MovieChat Forums > Love in the Afternoon (1957) Discussion > I've just finished the book

I've just finished the book

posted 16 years ago by trpdean
7 replies | jump to latest

The book is so remarkably different that it's a credit to Wilder that he came up with the story in the movie!

The book was titled "Ariane" by Claude Anet (famous for having written a best-selling account of Mayerling) and written in 1924. Though the author is French, the book is set in Russia at some time apparently years before the Russian Revolution (we don't know when).

She goes from 16 to 18 years old in the book, a widower's daughter - but doesn't live with father at all, but with her aunt - until she decides to sleep with her aunt's married boyfriend - and is then expelled from the house and sent away to university.

Ariane is a true femme fatale, driving men crazy with her coolness - eagerly taking money from some as a mistress but nevertheless breaking their hearts with her frank and scathing assessments of them. She breaks all the "rules of love" these older men have (e.g., she refers to others she's seeing simultaneously, refers frequently to her romantic past, assesses her lovers' good and bad points, says easily that she's indifferent to the lover and fortunately beyond any question of love).

She refuses to play any game of counterfeit emotion, admiration, affection - she's in it for the dough.

Much of the book takes place in Moscow where she lives with one of her much older sugar daddies - she's highly promiscuous and she does drive him crazy.The story is mainly told from the point of view of the man for whom she's the mistress - who is driven mad by her tough coolness.

The movie is MUCH more innocent! Essentially the serious aspects of this character in the book are made fictitious and humorous in the movie.

[–] TheDuchessofM 16 years ago

I would have liked to see the original version. IMO, Wilder seemed too concerned with Audrey's prim, ladylike reputation/aura to give her a meaty romance. I've finished reading the play Sabrina and it's tougher and deeper than what we saw on-screen. LITA, just like Sabrina, raises no questions and probes no deeper than the surface despite its intriguing concept (the playboy who is unnerved by a female rake and what it means to his life), and falls rather flat for me. Audrey's usual cheeky charm couldn't save this movie for me and though I know Coop's love life and think he was gorgeous and beautiful when he was younger, his usual acting manner (that slowish, deliberate manner of speech and stiff gesture and movement) did not fit for this movie. Cary Grant wouldn't have been better either (IMO, his acting became a bit brittle and artificial by the 50s and 60s), and I would have preferred a more boyish older man.

[–] Lucaslover 16 years ago

I would have preferred a more boyish older man.

Who would you have picked for this role? It's hard for me to think of another actor who could have had the mileage, charm, and boyishness required of the role. Unless they'd made him French and let Charles Boyer do it (he was great in Cluny Brown).

Cooper will do until someone remakes this-if a remake is even conceivable.

"Loyalty counts. . ." Lucas Buck

[–] trpdean 16 years ago

to have had Boyer would have been interesting - but then with both Boyer and Chevalier, you would probably wonder more why Ariane's actress is not also French (not that there would be any harm in having an all-French cast).

I disagree with the poster about Ariane being too innocent - for me it works only because she is so innocent. If we believed (as in the book) that she could well have had all those affairs, then the surprise to Cooper from her would be reduced to the fact that she admitted these affairs with pride like a man. I don't think that's an amusing enough surprise or intriguing enough puzzlement to him: maybe it would have been for the reading audience of the 1920s - but not viewing audiences in the 1950s. The audience would just think

"Ok, the movie's about this sluttish daughter of a detective who surprises the man because she's as promiscuous as he - and ..." that's not terribly sweet or romantic. We should be whole-heartedly in someone's corner in a romantic comedy.

[–] TheDuchessofM 16 years ago

Joseph Cotten perhaps. I believe I mentioned him on the post asking who you would have chosen instead of Cooper.

[–] jpb58 15 years ago

I could see that working. :)

[–] trupodur 14 years ago

Gregory Peck!!

[–] ethereal_tb 13 years ago

Thank you!! I've been curious about the book.

"You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."