Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

[Sorry it’s been a minute since a non-review. I’ve been doing some organizing and between articles I post I’ve been working on my Godzilla magnum opus. Also I’ve been delving into films to write about which I saw not recently but long long ago. Todays entry will be one such entry.]

No, this is not a comparison of Melissa Joan Hart’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Kiernan Shipka’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. For that comparison click here: <No Link>

The original Sabrina is a charming film with Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. Bogart plays the grizzled and weary brother to the head of a wealthy corporation. The brother, Davis, despite being affianced, seems flippant and irresponsible in his fidelity which could lead to scandal and the major upset of a lucrative corporate merger. Bogart sees fit to protect Davis’ (and his own) interests by gracefully shooing away any wayward ladies who might be hovering around him. This includes Hepburn’s character who has had her eye on Davis since she was just a girl. The whole thing is ultimately very sweet and might not be what you’d expect considering the way things go. There’s some pleasant twists and turns.

It was strange to me that I was so consumed by this film when I first saw it. I was 13. I’m sure I kept watching despite it being a black and white love story because I thought Audrey Hepburn was cute. She was 25 in this. That’s only a difference of 12 years! It could have worked! Unfortunately she was born in 1929 and I was born in 1982 which means she probably wouldn’t want to play Mario Kart with me. Oh well.

I know precisely how old I was when this was on TV because the remake had just come out on vhs.

They tweaked a thing or two here and there just to modernize it but if memory serves, it’s pretty much the same. Like, so much the same, why even remake it? To give Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond something to do?

Ford is a good stand-in for Bogart. He’s just as gravel-voiced. If they put Harrison, Bogart, and Nick Nolte in a room together it would sound like a convoy of dump trucks rolling through a rock quarry.

Back then, I didn’t care for Julia Ormond in the part of Sabrina mainly because she wasn’t Audrey Hepburn. I suppose I can’t blame her for that. It’s just, as far as people who aren’t Audrey Hepburn go, Julie Ormond is definitely one of them and I cannot abide that.

Today I don’t care for Julia Ormond in the part of Sabrina because she reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law. I think the world of my ex-mother-in-law but she too is not Audrey Hepburn. I’m sorry Audrey Hepburn. No matter who you are or aren’t, you are just perpetually too old for me.

Anyway, watch the original or watch the remake. It doesn’t matter. Unless you’re an Audrey Hepburn fan. In that case watch My Fair Lady.