Product Description

Great Britain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD:it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Mono ),SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Production Notes, Scene Access, Trailer(s),SYNOPSIS: In preparing his romantic comedy Two For the Road, director Stanley Donen decided to utilize many of the cinematic techniques popularized by the French "nouvelle vague" filmmakers. Jump cutting back and forth in time with seeming abandon, Donen and scriptwriter Frederic Raphael chronicle the 12-year relationship between architect Wallace (Albert Finney) and his wife (Audrey Hepburn). While backpacking through Europe, student Finney falls for lovely music student Jacqueline Bisset, but later settles for Hepburn, another aspiring musician (this vignette served as the launching pad for the film-within-a-film in Francois Truffaut's 1973 classic Day for Night). Once married, Finney and Hepburn go on a desultory honeymoon, travelling in the company of insufferable American tourists William Daniels and Eleanor Bron and their equally odious daughter Gabrielle Middleton. Later on, during yet another road trip, Finney is offered an irresistible job opportunity by Claude Dauphin, which ultimately distances Finney from his now-pregnant wife. Still remaining on the road, the film then details Finney and Hepburn's separate infidelities. The film ends where it begins, with Finney and Hepburn taking still another road vacation, hoping to sew up their unraveling marriage. While critics did nip-ups over Stanley Donen's "revolutionary" nonlinear story-telling techniques, audiences responded to the chemistry between Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney, not to mention the unforgettable musical score by Henry Mancini. Note: many TV prints of Two for the Road are edited for content, robbing the viewer of Finney and Hepburn's delightful "B-itch/Bastard" closing e

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #128159 in DVD
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Features

• THIS DVD WILL NOT WORK ON STANDARD US DVD PLAYER

Amazon.com
Best known for light, entertaining musicals such as Singin' in the Rain, director Stanley Donen grew more adventurous (and less successful) in the latter stages of his career, but this edgy romantic comedy from 1967 has proven to be one of Donen's best, most enduring films. Jumping back in forth in time, the film chronicles the marital ups and downs of a stylish British couple (Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn) as they travel on various vacations over the course of their 12-year marriage. The separate vignettes combine to form a collage of joys and pains as the young couple struggles to maintain their fading marital bliss. In this regard, the film is refreshingly sophisticated in its treatment of the difficulties of long-term commitment, and with Hepburn and Finney in the leads, great performances are drawn from the acerbic wit of Frederick Raphael's screenplay. Fashion mavens will also marvel at Hepburn's astonishing wardrobe of late-'60s fashion--she's a showcase for summer couture, looking fantastic in everything from candy-striped bellbottoms to hip sunglasses and outrageously stylish hats. Some of the melodrama clashes with forced comedy (such as tiresome running gags or a cartoonish portrayal of crass American tourists), but that doesn't stop Two for the Road from being timelessly appealing and truthful to the challenge of lasting love. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Enormous pleasure
"Two For the Road" is a lovely, seriocomic movie about the ups and downs of a long relationship between Joanna (played by Audrey Hepburn) and Mark (played by Albert Finney). Joanna and Mark first cross paths as students traveling across Europe. They wind up hitchhiking together and eventually falling in love.

The story is told through flashbacks. We follow the couple from their early carefree infatuation through marriage, parenthood, boredom, infidelity, and finally renewal of their relationship.

Along the way, there are some memorable vignettes involving Joanna and Mark vacationing with another couple Howard and Cathy Manchester (amusingly played by William Daniels and Eleanor Bron) and their daughter Ruthie Manchester. Howard and Cathy must be the most wittily neurotic twosome in movies and their daughter Ruthie is probably the most obnoxious child in movie history.

The performances are uniformly excellent. The direction by Stanley Donen is stylish and sophisticated. Frederic Raphael's screenplay is alternately romantic and cynical. And Henry Mancini's exquisitely beautiful score is one of this fine composer's very best. "Two For the Road" is an enormous pleasure.

A Life-Long Love Affair
I fell in love with this movie at age 14, when it played for several months at the Plaza Theatre in NYC, where I saw it no less than three times. Although, at that age, I was a little confused by the film's structure, in which scenes from four different stages of the marriage of Mark and Joanna, the main characters, are juxtaposed, I did understand and appreciate the film's basic theme, that passionate love is enduring and, seemingly irrationally, can survive even the boredom that is inevitable in a long relationship. The energy and intelligence of Finney and Hepburn give this quirky little film an added vitality and render the relationship of Mark and Joanna believable and even endearing. This may be a serio-comedic film, but like serio-comedic life, it is infused with joy. I loved it in 1964,and I love it now. Everyone who is a little quirky should buy it, because it captures the essence of something special and a little off-center -- whatever it is that keeps Mark and Joanna together -- that will never be outdated.

One of the greatest films!!
Not one scene of Two For The Road should be missed. Way ahead of its time on marriage and the humor, drama, the sense of loss at the close make it watcahble many times over.

Hepburn and Finney are so fabulous, and the rest of the cast is up to the standard set by the two magnificent leads. Can Audrey Hepburn do any wrong?

Stanley Donen directed with the same genius as Singin' In The Rain(forget Kelly), and Funny Face. This is sheer magic, but it has twists and things to say that do not fit middle class sensibilites, thank God.

Buy this on DVD. You will adore it. One cannnot say enough about Two For The Road.