It is one of the best 1960's films. Audrey Hepburn in TWO FOR THE ROAD
The odds are you've never heard of or seen TWO FOR THE ROAD. It was Hepburn's only flop. But today it captures the moment when love wasn't all you needed.
Take two of the hottest stars of the 1960’s, add the music of Henry Mancini and cinematography by one of the true greats. Martin Scorsese said: "It is not possible even to begin to take the full measure of the greatness of British filmmaking without thinking of Chris Challis," and: "Chris Challis brought a vibrancy to the celluloid palette that was entirely his own, and which helped make Britain a leader in that long, glorious period of classic world cinema." It does not even seem possible the film would not draw lines of people. Would not be thought of today as one of the best films of the 1960’s. What went wrong?
Dave Kehr wrote in 1985, years after the film’s release:
Arguably Stanley Donen’s masterpiece, and undoubtedly one of the most stylistically influential films of the 60s, Two for the Road (1967) follows a couple (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) through four successive trips through the south of France, telling the story of the dissolution of their marriage by cutting from one time level to another. The literate script is by Frederic Raphael, and Eleanor Bron contributes a hilarious cameo as the ultimate University of Chicago graduate.
You can watch TWO FOR THE ROAD by clicking here
In 1967 flower power and love is all you need was all the rage in pop culture. TWO FOR THE ROAD captures the moment when love is not all you need.
Albert Finney is the aloof male who doesn’t understand the depth of love Audrey Hepburn has for him. It is said when it comes to love in life, you will hurt someone who loves you, and you will be hurt by someone you love. In 1967 however, love seemed to hold the world together. The story of TWO FOR THE ROAD was adult, mature, while the audience had the adolescent fantasy that love alone could change the world. It is interesting to note that TWO FOR THE ROAD was a hit in Europe, in America it bombed at the box office.
Audrey did not wear clothes designed by Givenchy but rather clothes hip Europeans were wearing (except for the "disc dress" designed by Paco Rabanne that Hepburn wears in the house party scene). TWO FOR THE ROAD is her most mature performance, partially because in real life her own marriage was falling apart. It must have been very difficult for her as an actress to go through the stages of love that mirrored her own life.
Today however watching the film it is hands down her best performance in a movie. Wikipedia: Finney, who came from a Northern working-class background, was in many ways the antithesis of the aristocratic Hepburn and was able to draw out a previously unseen side of her personality. As filming went on, the two became increasingly close and spent much of their time together outside of work, going out to eat and dance in the evenings. Finney later reflected on their relationship, explaining, "doing a scene with her, my mind knew I was acting but my heart didn't, and my body certainly didn't! Playing a love scene with someone as sexy as Audrey, you sometimes get to that edge where make-believe and reality are blurred. [...] The time spent with Audrey is one of the closest I've ever had." Finney regularly teased Hepburn, calling her "tawdry Audrey" and "Audrey Sunburn." Author Irwin Shaw, who visited the set, said of Hepburn, "she and Albie had this wonderful thing together, like a pair of kids with a perfect shorthand of jokes and references that closed out everybody else. It was like a brother and sister in their teens. When Mel (her husband Mel Ferrer) was there, Audrey and Albie got rather formal and a little awkward, as if now they had to behave like grown ups."
You can watch TWO FOR THE ROAD by clicking here
Hepburn and Finney's closeness during the making of the film translated in their performances. Donen said later, "the Audrey I saw during the making of this film I didn't even know. She overwhelmed me. She was so free, so happy. I never saw her like that. So young! I guess it was Albie." Hepburn, who was in her late 30s and insecure over her "dreadful thinness," was uncomfortable doing some of the beach scenes in which she was to wear a bathing suit. Finney, however, convinced her, saying "you're really an eyeful, Audrey." Donen also struggled to convince Hepburn to do the scene at the Dalbret villa where she is thrown in the pool. As a nine-year-old, Hepburn had tangled her feet in weeds in a pond and nearly drowned, and remained terrified of water her whole life. After three days of coaxing her and denying her request for a body double, Donen got her to do the scene, albeit with two assistants waiting to pull her out after the shot.
The editing of the film by Madeleine Gug was innovative. Her editing for the film Diabolique had helped make the film an international horror hit. In TWO FOR THE ROAD she abandons a linear approach to film, instead using the cars to show a change of time and treating the love story as moments.
Wikipedia: Two for the Road opened at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on 27 April 1967 and ran until 24 May. Fox chose the theatre because of its past association with Donen films; Cover Girl, On the Town, Singin' in the Rain, and Charade had all premiered at Radio City. Donen fought the studio over the booking, as he believed Two for the Road was too intimate a picture for such a grand venue.
The film received its British premiere on 31 August 1967 at the Odeon Leicester Square. The same day, Hepburn and Ferrer announced the press that they were separating. The media speculated that this was a publicity stunt to coincide with the film's release, though they learned later that the separation was genuine.
In the New York World Journal Tribune, Judith Crist wrote, "Two for the Road is that rare thing, an adult comedy by and for grown-ups, bright, brittle and sophisticated, underlined by cogency and honest emotion. And, far from coincidentally, it is a complex and beautifully made movie, eye-filling and engrossing with a 'new' (mod and non-Givenchy) Audrey Hepburn displaying her too-long-neglected depths and scope as an actress." Time wrote, "abandoning the Givenchy school and the elfin cool, Audrey Hepburn is surprisingly good as a Virginia Woolf-cub who has earned her share of scars in the jungle war between the sexes. As her mate, Albert Finney is not so fortunate, and seems curiously unsympathetic in helping to turn his marriage into a fray-for-all." The Independent Film Journal said, "Miss Hepburn moves swiftly but gently through all the manifestations of virginity to marriage and womanhood, hardly missing any of the in-between stages. She is delicate and responsive in her performance, alternately seductive and aggressive, playing the theme of the joys and agonies of love to her womanly hilt." Meanwhile, Rex Reed wrote that "Two for the Road is perhaps the best American movie of 1967," and that audiences would be rewarded by "two of the most brilliant performances–by Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney–ever captured on the screen."
One of Hepburn's biographers, Charles Higham, wrote that "the picture was to achieve an extraordinary level of emotional intensity, all the more remarkable because it was hidden in humour. Audrey's portrayal of a range of emotions as the seemingly lighthearted Joanna Wallace betokened a striking advance for her as an actress, and this was perhaps her finest performance on the screen. In one sequence in the south of France, as she ran tearfully through a garden to a swimming pool followed by Albert Finney's Mark Wallace, she was astonishingly open in her expression of personal pain."
Watch TWO FOR THE ROAD by clicking here
Behind the paywall, Darcey Bussell's Looking for Audrey Hepburn - BBC Documentary
Behind Audrey Hepburn's dazzling image, Darcey Bussell unravels an epic tale of betrayal, courage, heartache and broken dreams. For as long as she can remember, Darcey has been fascinated by Audrey Hepburn - style icon, star of Breakfast at Tiffany's and an Oscar winner at 24. Now, Darcey follows in Audrey's footsteps through Holland, London, Rome, Switzerland and Hollywood to find out more. She discovers that Audrey started out as a dancer, risked her life in the Second World War and, although adored the world over, was always looking for love.
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