Charade (Blu-ray)

Charade

The Paris-Bordeaux express speeds through the French countryside--and suddenly a dead man, clad only in pajamas and a bathrobe, tumbles off the train and down an embankment.

The scene shifts to Mgve, the premier ski resort in the French Alps, where Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is sitting at a table on a platform overlooking the mountain. Before her is food sufficient for three adults, not just one. She is totally oblivious as an automatic pistol, held by a gloved hand, takes direct aim at her. The hand pulls the trigger--and out shoots a harmless water jet that sprays all over her face. Taking off her glasses, Regina looks at young Jean-Louis Gaudet (Thomas Chelimsky), age 8, who suddenly looks very guilty. "Don't tell me," says Reggie, "you didn't know it was loaded."

She calls out for her friend, Sylvie Gaudet (Dominique Minot), who sends the boy to find some other place to play while she helps Reggie to dry off. Noting the table full of food, Sylvie asks Reggie what's wrong. The answer: Reggie has decided to divorce her husband, Charles. The two stroll through the resort as Reggie says that she is frustrated with Charles' incessant secrecy and lies. Sylvie, a "modern woman" to the core, suggests that Reggie simply have affairs on her husband's money, but Reggie doesn't think that way.

Just then a dapper gentleman (Cary Grant) approaches, with Jean-Louis in tow, saying that Jean-Louis was throwing snowballs at Baron Rothschild. As Sylvie takes Jean-Louis back to apologize to the Rothschilds, the mystery man, giving his name out as Peter Joshua, strikes up a conversation with Reggie. Reggie flirts with him almost outrageously, and "Peter Joshua" plays along. The two agree to reconnect when they each return to Paris.

Reggie arrives home--only to discover that her apartment is totally empty, and even the maid is gone--along with every stitch of clothing, every piece of furniture, and even the rugs. After she opens cabinet after cabinet, finding them all empty, she starts to rush out--and runs pell-mell into Inspector Edouard Grandpierre (Jacques Marin) of the Police Judiciare. Grandpierre asks her to come with him to the Prefecture--and specifically to the Paris Morgue. There Reggie identifies a dead man (in fact it's the man who fell off the Paris-Bordeaux train in his PJs) as her husband.

Grandpierre continues the interview in his office. He tells her that the authorities found Charles' body near the railroad tracks, and that he had a steamship ticket to Venezuela on him when he died. The authorities also know that, two days ago, Charles had sold everything in the apartment at public auction. Value: 1,250,000 NF, or $250,000 US. The problem: the authorities in Bordeaux did not find the money. Grandpierre gives back to Reggie all the items that Charles had on him: one wallet containing 4,000 francs, one pocket appointment book listing his last appointment (for the day before, 5:00 p.m., Jardin des Champs-lyses), one steamship ticket, one letter (stamped but not sealed, addressed to Reggie; contents unremarkable), one key to the apartment, one pocket comb, one toothbrush, one tin of tooth powder--and, more incredibly still, four passports, one each Swiss, American, Italian, and Chilean, each under a different name. Of these, Reggie recognizes only the Swiss passport.

Reggie goes home, for what it's worth, and stands in the dark, smoking a cigarette, when "Peter Joshua" arrives. He says only that he read about Charles Lampert's death in the newspapers and came to be of help. Eventually "Peter" offers to take Reggie to a modest hotel near enough to her job at the European Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, where she and Sylvie work as translators.

Charles' funeral occurs the next day. Reggie, Sylvie, and Inspector Grandpierre are the only three in attendance. Then three other men come in, one at a time: Leopold W. Gideon (Ned Glass), who sneezes at Charles; Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), who uses a pocket mirror to make sure that Charles is not breathing; and Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), a hard-bitten man wearing a hook for a right hand, who sticks a pin into Charles to make sure that he will not jump from the pain. Though the other two found seats at the viewing, Scobie stalks out. As Reggie sits and wonders what will happen next, the funeral director touches her shoulder and hands her a note from a "Hamilton Bartholomew," at the United States Embassy, asking her to come in to see him on Monday afternoon.

Reggie goes to the Embassy, and there meets Bartholomew (Walter Matthau). He introduces himself as the Paris station chief of the CIA, and says that her husband, known to the CIA as Charles Voss, is wanted for the theft of the $250,000. He also reveals that Gideon, Tex, and Scobie were Charles Lampert/Voss' squad mates in a military unit that Bartholomew does not describe further. He warns her: find that money and turn it over to the American authorities, or her life will remain in danger.

Reggie walks to "The Garden" (Jardin des Champs-lyses) and takes in a Punch and Judy show, where "Peter Joshua" catches up to her. Not sure how much she can reveal, she confesses that she is frightened. "Peter" offers to take "charge of cheering [her] up," and makes a date with her. They go to a nightclub--where Gideon, and then Tex, each threaten Reggie with death if she does not turn over the money to him. Reggie asks "Peter" to take her back to their hotel, and while "Peter" wants to know what happened at the club, Reggie wants to flirt, and is scared to give any more details. Frustrated, "Peter" leaves Reggie to go into her room--and then Reggie, once inside, finds Scobie inside. He has turned the room upside down and now attacks her with his claw "hand." She rushes out, finds "Peter," and breathlessly says that "a man" tried to kill her. "Peter" rushes in, and Reggie hears fight noises, and then silence. She bursts in, and finds that "Peter" is a little the worse for wear, and Scobie fled out the window. "Peter" tells Reggie to lock herself in, while he goes out the window and gives chase--by jumping from balcony to balcony.

In fact, "Peter" knows exactly where to go: to Gideon's room on that same floor. He finds Gideon, Tex, and Scobie inside. Tex and Gideon are bawling Scobie out for accosting Reggie by himself. "Peter" steps in through the window and joins in the "bawling out," and tells the "Three Marx Brothers" to stop "breathing down [his] neck" and let him gain Reggie's trust and find out whether she has the money or not. Scobie stalks out again, and "Peter" prevails on Tex to let him have his room, which is the room next to Reggie's.

"Peter" goes back down the hall and tells Reggie that he found "no trace" of Scobie. Now he insists that Reggie tell him what's happening. She tells him all she knows, which isn't much. "Peter" pledges that he will simply not allow any of those three to kill her. In the middle of this conversation, Reggie gets a call--from Scobie, who asks her whether "Dyle" is in the room with her. In other words, "Peter Joshua" is actually a man named "Dyle," a name she does not recognize. Reggie hangs up, and tells "Peter" that the call was simply another threat, and "Peter" says that he has "arranged" to take the room next to hers.

"Peter" leaves the room, but then, using a thread unraveled from his sock, prepares a trap to let him know whether she's leaving the room. Unaware, Reggie calls Bartholomew and shocks him with the revelation that "someone else," named "Dyle," is also after the money. Bartholomew instructs Reggie to meet him at once at Les Halles, opposite the St. Eustace church. Reggie leaves, figures out that "Peter" (now known as "Dyle") is behind her, and shakes him loose by paying a taxi to drive off to any old place, and waiting for "Dyle" to get into the next cab and say, "Follow that cab!"

At Les Halles, Bartholomew reveals the full story as the CIA knows it: in 1944, five members of the Office of Strategic Services were ordered to go behind German lines and deliver $250,000 in gold to the French Rsistance. The five were, of course, Charles, Tex, Gideon, Scobie--and one Carson Dyle. Instead of delivering the gold, they buried it, intending to report that the Germans had captured it. But on their way back to base, a German war patrol ambushed them. Scobie lost his right hand in the attack, and Carson Dyle took several rounds in the stomach. Scobie could still travel, but Dyle was presumably dead, so the four left him behind and returned to base. Charles then double-crossed the other three by stealing all the gold for himself and vanishing.

Bartholomew wants to know who the man calling himself "Dyle" could possible be, because Carson Dyle is dead. Reluctantly, Reggie agrees. The next morning, she follows "Dyle" to the American Express office--where, sure enough, he goes to the "A to D" counter to check for mail, and finds nothing. Reggie then goes into a phone booth, calls the operator, and has "Dyle" paged. "Dyle" answers, and Reggie lets him know that she has him red-handed.

"Dyle" tells a new story: Carson Dyle is his dead brother, and he suspects Gideon, Tex, Scobie, and Charles of having murdered Carson Dyle because he objected to their plan to steal the gold. He also assurs Reggie that he is on her side, not theirs. But in the middle of their conversation, "Dyle" drops the telephone and leaves his booth.

The reason: Scobie has taken him hostage at gunpoint. Scobie and "Dyle" ride to the top floor, where Scobie holds Dyle until the AmEx staff close for the day, then orders "Dyle" to the roof. There Scobie demands that "Dyle" hand over the money. "Dyle" says that he does not have it, and wouldn't surrender it if he did. Scobie orders "Dyle" to step off the roof, but gets too close, so "Dyle" knocks the gun out of his hand. The two struggle with might and main--and then Scobie falls onto the steeply inclined mansard and ends up hanging by his prosthetic hook from the gutter. "Dyle" cheerfully advises him to write "Love Thy Neighbor" on the wall 100 times.

"Dyle" goes back to Reggie and tells her that he "ran into someone with sharp fingernails." Reggie treats his badly-scratched back, and from him learns his "new" last name: Alexander. The two start flirting again, and then Reggie gets another horrifying call from Tex, saying that the three men have Jean-Louis as a hostage.

Reggie and "Dyle" both show up in Tex's new room. There "Dyle" tells the men that of course the boy doesn't have the money, and neither does Reggie. He then offers a new theory: that one of the three found Charles first, cornered him on the train, killed him, and then, without telling the other two, took the money and returned to Paris to blend in until they gave up. He proposes that the three can search his room and Reggies, and he and Reggie will search their rooms. The three men grudgingly agree. Gideon and Tex find Charles' effects in Reggie's room, and don't find anything worth $250,000--whereupon Tex wonders aloud whether "Dyle" was right. Reggie and Jean-Louis search Scobie's room and succeed only in finding Scobie's spare prosthetic. Then "Dyle" leads them all back to his own room--where they find Scobie, drowned in the bathtub. Gideon and Tex agree to take Scobie back to his own room and dry him off.

After the hotel maid (Claudine Berg) makes the inevitable horrifying discovery, Inspector Grandpierre summons Reggie, "Dyle," Gideon, and Tex to his office. He tells them quite severely not to leave Paris until he has found out how these two men died.

Reggie and "Dyle" spend one-third of their time trying to figure out which of the two remaining cutthroats killed Scobie and Charles, and the rest of the time flirting, first near L'le de la Cit and then back in her room (where "Dyle" famously takes a shower with his clothes on). While this is going on, Bartholomew calls Reggie to tell her that Carson Dyle had no brother. Reggie still agrees to go out to dinner with "Dyle," but at a place with a lot of people: one of the floating restaurants of the Seine.

There Reggie tells her mystery man that Carson Dyle had no brother. Whereupon the mystery man, giving the name Adam Canfield, says that he is, quite simply, a thief, and was simply trying to con the three cutthroats out of money they themselves stole. "Adam" also tells Reggie, speaking very clearly about such things for the first time, that he is very attracted to her.

That night, Gideon takes a call at 3:30 a.m. to come down to the lobby. He gets on the elevator, which then stops between floors, the lights going out. Then the elevator starts again--and goes all the way to the basement. Gideon keeps sneezing--and then lets out a blood-curdling scream that causes the concierge (Bernard Musson) to wake up and call the elevator back to street level--only to find the dead Gideon inside, his throat cut.

An angry Grandpierre notes that three men have died, all in their pajamas, and that Tex has disappeared. Grandpierre questions Reggie and "Adam" about their whereabouts, and accepts their alibis (for why would they invent the story that each was in his or her room, asleep, and alone?). Satisfied that Tex took the money and ran, "Adam" tells Reggie to go back to bed. But then "Adam" gets a call from Tex, who now is threatening to stalk "Adam," still known to Tex as "Dyle," for the money!

"Adam" asks Reggie to go over Charles' effects with him one more time; they conclude that their search is at a dead end. But the next morning, "Adam" breathlessly goes to see Reggie at the EURESCO offices. He has found the torn-up remnants of the list that Grandpierre prepared of the effects, pasted it back together, and realized that Tex has made off with the appointment book. Reggie recalls the last appointment: Thursday at 5:00 p.m. The two abruptly leave EURESCO and rush to The Garden to look around. They don't know what to look for, but neither does Tex, who also is skulking around.

The two then split up. "Adam" follows Tex, who wanders into the stamp market, and suddenly realizes the significance! He brushes past Adam, who then also realizes that stamps are the key! The two then race each other back to the hotel. There "Adam" catches up with Tex and demands that Tex hand over the stamped-but-unsealed letter. Tex hands "Adam" the envelope--but the stamps are torn off, and Tex doesn't have them either.

Reggie, meanwhile, has caught up with Sylvie, who tells him that she has brought Jean-Louis to the stamp market, where Jean-Louis hoped to trade the three strange-looking stamps that Reggie gave him. Reggie now realizes that the stamps are the form into which Charles had converted the money! They barely catch up to Jean-Louis, who identifies Monsieur Flix (Paul Bonifas) as the man to whom he sold the stamps. Flix receives them gladly and agrees to sell the stamps back for an amount of money more in line with the collection of tourist-grade stamps he gave Jean-Louis in exchange. The reason: Flix knew that someone had made a mistake, and was just as glad of the honor of owning three of the most valuable stamps in the world, even for five minutes.

Reggie rushes back to tell "Adam," but then finds a terrible sight: Tex, bound hand and foot to the two radiators in his room, with a plastic bag over his head, and obviously dead. But worse: he has written the word DYLE on the carpet. To Reggie, DYLE means "Alexander," therefore "Adam." Upset, she calls Bartholomew to tell him about finding Tex, and about the stamps. Bartholomew tells her to meet him at once at the center garden at the Palais Royal, near the colonnade.

But as Reggie leaves, "Adam" is on his way back. So now "Adam" gives furious chase to Reggie. She, not able to hail a taxi, tries to shake "Adam" in the Paris Mtro. She manages to get to the district where the Palais Royal stands, and to shake "Adam" long enough to call the American embassy and ask for Hamilton Bartholomew. The operator informs her that Bartholomew has left for the day, so Reggie leaves a breathless message for him.

The embassy operator then calls the home of Hamilton Bartholomew (Colin Drake), who is not the man whom Reggie saw in an embassy office! The real Bartholomew is totally mystified and advises the operator to call the French police. But the man who posed as Bartholomew is waiting for Reggie to come to him, with "Adam" in hot pursuit.

Upon seeing the poseur, "Adam" draws his gun and shouts, "Reggie, stop! That man is Carson Dyle!"

How "Adam" would know who Carson Dyle is, Reggie has no time to figure out--because the man she thought was a CIA station chief admits that his name really is Carson Dyle, and that he stalked Charles, Scobie, Gideon, and Tex in revenge for having left him for dead. He threatens to kill Reggie if she does not hand over the stamps right then and there--but "Adam" has moved from column to column to get closer to Dyle. He takes aim--and misses, but distracts Dyle enough for Reggie to bolt for it.

Reggie takes refuge in the Paris Opera House. Dyle follows her in the front door, and "Adam" gets in through the stage door and walks down to the lower backstage level. Reggie has taken refuge in a prompt booth, while Dyle walks through the orchestra seating section and then gets up on the stage. "Adam" makes a serious mistake: he tries the prompt booth door, and that only lets Dyle know where she is. Slowly he walks, with clumping footsteps, toward the prompt booth--and "Adam" realizes that the stage is composed of trap doors. All that "Adam" has to do is wait for Dyle to stop walking, identify the right trap door, and throw the switch. And that is how he kills Dyle just as he is drawing back the trigger to kill Reggie.

"Adam" and Reggie go back to the hotel, where Reggie wants "Adam" to prove his love to her by telling her to go to the American Embassy and turn in the stamps. "Adam" protests that the US government would barely miss the money, but Reggie insists. A Marine directs her to the office of "Mr. Cruikshank," Treasury attach. She goes there, and "Adam" excuses himself, saying that he can't stand the sight of "all that money being given away." Reggie goes into the office, announces herself, and then goes into the private office to meet Mr. Cruikshank face-to-face. And he turns out to be none other than the mystery man.

Reggie protests strongly at such deception, but the man, whose full and true name is Brian Cruikshank, cheerfully answers all her questions, explaining especially how Carson Dyle could pass himself off as a CIA station chief. (The answer: 12:30 is the lunch hour, and Dyle took the office belonging to none other than the chief of Embassy security!) Reggie still wants more satisfactory identification, and Bryan almost casually says that if she could wait a week, he would "put it on the marriage license." Whereupon she breathlessly tells him that she loves him, "whatever [his] name is," and promises to bear him lots of sons and name them all after him.