Of course,she has never been away - BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S must be the one 50 year old film [apart from PSYCHO and SOME LIKE IT HOT] that everyone knows and still watch regularly - well, all those into romcoms anyway. It is surely the prototype romantic movie for those who grew up after the classic golden age of the 30s and 40s. It is endlessly stylish too, Audrey and that black dress and accessories must be as iconic now as anything by Monroe or Jimmy Dean. [Blake Edwards was certainly a high in the early 60s, I also love DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (50 years old next year) and the first PINK PANTHER.] Capote saw his friend Marilyn Monroe in the role of Holly Golightly, I see Kay Kendall (if she had lived), but Audrey it is and she is perfect too, and I love Patricia Neal as the "very stylish girl" waving her chequebook at writer/gigolo Paul Varjak (Peppard) - there is of course a whole gay subtext here, but it works on every level, and then there is Mancini's score and that song... it is everything we feel about that optimistic early '60s and being young in a big city.
Capote's original novella was given away free in a newspaper here (in the UK) a while ago and it was interesting re-reading it. It has the perfect bittersweet ending of Holly going off to South America and they do not find the cat. The narrator keeps searching though and finds the cat one afternoon - now belonging to someone else, curled up in a window in a nice house. But of course in the movie we want that soaring choir singing "Moon River" as Cat is found and squeezed between Audrey and Peppard (did any couple ever look as good in the rain?). It is also of course one of the great New York movies - but words are superfluous... the images say it all, it's a movie of great moments and dialogue to savour. Roll it again .... it is also now back in selected cinemas in a new reissue by the BFI [British Film Institute].
Capote's original novella was given away free in a newspaper here (in the UK) a while ago and it was interesting re-reading it. It has the perfect bittersweet ending of Holly going off to South America and they do not find the cat. The narrator keeps searching though and finds the cat one afternoon - now belonging to someone else, curled up in a window in a nice house. But of course in the movie we want that soaring choir singing "Moon River" as Cat is found and squeezed between Audrey and Peppard (did any couple ever look as good in the rain?). It is also of course one of the great New York movies - but words are superfluous... the images say it all, it's a movie of great moments and dialogue to savour. Roll it again .... it is also now back in selected cinemas in a new reissue by the BFI [British Film Institute].
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