Funny Face (1957)
I was prepared to love this movie and it let me down even though it has two fabulous leads, the classic musical dance man Fred Astaire and the new star Audrey Hepburn. It even has its photography based on the work of Richard Avedon, and Astaire's character is based on him in his fashion work. I enjoyed it, but it depends too much on common formulas, which I normally don't mind, and it lacks cohesion, flow, and what you might just call magic.
That it's partly shot in New York and then Paris (a famously rainy Paris during the shoot) you would think you could hardly go wrong. And in a way it doesn't go wrong overall. But the plot lacks energy, the romantic chemistry is missing (the two are really more like father and daughter), and the series of dance numbers is choppy and uneven. Because of all this, each song goes on too long and you itch for the next scene, and then that scene merely takes us back to the weak plot.
If you focus on these weaknesses the movie starts to look almost terrible. Hepburn's transformation from a tweedy intellectual in a bookshop in Manhattan to the premiere runway in Paris sounds like dream come true stuff, but it isn't really convincing (or surprising, of course). The French counter-culture intellectual scene is fun idea but it doesn't push it very far, and the leading voice is played by an actor with no presence at all. Hepburn's interactions in this whole world are forced. Even the opening twenty minutes, which sets the tone, is rough sledding before out two leading actors appear.
But focus on the strengths and there are some great moments. Like the series of photo shoots, one after another quickly spreading across the highlights of the city, is fun and stylish. A few of the dance numbers, though short of classic, are great fun, like the modern one in the French smokey bar and the one in the darkroom with the safelights on. In both of these, again, director Stanley Donen (a consummate pro at this stuff) let things drag on just a minute too long, which is a long time in a fast moving movie like this.
Then there is Fred Astaire, at ease and warm and really wonderful. He doesn't get a chance to quite blow the doors off any of the dances, but he's still a joy to watch, dancing or just being his warm self. (He was initially a reluctant actor at this point in his life, but was still very active. For a sense of his truer self, perhaps, behind the scenes, see "On the Beach" two years later.)
Then there is Audrey Hepburn, by now a stellar and unique star trying to spread her wings into musicals (this was her first). She, as usual in her career, rose above her part and like Astaire was "herself" with such charm she keeps even weaker scenes going. When she's in them, which luckily she is in most of them by the second half. Hepburn also comes across as a superb model (appropriately thin, but not especially tall), and Avedon's photographs of her taken in conjunction with filming are iconic. They get incorporated into the movie directly, both in the scenes where Astaire creates some photos in his role, and in some of the cinematography which imitates Avedon's style (white backdrops, modern styling).
In the end it's a great seeming movie with such huge flaws it's just another musical. But that's not fair, quite, so think of it as an up and down ride with some very very fine high points which make it worth watching.
I was prepared to love this movie and it let me down even though it has two fabulous leads, the classic musical dance man Fred Astaire and the new star Audrey Hepburn. It even has its photography based on the work of Richard Avedon, and Astaire's character is based on him in his fashion work. I enjoyed it, but it depends too much on common formulas, which I normally don't mind, and it lacks cohesion, flow, and what you might just call magic.
That it's partly shot in New York and then Paris (a famously rainy Paris during the shoot) you would think you could hardly go wrong. And in a way it doesn't go wrong overall. But the plot lacks energy, the romantic chemistry is missing (the two are really more like father and daughter), and the series of dance numbers is choppy and uneven. Because of all this, each song goes on too long and you itch for the next scene, and then that scene merely takes us back to the weak plot.
If you focus on these weaknesses the movie starts to look almost terrible. Hepburn's transformation from a tweedy intellectual in a bookshop in Manhattan to the premiere runway in Paris sounds like dream come true stuff, but it isn't really convincing (or surprising, of course). The French counter-culture intellectual scene is fun idea but it doesn't push it very far, and the leading voice is played by an actor with no presence at all. Hepburn's interactions in this whole world are forced. Even the opening twenty minutes, which sets the tone, is rough sledding before out two leading actors appear.
But focus on the strengths and there are some great moments. Like the series of photo shoots, one after another quickly spreading across the highlights of the city, is fun and stylish. A few of the dance numbers, though short of classic, are great fun, like the modern one in the French smokey bar and the one in the darkroom with the safelights on. In both of these, again, director Stanley Donen (a consummate pro at this stuff) let things drag on just a minute too long, which is a long time in a fast moving movie like this.
Then there is Fred Astaire, at ease and warm and really wonderful. He doesn't get a chance to quite blow the doors off any of the dances, but he's still a joy to watch, dancing or just being his warm self. (He was initially a reluctant actor at this point in his life, but was still very active. For a sense of his truer self, perhaps, behind the scenes, see "On the Beach" two years later.)
Then there is Audrey Hepburn, by now a stellar and unique star trying to spread her wings into musicals (this was her first). She, as usual in her career, rose above her part and like Astaire was "herself" with such charm she keeps even weaker scenes going. When she's in them, which luckily she is in most of them by the second half. Hepburn also comes across as a superb model (appropriately thin, but not especially tall), and Avedon's photographs of her taken in conjunction with filming are iconic. They get incorporated into the movie directly, both in the scenes where Astaire creates some photos in his role, and in some of the cinematography which imitates Avedon's style (white backdrops, modern styling).
In the end it's a great seeming movie with such huge flaws it's just another musical. But that's not fair, quite, so think of it as an up and down ride with some very very fine high points which make it worth watching.