Love in the Afternoon

In Paris the private detective Claude Chavasse makes his living following unfaithful spouses. His daughter Ariane studies cello at the conservatoire and reads his files behind his back. One of them concerns an American millionaire, Frank Flannagan, who is going to be shot that night. Ariane goes to the hotel room to warn him and then cannot leave it alone. Instead of saying who she is, she invents a past for herself: countless lovers, nameless adventures. Flannagan believes it. The real subject is who a lie serves. Ariane invents experience to hide her lack of it, and the more she invents the less peace he has. The jealousy is manufactured out of fiction. Billy Wilder produced and directed, writing the script with I. A. L. Diamond from Claude Anet's 1920 novel Ariane, jeune fille russe. It was the first of twelve screenplays the two wrote together. Audrey Hepburn plays Ariane, Gary Cooper plays Flannagan and Maurice Chevalier the father. The casting caused trouble. Twenty-eight years separate Cooper and Hepburn; the part was offered to Cary Grant first, who turned it down for exactly that reason. The film failed both critically and commercially, largely because Cooper was judged too old for it. Who it is for: anyone who likes Wilder and Lubitsch-style Paris comedies. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot set the age gap aside. The film softens it with style but does not remove it.