Hepburn's last film


This film will probably be best remembered (apart from the fact that it starred Stratton) as Audrey Hepburn's last film. Hepburn, who had taken a break from acting after her second son was born, had tried for years to stage a comeback. She had made a few commercially unsuccessful films before this one (Robin and Marion in 1976 and Bloodline in 1979) which did not help her cause. At the behest of Ben Gazzarra, she decided to make this film. At first, it seemed like this would be the film to put her back on top. It debuted at the 1980 Venice Film Festival and Variety Magazine had nothing but praise for it (it called it "Bogdanovich's best film to date"). Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. After Stratton's murder, Bogdanovich did not want anyone to profit from her death so he decided to distribute the film himself and that decision may have cost the film any chance of success at the box office. The film was originally scheduled to be released in May, 1981, but because of Bogdanivich's inexperience with distribution, it would not be released until that November by which time, it had to compete with such films as Taps, Time Bandits, Reds, Sharkey's Machine and Absence of Malice. As a result, it did not get the promotion and exposure it should have and it languished at the box office. Due to this commercial failure, it failed to generate any interest in Audrey's acting comeback. Feeling that her career was over, she announced her retirement from acting shortly afterwards. So in what is probably one of the great what-ifs of all time, if the film had been a box-office success and Audrey's career had not ended, I wonder what films she would have been asked to play in after this one. We'll never know now.

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She was in Always in 1989, directed by Steven Spielberg.

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[deleted]

She made a brief appearance in that film. It was more of a "guest star" role than anything else. For all intents and purposes, she retired after They All Laughed.

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It's a shame. She was charming as always. But she's hardly in the film anyway. And that '80s hair seriously probably worked against her. The film has a number of positives but really just isn't that good. Regardless, the '80s were so weak for American cinema, and Hollywood so unkind to older actresses anyway, that I refuse to believe this film cemented the end of her career. Rather, no one was writing good parts for her, and she wasn't really a character actress, so she wasn't going to have a MacLaine or Bancroft type of career late in life. Audrey's screen persona was vulnerable to a fault, and the only women who seem to front successful films after a certain age all project that inner strength. I would say Diane Keaton is one who defies that stereotype, but she doesn't make that many movies anymore anyways, she takes on more supporting roles in ensembles (which Audrey never did), and she's really more of a quirky, complex character actor who came in with the Woody Allen generation.

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