Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition)
by Stanley Donen
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair, Robert FlemyngDirector: Stanley Donen
Brand: PARAMOUNT PICTURES
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); Portuguese (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-10-02
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition)
Movie Review: Girls ... Think Pink!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to say that as a once-proud bookstore owner, I was absolutely appalled at the absolute disrespect for private property and the handling of the books and the young Audrey in the film's opening. I cringed for those few moments when she was brushed outside and made to choke on the smoggy air of New York City. The real kick in the pants was when the old dodger Astaire planted a fatty right on the very tame Hepburn kisser. You could be arrested for no less these days, haha.
So, Funny Face is really Ira Gershwin's most impressionable and lasting film? I guess that's not a bad thing. The songs are quaint and a bit cutesy when sung or `spoken' by Audrey, but it's not to their detriment or the song's. The music is what gives the movie some real charm.
"You're not exotic ... but oh, so hypnotic."
Truer words could not have been spoken about Audrey Hepburn as that was honestly her most endearing quality and the reason why we all love her. She, thankfully, wasn't Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and she wasn't ever Lauren Bacall in the Big Sleep, but closer to that bon vivant feeling that was so evident in the early years of Ingrid Bergman. Notice how I make no modern references when discussing Audrey. I don't think anyone comes close these days, or probably ever will. It's all in shambles now.
Thank god that the French were drinking Absinthe during the Caf? Scene where she gives her legendary `kitty cat on the prowl dance routine' that always makes a person grin from ear to ear.
The film does disappear into a strange level of mediocre film making in between the period from the frolicking on the meadow at the church, to the beatnik booze-down where a fake beard is sported and I'm not speaking about Kay Thompson, but Monsieur Astaire, from Tallahassee. I guess trying to pass themselves off as trailer-bait, white trash must've been humorous and entertaining back then, but I honestly couldn't wait for the number to end as Audrey disappears for the length of a bible.
In the end, your brain doesn't want to translate the real message of the film as it's about a girl who gets caught up in the New York Fashion Industry, looses her moral center, gives up on the idolized love of her life, and then violently beats her lover over the head with a vase to pursue her May-December relationship. I think Audrey was 27 during filming, and Fred was 58. I guess. Sigh ... I guess it aint all that bad. Maybe that was why they gave her the last name of `Stockton'.
Summary of Funny Face (50th Anniversary Edition)
This filmed version of the 1927 George Gershwin Broadway musical Funny Face utilizes the play's original star Fred Astaire and several of the original tunes then goes merrily off on its own. Astaire is cast as as fashion photographer Dick Avery (a character based on Richard Avedon the film's "visual consultant") who is sent out by his female boss Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) to find a "new face". It doesn't take Dick long to discover Jo (Audrey Hepburn who does her own singing) an owlish Greenwich Village bookstore clerk. Acting as Pygmalion to Jo's Galatea Dick whisks the wide-eyed girl off to Paris and transforms her into the fashion world's hottest model. Along the way he falls in love with Jo and works overtime to wean her away from such phony-baloney intellectuals as Professor Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair). The Gershwin tunes include the title song "S'wonderful" "How Long Has This Been Going On" and "He Loves and She Loves"; among the newer numbers is Kay Thompson's energetic opener "Think Pink". For years available only in washed-out flat prints Funny Face was eventually restored to its full Technicolor and VistaVision glory.System Requirements:Running Time: 103 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 097361308449 Manufacturer No: 130844Fred Astaire plays a fashion photographer based on real-life cameraman Richard Avedon, in this entertaining musical directed by Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story finds Astaire's character turning Audrey Hepburn into a chic Paris model--not a tough premise to buy, especially within this film's air of enchantment and surrounded by a great Gershwin score. Based on an unproduced play, this is one of the best films from the latter part of Astaire's career. --Tom Keogh
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