The Truth About Charlie on DVD
(with “Charade”)

by Jim Bray

Double your pleasure, double your fun!

Now here’s an interesting marketing tool: the DVD of “The Truth About Charlie” not only gives you that movie, the remake of “Charade,” but the original “Charade” as well. This makes it not only a terrific value, but a wonderful way to compare the two films to see whether the new version can hold a candle to the old.

We really appreciated the chance to make the comparison, since we’d never seen “Charade” before.

And, as is so often the case, the remake isn’t half the film of the original.

Which makes us even more glad to have Charade in the package…

Let’s review both films at the same time, kind of.

Charlie, in both movies, is a stiff. He’s killed off in the first scene, from whence starts the intrigue. His widow (Thandie Newton in “Charlie” and Audrey Hepburn in “Charade”) comes home to a rapidly-emptied and disheveled apartment and is shortly thereafter informed by the French police about her hubby’s demise.

Then the mystery kicks into gear, as a handsome stranger she met (Mark Wahlberg and Cary Grant, respectively) keeps popping up while she’s drawn into murder and intrigue thanks to a US Government agent (Tim Robbins and Walter Matthau, respectively) and some shady low lifes bent on recovering a rather large sum of Charlie’s money they think she has - but she doesn’t.

There are twists and turns galore, and you never really know if the people are who they say they are; sometimes someone is revealed as a fake, only to have the true persona revealed later as a fake, too. It’s delicious.

But “Charade” is far more delicious than “Charlie,” proving perhaps that you can never go home again. One of the problems is that “Charlie,” through necessity, is updated and the former comrades in arms don’t have nearly as credible a conflict (or believable a secret) as in the original. But there’s more.

Newton and Wahlberg, while they’re fine in their roles, are no Hepburn and Grant (though, to be fair, sometimes we felt that Grant’s superstardom got in the way) in the way they light up the screen. Likewise, Matthau is far more believable as the American bureaucrat (if that's what he is, of course) than Robbins, who despite being a self absorbed fool in real life is a decent actor who's mostly wasted in this part. And his role gives itself away far too early and easily - and unbelievably (not Robbins' fault, of course, though I'd love to blame him anyway because he's such a jerk).

Then there are the “henchmen.” Charade featured three great character actors in Ned Glass, James Coburn and George Kennedy, and the new trio (which includes a token woman for no apparent reason other than political correctness) of Joong-Hoon Park, Ted Levine and Lisa Gay Hamilton, at least in these roles, can’t carry their water. They’re never particularly menacing (as opposed to Kennedy’s performance) and in fact come off more or less as fairly sympathetic characters.

And Jonathan Demme’s direction stands out - as opposed to being outstanding: it's unobtrusive. He seems so concerned with giving us arty shots that we found ourselves looking at the shots rather than the movie. So we get endless and sometimes apparently pointless camera moves and characters repeatedly look straight into the camera in a way that Stanley Kubrick can pull off but Demme can’t - at least not this many times.

Charade also had quite a bit of humor leavening the action and suspense, and some great lines. One of these, relating to the heroine’s dress, is repeated in “Charlie,” but other than that this is a totally humorless picture (unless we just didn’t get it).

We watched Charade first, which was probably a mistake because it set the bar to a height the newer flick couldn’t reach. Then again, we might have had Charade spoiled if we’d watched them the other way around because it would have given away all the surprises.

So maybe you should watch one, then put the other away for a while so you can watch it afresh. Dunno which one to recommend you start with (if we had our druthers, we’d keep Charade and throw Charlie away).

Not surprisingly, The Truth About Charlie is the better DVD of the two (well, there’s only one DVD; the films occupy different sides of the same disc), though. This isn’t surprising, considering how much newer it is. Both movies are presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, and though Charade looks just fine, with a sharp and colorful image, Charlie looks absolutely terrific - state-of-the-art. Ditto for the audio: Charade is in Dolby Digital mono and sounds okay, while Charlie is Dolby Digital or dts 5.1 surround and the audio is outstanding, with good use of the surround channels as well.

Charade doesn’t include any extras, but Charlie piles them on.

First up is a running commentary with director Demme, followed by some scenes that were cut from the final edit. There’s also a pretty interesting “making of” featurette, cast/crew info, production notes and the trailer.

So if you’re looking for a great movie, watch the golden oldie (appropriately, that side of the DVD is gold colored!) Charade, while if you’re interested in a great DVD, start with Charlie. But watch Charade regardless. It’s a classic!

The Truth About Charlie, from Universal Home Video
105 min. anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital and dts 5.1 surround
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins
Produced by Jonathan Demme, Peter Saraf, Edward Saxon
Written by Jonathan Demme & Steven Schmidt and Peter Joshua and Jessica Bendinger, Directed by Jonathan Demme

Charade, from Universal Home Video
113 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital mono
Starring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau
Written by Peter Stone,
Produced and directed by Stanley Donen

Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think