I've just seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's" for the first time

I had to look up MPDG, but here's a list with Tiffany's at #11:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/wild-things-16-films-featuring-manic-pixie-dream-g,2407/

Never really had any interest in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, now I do.

Hepburn's got the MPDG thing goin' on as far back as Sabrina.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FBNss2PMj60

'Moon River' is a depressing song.

Do not agree

Well I can just about stand it when Audrey Hepburn sings it, as it's an insight into Holly's always running attitude. But the string and choir heavy version that plays over the final scene is terrible.

Some other versions I've heard are cool

"Moon River" is easily the best thing abt the BTF film

youtube clip of Nelson from the Simpsons, teary-eyed, watching Andy Williams' do an encore of Moon River in Branson, MO while en route to Tennessee with Bart and Milhouse in a rental car to thread!

Richard Brody vs Glenn Kenny on the casting of Hepburn.

Interesting comment in there by, surprise, David E:

Carol Matthau (a woman who REALLY knew where all the bodies were buried) said Holly was a mash-up betwen her and truman himself. She was right.

i love that line from (i think) wilson's onegin review, but it's how i feel about literally all of my friends. doesn't everyone?

Nabokov is always called the "winner" in their spat – why, because he was a better "stylist" and dickhead than Bunny?

well at least he spoke russian.

is there a word for "courtesy" in Russian

Never really did get into this movie much. Even the cat edit is sort of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"poshlust" xp

i hated this movie when i saw it but i was like 15.

Kenny's right inasmuch as Hepburn makes the transformation from po' white trash to Manhattan socialite credible but I've a problem generally with how Hepburn looks encouraged by Edwards to act more sophisticated and daaahling than she is. It's a cloying performance.

Don't think Hepburn ever needed any extra coaxing to act sophisticated and daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahling.

(That's what undoes her otherwise good Wait Until Dark performance.)

Holly is 19 in the book, which is why Capote said circa 1980 that Jodie Foster would be great.

What mostly undoes her WUD work is how she's encouraged to act stupider than she is.

And blinder.

why couldn't Efrem Zimbalist Jr. have a fridge fall on him

Still, better Henri Mancini music than B@T's.

On a very highbrow note, the Seinfeld episode where George cheats on his book club was on yesterday. "So--are we still talking, or are we watching the movie?"

i am reminded of robert crumb's angry letter to ivan brunetti in schizo: 'i HATE audrey hepburn and all her ilk!!!'

I think it's mentioned that Holly or "Lula" was 14 when she got married - that implies that she might have been running away from a genuinely awful situation and not just some kindly old dolt who she doesn't love.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, March 17, 2007 12:24 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In the book, Doc says that Holly and her brother were orphaned and fending for themselves when he took them in, and Holly claims her sexual history before she married Doc (at age 14) "doesn't count," so yes, Holly was coming from a very rough background.

Officially I don't believe in the concept of the "guilty pleasure." But the BoT film is such a glossy-gorgeous shell around such a grotty story, that I hate to see it held up as a fashion or lifestyle icon.

nah -- I wish more women used cigarette holders and named their cats Cat.

Don't forget about her earplug/rings!

It's a heartwarming story of manipulative urban whores with some touching old-style racism for leavening. Cat was hot tho, despite being left out in the rain.

did y'all know that this film was originally john frankenheimer and george axelrod's baby? then the studio hired audrey hepburn and she wanted frankenheimer off the project.

i think f. maybe wanted kim stanley to star.

kinda wish we'd all stop talking about the "racism"

The Mickey Rooney character is egregious!

Patricia Neal is kind of lovely in this, though.

misread that as Patrice O'Neal at first and lol

I dunno. The film is fraught in more interesting ways than Mickey Rooney's textbook caricature..

Holly is definitely more louche in the novella - it kind of reminds me of whom Cole Porter wished to play him in a film bio ('Night and Day'); Cary Grant.

but Cary Grant COULD have played him a better film! I mean, Cary Grant is the distillation of every Cole Porter song character.

It was a hit too

I like my demi-mondaines a little real and cruffy around the edges or I like them like Zola's Nana, entirely too OTT.

i reread the novella a couple years ago and was amazed how dislikeable holly was! which of course is the point -- in real life, ppl like holly are impossible to be friends with.

the film kind of gets that across a little maybe?

It does if you look past Hepburn's natural charm. I like her so much better in 'Roman Holiday'.

It just occurred to me that José Luis de Vilallonga is in both "Breakfast at Tiffany's' and 'Darling' - interesting comparing the two.

Having been to Rome a few times over the past 2 years, we watched RHol recently.

The scene where they're driving crazy through town on scooters, I keep expecting them to crash into all the market barrows selling Audrey Hepburn souvenirs!

so there's a stage adap opening on Broadway in March; faithful to Capote, ie, set during WW2 and presumably FRED IS GAY.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/173395-Broadways-Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-Goes-on-Sale-to-General-Public-Dec-24

gonna disappoint a lotta Audrey-lovin' tourists