Pizza and a movie
It was my 65th birthday this week. AARP, Social Security, Medicare…all of it. But that’s not what I was thinking about.
In my mid-20s, I started a new tradition for my birthday: Pizza and a showing of the 1961 film, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It turned out to be a great idea, because even if I didn’t have FORMAL plans for a given year, I always had plans. You know what I mean? Coconut cake also made a regular appearance, but honestly, any birthday cake with frosting was suitable.
I’m such an Audrey Hepburn fan that early in my teaching career, I found a way to wear pink and grey on my birthday — a color combination meant as a tribute to Miss Audrey Hepburn’s performance as Suzy, the terrified but brave blind woman in the classic 1967 thriller “Wait Until Dark.” I told that to my students. They stared blankly. Teachers are so weird.
Eventually, the Audrey Hepburn industry started rolling out memoirs, historical documents, Blu Ray editions, gardening books, posters, postcards, calendars…all to feed the desires of the ever-growing Audrey fanbase. It peaked, I think, in about 2017 with the TV series “Big Little Lies” when a murder takes place the night of an Audrey Hepburn-themed school fundraiser.
When I was in my early 40s, I invited a couple of younger women in my office to join me in watching the movie during our lunch break. As soon as the movie started, I felt a pit growing in my stomach. This movie is over 40 years old. They are not going to enjoy it, I thought, nor will they “get” the kitsch of watching this particular culturally iconic film.
The Henry Mancini music starts, the melancholy taxi ride ends, Audrey emerges in that gorgeous Givenchy black dress with coffee and a bialy (bagel?), takes small steps to the Tiffany’s window and…nothing. A dead room. No enthusiasm, no recognition. We lasted 45 minutes and I vowed never to subject anyone else to my yearly ritual. You either get “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or you don’t. It’s an acquired taste.
Taking the good with the bad
There is a lot to love about the movie. Highlights for me are the cat (I actually had a tabby for years) and Martin Balsam’s hilarious portrayal of the Hollywood agent, OJ Berman. George Peppard as Audrey’s neighbor, Paul, is almost painfully gorgeous, and I also love how every time the action moves to the tree-laden street where their apartment building is located, we can hear someone practicing on the piano.
Patricia Neal — always exquisite in her languidness — plays the woman who “keeps” George Peppard. I could never figure out her name until I learned it was “2E,” the name of the apartment she rents for George/Paul (her lover) down the hall from Holly. Huh.
There is also much to hate about the film. The worst being the horrible portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi, the Japanese photographer who lives on the top floor. Mickey Rooney and director Blake Edwards created a grotesque stereotype that is truly unforgiveable. Edwards finally admitted late in his life that he probably should have cut the character out. But Yunioshi is a great character in the book and it would have been possible to portray him as, you know, a realistic Japanese photographer.
The big party in Holly’s apartment has a lot of comic bits that Holly might describe as “cornball jazz” but Mancini’s music is both raucous and cool. I love when Audrey sings “Moon River,” especially after I learned that the producers were determined to cut out the song — idiots. Sometimes, the best movies are made in spite of the people who work on them.
Buddy Ebsen’s appearance as Doc Golightly is always a bit unsetting, but he is so good as a country doctor who comes to the big city looking for his lost child bride. Makes me wish there were a larger array of Buddy Ebsen non-dancing performances to see (outside of his TV work on “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Barnaby Jones”).
Truman’s classic
About 15 years ago, I finally bought a copy of the novella, a bestseller in 1958. If only Truman Capote had written more and partied at Studio 54 less. His writing was crystal clear, urbane, and far too scarce.
I keep the book on my Kindle and re-read it every couple of years. This was a tough book to adapt in 1961 Hollywood when the (dying) Production Code was still dictating guidelines for adult behavior in the movies, especially when demonstrated by women.
I used to think George Axelrod, the scriptwriter, was kind of a pervert, but he actually did used a great deal of the story, turning it into his favorite thing: a WITTY sex comedy in spite of The Code. Axelrod also wrote the smash Broadway sex comedy “The Seven Year Itch” which had to lose all of its “real” sexual content when it was adapted for the screen.
Author Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly — full name Holiday Golightly — the New York party girl looking for love and money. The more I go back to the book and try to put Marilyn in that role, the less I see it. Holly is much more edgy than Marilyn’s soft, round blondeness.
And I think Audrey was sort of brave to take on the role when she might not have been completely wanted. Today, it’s impossible to see anyone else as Holly. Mary Tyler Moore tried a Broadway musical version with Richard Chamberlain, but it was a historic flop.
The studio tried to sell Audrey as “kooky” in order to make her sexuality acceptable to audiences, but her natural grace is often at odds with that. Maybe it’s the cigarette holder, maybe it’s the Givenchy wardrobe, maybe it’s the sunglasses, but Hepburn created a true screen icon that is still beloved today. That’s not easy to pull off.
Holly turns out to be a prototype of the “manic pixie dream girl,” a quirky, free-spirited female stereotype found in a gazillion Hollywood films.
I could go on and on about this movie. How about the agency of the wealthy white woman who “keeps” Paul? Or the near assault of Holly by Syd Arbuck at the beginning of the movie? What happens to the legal mess she finds herself in at the end? And will “Cat” ever forgive her for dumping him in the rain?
If you want an exhaustive examination of how the story became a movie, check out Sam Wasson’s wonderful 2010 book “Fifth Avenue 5 AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman.”
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