and thus sabotaging the engagement and the business deal.

David has the habit of hiding champagne glasses in his back pocket.  Linus forces him to sit down which has the affect of breaking the glasses and putting David out of commission for some days.

While David is recuperating, Linus spends a lot of time with Sabrina hoping to get her to stop thinking of David.  Linus's plan works so well that the two of them forget David and fall in love with each other.  At the end, the two lovebirds take a cruise to France.

One criticism of Sabrina is that Bogart is 30 years older than Hepburn.  Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon (1957) is 28 years older than Hepburn.  Cary Grant in Charade (1963) is 25 years older than Hepburn.  That was typical of Hollywood during that era, much older male star opposite a young starlet.