loading...
Funny Face
1957
Splashes of vivid color light the way through Stanley Donen's very modern musical. 'Think pink!' commands Miss Prescott (Kay Thompson), head of Quality Woman fashion magazine, and American women obey--all except Jo (Audrey Hepburn), an intellectual young woman who tries to prevent Miss Prescott from staging a photo shoot in her .. Read more
| Starring | Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Flemyng, Michel Auclair |
|---|---|
| Director | Stanley Donen |
| Genres | Music/Musical |
loading...
Funny Face
Splashes of vivid color light the way through Stanley Donen's very modern musical. 'Think pink!' commands Miss Prescott (Kay Thompson), head of Quality Woman fashion magazine, and American women obey--all except Jo (Audrey Hepburn), an intellectual young woman who tries to prevent Miss Prescott from staging a photo shoot in her bookshop. Photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) sees something interesting in Jo's "funny face," and soon he's lured her to Paris to model during the day and discuss philosophy in smoky cafes at night. Modeling Givenchy clothes, Hepburn steals the color in every scene, and her funny face enchants all, including Dick and, unexpectedly, the dark and handsome philosophy master whose theories Jo adores.
The musical numbers are primarily duets--Jo and Dick glide together in each other's arms, Jo and Miss Prescott find unexpected solidarity in womanhood, and Dick and Miss Prescott cavort in the philosopher's salon--but the most engaging scene is when the three come to Paris, plead exhaustion to one another, then secretly race around the city, singing and dancing and reveling in being tourists.
| Starring | Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Flemyng, Michel Auclair, Suzy Parker, Kay Thompson |
|---|---|
| Director | Stanley Donen |
| Studio | PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 43 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Music/Musical |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Dubbed | German |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norweigan, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish |
| Released | DVD: 03 Sep 2001 Production year: 1957 |
| Format | DVD |
-
Critics' reviews (3)
View all -
You'll be beguiled by the wit, style and sparkle of this MGM musical that wasn't. Director Stanley Donen decamped to Paramount to avail himself of that studio's house treasure, the one and only Audrey Hepburn, and with glowing Technicolor (photography by Ray June) and great Gershwin tunes created a film that looks as elegant today as it did when it first appeared. A satire on fashion magazines, the movie stars the fabulous Fred Astaire as one Dick Avery (photographer Richard Avedon was the film's consultant) who finds the face of his dreams (Hepburn) in a Greenwich Village bookstore. Kay Thompson stands out as an imperious magazine editor — it takes real style to compete with the likes of Hepburn and Astaire! The only questionable scenes are the ones in which the three leads end up in Paris and ridicule Emile Flostre (played by Michel Auclair), a dead ringer for Jean-Paul Sartre — the anti-intellectualism is unworthy of Donen. Otherwise it's scintillating, magical and above all romantic.
-
Stylish, wistful musical with good numbers but drawn-out dialogue; finally a shade too sophisticated and a whole lot too fey.
-
Most helpful member's review
View all -
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Funny Face
Fashion magazine Quality is looking for a girl who can represent everything it stands for. Photographer Dick Avery (Astaire) thinks he has found her on a location photo shoot in a bookstore. So store clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn) becomes the 'Quality woman' and is whisked off to Paris to be a model. Unfortunately, while in Paris, she's more interested in hearing philosophers speak and in her burgeoning romance with Avery than in being a clothes horse.
Funny Face is a film unmistakably of its time and this is both a good and a bad thing. The satire of the then trendy philosophy (though I'm sure 'empathicalism' is made up) is often silly and wearing and takes away from the charm of the rest of the film much of the time but this is the only big problem with Funny Face and the philosophy is hardly the focus of the film
As a musical it's a bit of a mixed bag, with a few weak numbers like the opener 'Think Pink' but these pale in significance in comparison to the stronger songs like Hepburn's solo 'How Long Has This Been Going On?', the title number '(I Love Your) Funny Face', which is fantastically designed and lit with the red bulb in a darkroom by Donen. The standouts, though, are the wonderful 'Bonjour Paris' which cuts between Hepburn, Astaire and Thompson at various locations in Paris, often using split screen sequences of the three of them doing the same dance steps in perfect sync and 'On How To Be Charming' (As if Hepburn ever needed tips on this) which does exactly what it says on the tin.
The dancing is the strongest suit of the film. While Astaire (at 58!!) is still moving with all the grace he had in his younger days and has several amazing dance sequences it is Hepburn's lithe, sexy Basal Metabolism dance that makes the whole film worth watching.
Funny Face is, at it's heart, fluff and this means that there are a lot of implausibilities you have to reconcile to enjoy it. Hepburn and Astaire look odd as a romantic couple but their dance sequences are beautiful and do help you to buy the relationship somewhat. The other problem is that Hepburn isn't meant to be beautiful in the first half of the film which, frankly, is ridiculous as, if anything, she looks better with the minimal make up of her bookish character than she does painted up as a model (though the sequence in which Astaire is taking pictures of her around Paris has several moments where she's just jaw droppingly goregous.)
Funny Face isn't perfect, it's silly fluff but it's done with real style and it's never less than entertaining and can certainly be recommended. -
Most recent members' review
View all -
[Highly rated reviewer]
Flat predictable musical!
I hired this film through recommendation and really wish i hadn't! the cast alone should have brought a bit of spark to the film but apart from a few belly laughs no spark was present.
The film was predictable from the off set and although it has definately inspired such things as The Devil Wears Prada and Ugly betty (dont like those either) it is still very dull, which is a odd way of descibing the film as it is extremely colourful!
Audrey Hepburn plays a gullible bookstore assistant who stumbles upon an opportunity to become a model for a major fashion mag, Fred Astaire plays her love interest and from bookstore assistant to thriving model there are a few musical numbers along the way, which again are dull and forgetful. Even Fred Astaires dance routines look like he is having a fit on the floor.
Overall the songs are flat, story is predictable and Fred Astaire looks about 20 years to old for Miss Hepburn! -
News and features
View all
We LOVE Paris
- 27 Jun 2007
'We'll always have Paris,' Humphrey Bogart assured Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, and the movies make it so. The cinema preserves the present, recreates the past, and imagines the future. When a city inspires as many moviemakers as Paris has for over a century, films become as much a part of its character and charm as its buildings, its museums and galleries. That's a big claim when we're talking about a city as splendid as this, with so much history and such rich culture. But then that is why... Read more
-
More like this
View allShowing 1 to 4 of 16
Related user collection
All the Oscar movies (81)
96.6% from 6 members
Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop
-
-
-
Funny Face
Splashes of vivid color light the way through Stanley Donen's very modern musical. 'Think pink!' commands Miss Prescott (Kay Thompson), head of Quality Woman fashion magazine, and American women obey--all except Jo (Audrey Hepburn), an intellectual young woman who tries to prevent Miss Prescott ...
-