Charade

If you're wondering the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn film Charade is not a remake of this. This Charade is a collection of three short stories where would be film producer James Mason and his Pamela Mason discuss some film projects and they are short stories she's written and filed away in a trunk. Some of them should have stayed there.

The Masons play the leads in all three stories. Of the three the best was the second where Mason who is a crack duelist is goaded into a duel by Scott Forbes over Pamela Mason. Only Forbes has a diabolical scheme in mind since as the challenged party Forbes gets to choose, time, place, and method.

The other two are of lesser quality, but they do show that James Mason was an actor of great versatility. Like I didn't already know that, still this is within a less than 90 minute time frame.

Mason didn't think much of it according to the Citadel Film Series book on his career. But I rather liked the second story and he underrated himself here.

What a cute movie! Real life spouses James and Pamela Mason are shown talking in their living room, discussing what it would be like to produce a movie. Pamela insists James is an actor at heart and he'll never produce anything, and James suggests, to make things easier, they gather three short stories for their make-believe film and act in it themselves. Then, they do!

Split into three vignettes, with scenes of the Masons in-between, Charade has something for everyone to love. If you like murder mysteries, rags-to-riches stories, romances, period pieces, French love, humor, drama, or suspense, this movie has it all. Plus, it's very cute to see them together with four different types of chemistry. You can only imagine how fun it was for them to create and film these love stories together. James Mason fans will adore seeing him "at home"-all that's missing are a couple dozen cats walking around!

I bought a video of this Charade months ago and was almost afraid to watch it after reading Sheridan Morley's comments about it in the biography he wrote about James Mason. (If Morley's account of Mason's life is to be believed, he threw opportunity for real Hollywood stardom away with both hands.) I was pleasantly surprised as it was a delightful film, perfect for the small screen. The stories were charmingly portrayed, the acting was fine, but I doubt Pamela would have had much of an acting career without James' coattails to ride on. I actually liked the last story the best. James as Jeeves was particularly funny to me. You could see him switch gears and Viola - there was Diello from Five Fingers.

Having said that, it is clear to me that James and Pamela really had a desire to be creative above any desire for James to be a Hollywood star. One of their early efforts was an independent film James and Pamela wrote, produced (with her ex-husband, Roy Kellino), starred in and distributed. It's called "I Met A Murderer" and despite the hokey title, it's very good.

The odd trio of James Mason, Pamela Mason and director Roy Kellino (Pamela's first husband prior to James) made this obscure 3-part feature, which IMDb omits any mention of an American release. It's quite poor and merely a curiosity.

In-joke throughout is that Mason has decided to produce a movie, and this is it. He was riding high as a major movie star at the time, fresh off playing Rommel in "The Desert Rats", Brutus in "Julius Caesar", Captain Nemo in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and with "A Star Is Born" on tap. Unfortunately, while hardly a home movie, its sense of the Masons indulging themselves is palpable.

Kellino was doing a fine job directing segments of "Four Star Playhouse" on TV at the time, and this one plays like three reject segments of same, stuck together, with the Masons starring, sort of a Two Star Playhouse.

Worst one is a comedy in which Jame plays a modern King Midas character, uncannily able to make a fortune effortlessly, but unsatisfied with his empty life taken up entirely by wheeling and dealing. He opts to give it all up and goes to England to seek some purpose in life, yet oddly spending his time working in menial jobs ranging from window washer to a butler. He fall in love with a Cockney style maid played by Pamela, and ends up back in New York running his former empire again -strictly a shaggy-dog story written by Pam & James without an ending.

Better is a Dumas adaptation by Scott Forbes of an Alexandre Dumas story, with Forbes starring as the bad guy opposite James. It's a one note affair about them duelling, with Scott the cad. Typically, in the movie's wraparound footage, James regrets not taking the villain role himself instead of the hero.

He gets to be a sterotypical, egotistical villain in the other vignette, a two-hander for himself and James. It's a tedious suspense story minus suspense, as she witnesses a murder but falls in love with the murderer, who of course is James. Their verbal sparring is boring, and the material goes nowhere.

I have to admit that i thought this was the classic charade movie when i watch and i expected some great twist at the end or somewhat of a clever ending , instead i got lose my 1 1/2 hours of my life , so this movie was not in any way of a thriller but a mixture of three movies told without any certain objective , i am not saying that this is the worst movie i have ever seen (i have seen a lot of movies) but it was a very boring experience among the three stories the middle one was somewhat entertaining anyway i would not recommend you watching this movie it was that much of disappointing , sorry for my bad English and thank you for reading my review