Bogie was perfect as Linus.

I'll admit that he was a bit too old to play her love interest, but I absolutely love him in this role regardless! It's so different from most of his other roles, and I think that's what makes it so interesting.

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Isn't Cary Grant only a few years younger than Bogart? Also, I tend to think of The African Queen as a romantic comedy, albeit an offbeat one, so I would argue that Bogart was definitely capable of pulling off that sort of role.

However, I agree with you that Bogart didn't quite work in Sabrina. I thought he played his character well in that he was genuinely funny and convincing as an uptight businessman. The problem was he had very little chemistry with Audrey Hepburn and, unfortunately, that was supposed to be the crux of the story. It was surprising to me that Wilder messed up in that way because normally he has such an incredibly keen eye for characters and relationships between characters.

I guess when you're used to seeing Bogart with Bacall or even Bergman, it's a bit of a let-down to see him with Hepburn! I'm not convinced Cary Grant would have done any better though...

Hell, Leo, I ain't embarrassed to use the word. I'm talkin' about ethics.

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The age difference between bogie and grant was only about 5 years. wouldn't have made a difference. Bogie was less miscast than Bill Holden, who as the playboy brother with dyed blonde hair, was a little less credible. Brilliant in the role, he still wasn't a perfect choice. And if you ask me who I think might have been better, I've no idea. I'm in love with the film as is, and have seen it probably 300 times. Or more.

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Clearly Bogie didn't age well--prob looked older than he was-- as I don't think he was a health nut. But he was very good and I didn't worry about the obvious years mismatch.

I saw three dusters...inside the dusters were three men, inside the men were three bullets.

I think many people today simply do not realize that there are many reasons why age differences in marriage have narrowed over the years. Most significant probably is the great increase in the number of women with more education, including of course college and even higher degrees. This has meant two things. First of all they put off their child bearing years, and also find themselves around men, usually of the same general age, developing careers and interests as they go. It amounts to a form of soft age segregation, at least up to a point, and don't forget how in that world the kind of inter-generational relations you might have had, meaning of course professors and teachers with students, are increasingly frowned upon for various reasons.

The converse effect of the foregoing is that men also are marrying women of roughly similar educational backgrounds, which in turn means more similar age. This limits the number of college educated men marrying relatively uneducated women, who just might otherwise have been much younger.

At the same time the demographics show that the relatively less educated are also less likely to marry in long term marriages. Increased life expectancy is also a factor. So whereas a younger woman without any college, which was the norm in the early twentieth century and certainly before that, might have a man in his thirties propose to her, he would more likely have been a widower than one who might have been divorced today, and perhaps more than once at that. A related factor is the well educated tend to divorce less. So who as a practical matter would be a woman marrying a much older man today? The demographic numbers do not add up.

But this net effect of otherwise at most indirectly related considerations is hardly the same thing as some kind of moral evil being associated with women marrying men even two or more decades older. I have in any event hardly exhausted the social factors at work here, but there should be no mistake that they are social factors and not timeless moral imperatives.

When Sabrina was made, the apprehension and strangeness many today feel about the age difference quite simply was not nearly as common as now.

I completely agree. I am really a big fan of Bogie's, but I think his performance in this movie stinks - and it has nothing to do with his age, although that, too, is off-putting. He is, as you say, "blank as a piece of paper." He and Hepburn generate no chemistry at all. He seems detached and disinterested, which might well be explained by the off-camera plots surrounding the making of this film.

I believe that Billy Wilder should have cast Melvin Douglas in the role of Linus.

For whatever reason, Wilder made a mistake in casting Bogart as Linus, which makes this film one of the weaker films that he ever made. It is mediocre at best when it should have been a classic. However, in my opinion, it does not live up to its reputation. I think the hype surrounding this film is due to all the hype that accompanied (and continues to accompany) Audrey Hepburn.

John 3:16