Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in a romantic thriller shot across a 1960s Paris that has barely changed. It may be the most photogenic American-in-Paris film ever made.
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Reggie (Audrey Hepburn) is a young widow chased across Paris by men who want her late husband's money, helped by a mysterious stranger (Cary Grant). Start at the Palais-Royal: its gardens and the Comédie-Française, the theatre where the finale takes place, are a three-minute walk apart. The American Express building, where two men fight on the rooftop next to the Opéra, is about 15 minutes north on foot.
On the Left Bank, Pont au Double is the Seine walk with Notre-Dame across the water. The building that plays the Hôtel Saint-Jacques, Reggie's hotel in the film, is on Rue Censier, about 15 minutes further south. To the west, the UNESCO headquarters, the agency where Reggie works as an interpreter, is about 10 minutes from Varenne station. Give it two days: the river and the Latin Quarter one day, the west the next.
At Varenne metro station, where Reggie escapes a man following her, look for the copy of Rodin's Thinker on the platform. Pont au Double also appears in Ratatouille.
11 filming locations.
Showing 10 of 11
The gardens below the Rond-Point where Hepburn and Grant, who first met in Megève, watch a Guignol puppet show together. The iron-lace bandstands and Guignol puppet theatres are still in place.
Access · Public space
Near the end Reggie (Audrey Hepburn), the young widow everyone is chasing for her late husband's missing fortune, is lured at night to the colonnade of this garden. Unsure which of the men around her she can trust, she runs through the arcades towards the Comédie-Française next door. By day the garden, with its rows of lime trees and its fountain, is one of the calmest spots in central Paris.
Access · Public space
The film's climax plays out in France's national theatre: Reggie flees the Palais-Royal colonnades into the darkened auditorium, hides in the prompter's box, and the chase ends on the stage. On Place Colette outside, the Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre métro exit where she surfaced moments earlier is now crowned by the coloured-glass Kiosque des Noctambules.
Access · Ticket required for the interior
Reggie collects her mail at American Express, and Peter and the menacing Scobie brawl on the building's rooftop with the Opéra behind them. The stone corner building beside the Palais Garnier has carried the American Express name since at least the 1930s.
Access · Exterior only
Home from Megève, Reggie steps out of her taxi on this short tree-lined avenue beside Parc Monceau and finds her flat stripped bare. The elegant mansion next door at No. 7 is the Musée Cernuschi, the city's museum of Asian art.
Access · Exterior only. People live here: keep your voice down and don't ring the bells.
Strolling the Left Bank quay beneath Notre-Dame, Reggie admits to Peter that she is afraid she will be killed, in the film's most romantic stretch of riverbank. The little bridge and the Quai de Montebello are unchanged, with the cathedral's flank and rose window straight across the water.
Access · Public space
The modest 'Hôtel Saint-Jacques' where Reggie and Peter take rooms (and where Cary Grant showers in his suit) was this Latin Quarter building, with a fake 'Saint-Jacques' métro sign put up across the street at Rue de Mirbel. The building still stands, though the hotel that trades on the film today is at 35 Rue des Écoles.
Access · Exterior only
The Y-shaped UNESCO building stood in for 'EURESCO', the international agency where Reggie works as a simultaneous interpreter. The 1958 modernist landmark still faces Place de Fontenoy and the École Militaire, a striking piece of mid-century Paris.
Access · Outside: public. Inside: only on a guided tour booked in advance (unesco.org)
The platforms of Varenne on Line 13 doubled for the fictional 'Saint-Jacques' station where Reggie shakes off her pursuer in the métro chase. Look for the replica of Rodin's Thinker on the platform, a nod to the Musée Rodin above ground.
Access · Ticket required
The film opens at a ski resort in the French Alps: Regina 'Reggie' Lampert (Audrey Hepburn), on holiday and about to divorce her husband, meets the charming stranger Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) over lunch on a hotel terrace. These scenes were shot in Megève over a few days in January 1963, at the hotel Le Mont d'Arbois on the slopes above the village.
Access · Mountain resort open to all. Ski lifts and hotel terraces depend on the season: check before you go.
Everyone in the film is hunting for a fortune that Reggie's (Audrey Hepburn) murdered husband stole, and near the end the search leads to this open-air stamp market just off the Champs-Élysées, in a crucial scene. The market still runs a few days a week, though with fewer stalls than in 1963.
Access · Open-air market, free; it is held on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays during the day. Check before you go.
In Megève, in the French Alps.
The scenes were shot in January 1963 at the hotel Le Mont d'Arbois above the village: see Mont d'Arbois.
Lifts and hotel terraces depend on the season.
Yes.
The Carré Marigny market is held on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays during the day, with fewer stalls than in 1963.
It is free.
Yes, with a ticket for a play.
The Comédie-Française is France's national theatre; the official site sells the tickets.
The outside of the UNESCO Headquarters is public.
Inside you go only on a guided tour booked in advance on unesco.org.
Tap a number to see the place and get directions in Maps.
Walk ~7 min
Nearest metro: Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame (L4/RER B/RER C)
Riverside walk under Notre-Dame
Metro to Censier–Daubenton (L7) · ~14 min
The hotel
Walk ~12 min
Charade on foot: from Reggie's flat to the Comédie-Française
Six places of the film on the Right Bank, from the empty flat to the stage where the chase ends.
The stamp market is held on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays: do the walk on one of those days.
Nearest metro: Monceau (L2)
Opening: the emptied apartment
Walk ~18 min
Near the end: the stamp market
Walk ~5 min
Puppet show scene
Walk ~5 min
Metro to Opéra (L3/L7/L8) · ~14 min
Rooftop fight with Scobie
Walk ~14 min
Garden confrontation
Walk ~5 min
Finale
Walk ~5 min
Walk ~13 min
Walk ~5 min
Métro chase (interior)
By metro · ~15 min
Walk ~7 min
Estimated return 17:30 · add yours in Trip preferences
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Not part of the story, just good addresses close to its places.
Café under the Palais-Royal arcades by the Comédie-Française; seen in The Intouchables
historic caf退
2 Place Colette, 75001 Paris
Café in the Petit Palais garden, named for the museum's opening year; no exhibition ticket needed
museum caf退
Avenue Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris
Yannick Alléno's restaurant in the Pavillon Ledoyen, near the Champs-Élysées stamp market from Charade
modern French€€€€
8 Avenue Dutuit, 75008 Paris
Production · film commissions · tourist boards · guides
We always say if it is:
Production · film commissions · tourist boards · guides
We always say if it is:
