Breakfast at Tiffany's (1960)
Breakfast with Audrey
Early morning. A yellow cab glides along an otherwise empty Fifth Avenue and pulls over outside Number 727—Tiffany’s. A slim, elegant young woman emerges. Wearing a black, off-the-shoulder evening dress, with a diaphanous white scarf, huge sunglasses, and a pearl necklace, she carries a paper bag containing a pastry and coffee: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Well, breakfast outside Tiffany’s.
Soon after the opening sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany's (1960), the young woman meets a young writer who is moving into the brownstone in which she shares an apartment with her no-name cat. “Tiffany’s,” she tells him, is where she goes whenever she gets “the mean reds.”
“The mean reds?” he says, “You mean the blues?”
“No. The blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and don’t know what you’re afraid of.”
She is Holly Golightly. He is Paul Varjak, although Holly insists on calling him “Fred”—because he looks her brother Fred. But then she has her own way with everything: she wears a dress shirt as a dressing gown, keeps her phone in a suitcase, incorporates fragments of French into her speech (“quel beast”), and sports the longest cigarette holder in history.
Sriptwriter George Axelrod worked hard and long on Truman Capote’s slight but sharply observed novella about a homosexual writer and the sexy girl who lives below him. First, he worked with director Joshua Logan. Then, when Logan dropped out, Axelrod continued developing the script with John Frankenheimer. Axelrod gave Capote’s story a new spine, turning it into a love story. The heroine stayed the same, but the hero became a kept man. Axelrod was then able to retain much of Capote’s material. The part of Holly Golightly was offered to Marilyn Monroe—it would have been her third film with Axelrod; he co-scripted The Seven Year Itch (1950), and wrote the screenplay for Bus Stop (1956). But, Marilyn wouldn’t play Holly—she thought the part was too edgy.
Instead, it was offered to Audrey Hepburn, who was about as different from Marylin as it was possible to be. Already an Oscar winner for Roman Holiday (1953) and double Oscar nominee for Sabrina (1954) and The Nun's Story (1959), Audrey had director approval. She didn’t know Frankenheimer, who at that time had only made the relatively unsuccessful The Young Stranger (1956). So, Frankenheimer left the project—although he soon had another opportunity to work with Axelrod, on The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the film for which Frankenheimer is best remembered.
Audrey accepted Blake Edwards as director. Although Edwards went on to fame and fortune with The Pink Panther (1964) and the rest of the Inspector Clouseau movies, the elegant Breakfast at Tiffany's remains his best movie.
And what happened to the edgy story Marilyn shied away from? Audrey floats above the edginess—playing Holly Golightly as if she has no idea why men pursue her, or why they give her $50 “for the powder room.” The key to her playing comes in an exchange between “Fred” (George Peppard) and Holly’s “agent” O.J. Berman (Martin Balsam). At a party in Holly’s apartment, O.J. asks “Fred,” “Is she or isn’t she?”
“Is she or isn’t she, what?”
“A phony,”
“I don’t know,” says “Fred.” “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so. Well, you’re wrong. She is. But, on the other hand, you’re right. Because she’s a real phony. You know why? Because she honestly believes all this phony junk she believes. I mean it.”
And, because Audrey makes us believe that she believes, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a delight, a charming New York romance that skates past all the possible traps—even the miscalculated Mickey Rooney sequences—to leave us with the feeling that we just enjoyed the longest drink of champagne we ever had, and that it was exactly enough.
John Bloomfield (2 September, 2002)
Early morning. A yellow cab glides along an otherwise empty Fifth Avenue and pulls over outside Number 727—Tiffany’s. A slim, elegant young woman emerges. Wearing a black, off-the-shoulder evening dress, with a diaphanous white scarf, huge sunglasses, and a pearl necklace, she carries a paper bag containing a pastry and coffee: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Well, breakfast outside Tiffany’s.
Soon after the opening sequence of Breakfast at Tiffany's (1960), the young woman meets a young writer who is moving into the brownstone in which she shares an apartment with her no-name cat. “Tiffany’s,” she tells him, is where she goes whenever she gets “the mean reds.”
“The mean reds?” he says, “You mean the blues?”
“No. The blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and don’t know what you’re afraid of.”
She is Holly Golightly. He is Paul Varjak, although Holly insists on calling him “Fred”—because he looks her brother Fred. But then she has her own way with everything: she wears a dress shirt as a dressing gown, keeps her phone in a suitcase, incorporates fragments of French into her speech (“quel beast”), and sports the longest cigarette holder in history.
Sriptwriter George Axelrod worked hard and long on Truman Capote’s slight but sharply observed novella about a homosexual writer and the sexy girl who lives below him. First, he worked with director Joshua Logan. Then, when Logan dropped out, Axelrod continued developing the script with John Frankenheimer. Axelrod gave Capote’s story a new spine, turning it into a love story. The heroine stayed the same, but the hero became a kept man. Axelrod was then able to retain much of Capote’s material. The part of Holly Golightly was offered to Marilyn Monroe—it would have been her third film with Axelrod; he co-scripted The Seven Year Itch (1950), and wrote the screenplay for Bus Stop (1956). But, Marilyn wouldn’t play Holly—she thought the part was too edgy.
Instead, it was offered to Audrey Hepburn, who was about as different from Marylin as it was possible to be. Already an Oscar winner for Roman Holiday (1953) and double Oscar nominee for Sabrina (1954) and The Nun's Story (1959), Audrey had director approval. She didn’t know Frankenheimer, who at that time had only made the relatively unsuccessful The Young Stranger (1956). So, Frankenheimer left the project—although he soon had another opportunity to work with Axelrod, on The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the film for which Frankenheimer is best remembered.
Audrey accepted Blake Edwards as director. Although Edwards went on to fame and fortune with The Pink Panther (1964) and the rest of the Inspector Clouseau movies, the elegant Breakfast at Tiffany's remains his best movie.
And what happened to the edgy story Marilyn shied away from? Audrey floats above the edginess—playing Holly Golightly as if she has no idea why men pursue her, or why they give her $50 “for the powder room.” The key to her playing comes in an exchange between “Fred” (George Peppard) and Holly’s “agent” O.J. Berman (Martin Balsam). At a party in Holly’s apartment, O.J. asks “Fred,” “Is she or isn’t she?”
“Is she or isn’t she, what?”
“A phony,”
“I don’t know,” says “Fred.” “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so. Well, you’re wrong. She is. But, on the other hand, you’re right. Because she’s a real phony. You know why? Because she honestly believes all this phony junk she believes. I mean it.”
And, because Audrey makes us believe that she believes, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a delight, a charming New York romance that skates past all the possible traps—even the miscalculated Mickey Rooney sequences—to leave us with the feeling that we just enjoyed the longest drink of champagne we ever had, and that it was exactly enough.
John Bloomfield (2 September, 2002)
posted by John Bloomfield at 8:51 PM
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