Breakfast at Tiffany’s ****½ (1961, Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, John McGiver) – Classic Movie Review 829

Director Blake Edwards’s enchanting 1961 film of Truman Capote’s novella earned an Oscar nomination Best Actress for style icon Audrey Hepburn’s gem of a performance as the kooky and cute Sixties sophisticated socialite Holly Golightly.

The charm just oozes from the screen as entrancing Hepburn tackles one of the roles for which she will always be remembered  in this adorable romantic comedy. George Axelrod’s screenplay makes a strong, largely faithful attempt at bringing the book to screen and Edwards directs like a man in love with both Audrey and Holly, making them for ever memorable.

Everything else in the film plays second fiddle to the star and her character. That is what Breakfast at Tiffany’s is about. Unlike most romantic movies, this is not a romcom or movie romance.

So instead it is a one person movie, with the focus entirely Hepburn. And the relationship between Hepburn and her co-star George Peppard entirely secondary to this. In the circumstances, Peppard cuts quite a dash, too, as the struggling young writer Paul Varjak, who moves into Holly’s New York apartment building.

Basically a call-girl (though not bisexual as she is in the novella), Holly spends her life chasing her blues away with riotously swinging parties, wealthy bedfellows and a morning stroll to Tiffany’s, the best jeweller’s store in New York City. Paul meets her and soon falls for his extravagant, volatile new neighbour Holly Golightly, with her frustratingly contradictory personality.

On the surface, she is sexy, and with a sophisticated air. But when it is just the two of them, she is sweet, vulnerable and living on her neuroses. Paul is at first fascinated, and then mesmerised. Holly likes poor, handsome Paul, but she is determined instead to marry Rusty Trawler (Stanley Adams), the ninth richest man in America under 50.

And there are strong, distinguished support performances from Patricia Neal as Paul’s jealous, jaded, wealthy older lover Emily Eustace Failenson (whom Paul nicknames 2E), Buddy Ebsen as Holly’s estranged Texan husband Doc, Martin Balsam as Holly’s Hollywood agent friend O J Berman and John McGiver as the deliciously snooty Tiffany’s salesman.

Only Mickey Rooney strikes a false note, appallingly, wilfully and bizarrely miscast as Mr Yunioshi, an ‘Oriental’ (!) permanently irate neighbour, bringing an unintentional whiff of racism to the proceedings. It is a one-joke part, too, and the joke is rancid.

Edwards said regretfully years later: ‘Looking back, I wish I had never done it and I would give anything to be able to recast it.’

Otherwise, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a gorgeous, gift-wrapped treat, a perfect date, Valentine’s Day or girls’ night movie. Its poster is now one of the most famous images in the world.

Edwards’s regular composer Henry Mancini won two Oscars for his fabulous Best Original Score and evergreen Best Original Song ‘Moon River’ (lyrics by Johnny Mercer). Moon River was written especially for Hepburn and, as she was an untrained singer, the vocals were written to be sung in only one octave.

Mancini felt Audrey’s was the best version of the song, but it was not officially released until after her death. The Paramount Pictures studio’s Head of Production wanted to have it removed from the film. During the shoplifting sequence, Holly dons a Huckleberry Hound mask, explaining the ‘Huckleberry friend’ line in the song.

Hepburn said the scene where she throws Cat into the rainy street was the most distasteful thing she ever had to do on film. Nine cats were used in filming. Tiffany’s at 727 5th Avenue opened its doors on a Sunday for the first time since the 19th century so that filming could take place inside the store.

It was nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Actress for Hepburn, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Art Direction.

Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly Golightly: ‘Marilyn was always my first choice to play the girl.’ Axelrod was hired to ‘tailor the screenplay for Monroe’. But Lee Strasberg told Monroe playing a prostitute would be bad for her image and she rejected the part and did The Misfits instead. Capote said of Hepburn’s casting: ‘Paramount double-crossed me.’

Philip Seymour Hoffman won the 2006 Best Actor Oscar for his eye-catching, brio performance in Capote as the destructively selfish gay author Truman Capote.

The story which Paul gets a $50 cheque for is called Roman Caper, a reference to Hepburn’s first starring role, in Roman Holiday (1953).

http://derekwinnert.com/roman-holiday-classic-film-review-44/

http://derekwinnert.com/capote-2005-philip-seymour-hoffman-classic-film-review-796/

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 829 derekwinnert.com