The Children’s Hour, an Oscar®-nominated* film, is a challenging adaptation of the famous play of Lillian Hellman. Amazingly, a little girl’s false assertion causes severe changes in life. Hepburn and MacLaine, Academy Award® winners**, have acted in this excellently produced drama, the land mark of film industry. Hepburn and MacLaine, headmistresses of a girls’ school, punish a spiteful little girl. She fabricates an overheard remark into an insult and blames her teachers of objectionable behavior. Rapidly the shameful gossip spreads among the students and teachers of the school, with rumors that are devastating and heartrending. 1961, Bainter: Supporting Actress; Hepburn: Actress, Roman Holiday (1953); Hersholt, Humanitarian Award (1992); MacLaine: Actress, Terms of Endearment (1983).
Wait Until Dark is the last Oscar nominated film of Hepburn‘s. It is an adaptation of Fredrick Knott’s famous thriller about Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn), a blind woman, and a doll. Lisa, a young woman in the airport asks Sam, Hepburn’s husband, to hold onto a doll for her. In fact, the doll contains heroin and a man named Roat is after it. Later on, Lisa was found murdered. Roat influences Talman and Carlino to work for him. He informs them that Lisa has given the doll to Sam. Roat believes that the doll is hidden in a locked safe. Suddenly, Susy returns home. Talman and Carlino startle, but Roat knows that Susy cannot see them as she is blind. Susy then leaves again. Perhaps she senses something wrong. Roat devises his plan to force the woman to give them the doll. Richard Crenna, sympathetic follower, helps Arkin to obtain the doll. Anyway, the “world’s champion blind lady” defends herself in the basement of her Manhattan apartment in a heart-throbbing climax. Even today, the film defines the way to horror movies.–Mark Englehart
Two for the Road, directed by Stanley Donen, is an over-sensitive romantic comedy of long lasting fame. The film deals with the conjugal pleasures and pains of a fashionable British pair, Finney and Hepburn. They take a trip on different vacations over the track of their a dozen of year matrimony in happiness and sorrows. They work hard to retain their vanishing nuptial bliss. The film is delightfully stylish in its dealing of the hardships of long-term pledge. Hepburn and Finney have shown their grand performances drawn from the sharp humor of Raphael’s script. Style also marvels at Hepburn’s surprising clothes of late 60s manner–she’s a display case for summer fashion design, looking extraordinary in any dress from striped bellbottoms to hip sunglasses and shockingly stylish hats. The film is uniquely charming and straight to the test of permanent love.–Jeff Shannon
How to Steal a Million, directed by Wyler, is a film of immense visual pleasure. Audrey Hepburn appears amazingly shiny and enchanting in this fantastic movie. The plot based on the short story Venus Rising by George Bradshaw, hubs on a fraud in the world of art through faking ‘masterpieces’. The script twists around Hepburn. She is the stylish daughter to Hugh Griffith, a prominent art collector and secret counterfeiter. He has deposits a dear figurine, his best work, in a museum of Paris. Yet the dilemma is, modern experts can now identify such imitation. So Hepburn conspires to steal the figurine seeking help from O’Toole, a private detective who specializes in solving crimes in the world of art, but she thinks him a burglar. In fact, they can’t identify each other in the real sense. At last, they make a rather pleasant pair. –Bill Desowitz
My Fair Lady, directed by George Cukor and performed by Hepburn and Harrison, is a musical film based on the Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. Professor Henry Higgins, conceited and irritable but highly experienced in phonetics, considers that the accent and tone of one’s voice verifies a person’s image in the society. He talks big to Colonel Hugh Pickering, his new associate that he can teach any woman to speak “properly” so that he can pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball, citing as an example, a young flower seller from the slums, Eliza Doolittle, a strong Cockney accent. It’s, in fact, star power that keeps this film amazing. It’s also enriched with some familiar songs. Jeremy Brett wins admiration in life portraying Sherlock Holmes. The film has won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. –Tom Keogh
Paris When It Sizzles is a fabulous romantic comedy. The design and wit are really interesting and enjoyable. The film has two prominent stars: Holden and Hepburn. Hepburn, falls simply in the love of Holden, who is a drunken screen writer. The story is exciting having two episodes developing in side by side. Holden has only forty-eight hours to complete the script for a mysterious producer Hepburn, who is sketched to be a typist. The script is read out and so it is obvious itself in the film, allowing the two major players to surpass any number of love stories. Marlene Dietrich appears in the last screen as well as Curtis having amusing to his film role. It is enjoyable on the technical environment of Hollywood’s romances. –Nikki Disney
Charade, directed by Stanley Donen, is a film which covers suspense thriller, romance, and comedy. Peter Stone and Marc Behm have written it. Regina (Hepburn) acts as a Parisian and comes across Peter, a fascinating visitor, on a holiday. She goes back to Paris to ask Charles for a divorce. Soon she discovers their belongings gone. The police inform that Charles has been murdered. She is called to the US Embassy, where she meets a CIA agent. He informs that Charles was implicated in a thievery during World War II. The film is famous for its screenplay, the wit between Grant and Hepburn, location in Paris, Henry Mancini’s score and theme song. Grant and Hepburn were nominated for Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical/Comedy, Best Motion Picture Actress in Musical/Comedy and Hepburn won the BAFTA Award as Best Actress. –Tom Keogh
Breakfast At Tiffany’s, directed by Blake Edwards, is a romantic variation of Truman Capote’s short story. Audrey Hepburn appears fascinating and graceful in this film. Her urban sophisticated, stylish, and captivating attributes make her a amazing figure in designs dresses and costume ornaments. George Peppard, her upstairs neighbor is a stressed writer. His growing familiarity with Hepburn soon turns into love. Capote’s bittersweet story transforms the city of New York into a heaven of love and creates a heartrending portrayal of Holly, an upset romance with a furtive past and a concealed susceptibility. “Moon River”, the hit song of the film, brings Oscars for Composer Henry. It is a famous romantic film and a sophisticated segment of a society of bohemian style, elegant but light touch of Edward, Axelrod’s bighearted screenplay, and Hepburn’s combination of experience and simplicity. –Sean Axmaker
The Nun’s Story, epic drama of Fred Zinnemann, is a superb display case for Audrey Hepburn. She plays the role of Sister Luke, a young nun. We find her profoundly spiritual but hesitated to follow the canons of convent life. The film is interesting and quite relaxing but its plot is rather simple. She goes into the convent promising herself to God and becomes skilled at the disciplines related with the life. She gets her mission to Congo as a nurse. Once, she is forced there to face if she is destined for the meticulous life of scarcity, purity, and above all, compliance. The film reveals amazingly the challenges of private life without being repulsive or very romantic. Hepburn, at times with only her eyes, speaks all the force, faith, and dispute of a young woman so tattered. –Anne Hurley