“Charade ” - Stanley Donen (1963)

Charade (1963) was something of a cinematic pastiche, and so it drew various responses.  It was a both a light-hearted romantic comedy and a corpse-strewn spy-thriller, coming hot on the heels of the debut of the James Bond films. Above all, it was a star vehicle for its two luminous leads, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Depending on your tastes, you may be attracted to one or another of these slants to the film. Echoing Hepburn’s breakthrough film of a decade earlier, Roman Holiday (1953), Charade also featured some tourist-oriented location shooting – in Paris this time and in color.

Cary Grant had been approached to appear opposite Hepburn in Roman Holiday, but he had declined because of the 25-year age difference between himself and Hepburn.  However, ten years later and now 59 years old, Grant signed up to co-star with Hepburn in Charade.  But Grant’s continuing concern for the age difference led to his insistence that any romantic approaches in the film would have to come from Hepburn’s side.  So in this film Hepburn is the amorous aggressor, virtually throwing herself at Grant throughout the story.  This doesn’t come off as at all natural to Hepburn’s screen persona, and yet it turns out to be one of the key tones of the film.  Since Hepburn here is the vulnerable heroine surrounded by sinister predators, her willing submission to the charms of a reserved and duplicitous character greatly accentuates her vulnerability and the film’s emotional tenor.

The film’s story goes through four phases that correspond to four different personae that the character played by Cary Grant assumes.  The first three phases are almost equal in length and make up most of the film.

1.  Mrs. Regina Lambert meets Peter Joshua
While on a ski holiday Mrs. Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) confides to a friend that she intends to divorce her husband, and shortly thereafter she also meets a charming stranger, Peter Joshua (Cary Grant).  When she returns to Paris, Regina learns that her husband has been murdered and that their apartment has been stripped bare. 

At her husband’s sparsely attended funeral, three mysterious and sinister looking characters show up; and Regina is later informed by CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) that they are Tex Panthollow (James Coburn), Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and Leopold Gideon (Ned Glass), who, along with her husband Charles and a fifth character, Cameron Dyle, had stolen $250,000 in a World War II OSS caper. Evidently Cameron Dyle died in the war, and Charles Lampert had made off with all the money himself. The three surviving OSS conspirators apparently killed Charles to get the money and now will assume that Regina has the money and will try to kill her, too.

Meanwhile Peter Joshua shows up in Paris and helps Regina move into a new hotel.  Regina is shown in short order to be amorously attracted to Joshua.

2.    Regina and Alex Dyle
Regina is now threatened by Tex, Scobie, and Gideon, and Peter Joshua tries to help her.  But it soon turns out that he wasn’t to be trusted in the first place – his true identity is now understood to be Alex Dyle, the brother of conspirator Cameron Dyle, and he is now in league with the other three.  But Regina quickly suppresses her misgivings about “Peter Joshua’s” false pretenses and whole-heartedly throws herself in with Dyle.

None of the cutthroat conspirators trusts each other, and before long Scobie is found drowned in a bathtub, presumably the victim of one of the other three. All along Regina keeps talking on the phone to Bartholomew and learns that Carson Dyle never had a brother.  So it is now clear that the Cary Grant character was lying about being Alex Dyle, too.

3.  Regina and Adam Canfield
Regina confronts “Alex”, who now admits to being a professional thief, named Adam Canfield, who is out to steal all the money for himself. Again Regina forgives his relentless mendacity and throws herself (in Hepburn's delicate style) at him again.  

Along the way, there is a nice trick about how the $250,000 was secreted in plain sight. Tex, Canfield, and Regina figure it out. But soon the corpses of Tex and Gideon are discovered, and Regina now assumes that the real killer can only be Adam Canfield.

4.  Final Confrontation
Regina arranges to meet Bartholomew, who turns out not to be a CIA agent named Bartholomew, but instead the most villainous of all of them.  But in the end Grant (a) saves the day, (b) turns out not to be Adam Canfield, but an upright US Treasury official named Brian Cruikshank, and (c) ends up betrothed to the continually enamored Regina. 

As a vehicle for Hepburn (and Grant), Charade does fill the bill, but when compared to the earlier Roman Holiday it doesn’t measure up. Both films have a theme of deception and dissembling, but Roman Holiday's approach is far subtler than Charade’s.  Whereas Roman Holiday presents innuendo and mistaken assumptions about perceptions, Charade merely has Grant and Matthau baldly lying through their teeth about who they are and what they do.

There are other limitations about Charade, as well.  The characterizations of villains – Tex, Gideon, Scobie, and the false Bartholomew – are schematic and grossly exaggerated to the point of being cartoon characters. Matthau, as the false Bartholomew, is made out to be particularly slimy and crude, but this characterization is overdone. There are also five violent murders in Charade, although we mainly see only the outcomes, i.e. the corpses, and are spared from viewing the grisly killings. The depictions of these murders are apparently supposed to be funny and in tune with the general tongue-in-cheek cartoon ambience. Along these same lines of exaggeration, Peter Stone’s script features dialogue that is full of sarcastic one-liners, particularly from Grant, but to me, they are mostly artificial and charmless. 

The cinematography is also not as artful as in the best films. Of course it is not surprising to see unnatural lighting of some studio-lit process shots showing outdoor scenes in the background, since this was characteristic of that period of color filmmaking.  But there are several pointlessly high overhead shots that don’t fit in well with the narrative rhythm of the film. And as far as narrative focalization is concerned, I won’t even discuss the prankish point-of-view shot from inside the coffin as the undertaker closes the lid on Charles Lampert, but there are some oddities here, as well. In addition there is some awkward editing, with jump cuts connected to the ends of some moving-camera shots.

These weaknesses in the schematic narrative, artificial dialogue, cinematography, editing, and some of the performances of the villainous characters can be forgiven, I suppose, if they don’t interfere to much with our main interest – the romantic relationship between the two leads, Hepburn and Grant. 

For his part, Cary Grant is his usual charming self, but his performance is variable. Most of the time he seems relatively disinterested and romantically detached from Hepburn. But then he sometimes paradoxically breaks out into unexpected zaniness – such as when, in almost slapstick fashion, he takes a soaking shower fully clothed in front of the astonished Hepburn, or when he gives her an out-of-character cross-eyed grin when she meets him in the end. 

Audrey Hepburn, of course, is one my favorite screen performers, and her  magnetism is on display here. But there are some concerns, too. Her relative indifference to the death of her husband in the opening scenes is rather disconcerting. And her romantic relationship in Charade has less electricity than those of some of her other films, such as Roman Holiday (1954), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964).

Nevertheless and despite all the shortcomings, Charade is still an entertaining film. A further positive worth mentioning is Henri Mancini’s theme song, “Charade”, which is moody and memorable – almost up to the level of his “Moon River” for Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

★★½

“Roman Holiday” - William Wyler (1953)

Roman Holiday (1953) was the Hollywood romantic comedy that introduced Audrey Hepburn in a leading role and immediately established her as a star – she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film also received an Oscar for Best Story, which was written by Dalton Trumbo, although because of Hollywood’s disgraceful blacklisting period of the 1950s, Trumbo was not fully credited for his work until 2011. 

Hepburn’s co-star, Gregory Peck, was the film’s box-office big name at the time, and Peck was thought to have been amazingly humble for allowing Hepburn to promoted to equal billing. But looking at the film today, I would say that this is entirely Hepburn’s film. Peck here is little more than the male accessory to Hepburn that George Peppard was in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).             

The story of Roman Holiday concerns a crown princess from an unnamed European country on a visit to Rome who manages to escape the bureaucratic rigors of her regal life by sneaking out on the town for a day.  She wants, for once, to have fun and engage with ordinary life in Rome.  But she has more than just a little fun – during that 24-hour period, she has a romantic encounter with an American expatriate that she meets.

It seems to me that there are two primary themes to the film. One concerns the roles and responsibilities that are placed on us all – even the royalty – and how they can imprison people, especially women.  The other theme is a more playful one and concerns the willful deceptions and misperceptions that can enable us to escape those roles (for awhile, anyway).  Incidentally, deception would also play a major role in a later Hepburn film, Charade (1963).

The story goes through four sections that feature the progressive unraveling and “re-raveling” of those roles.

1.  Princess Ann Arrives in Rome
In the first section the youthful and glamorous Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) arrives in Rome with her royal retinue and attends to a tightly-packed succession of official functions. Fed up with the rigamarole, she finally throws a tantrum and is given a sedative by the royal physician to quiet her down. After the attendants leave her room, the now-sleepy princess sneaks out of the embassy to see what real life in Rome is like. Her sneaking out on the town is the first act of deception and/or misperception – let’s call it Deception #1.

2.  Ann Meets a Stranger
We are introduced to an American expatriate newspaperman, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who is perpetually borrowing money from and playing poker with fellow American pals in Rome. Departing from a poker party, he encounters Ann now overcome by the sedative and sleeping on a park bench. Bradley simply assumes that the girl is a drunk, and possibly a trollop. This is another misperception that persists for the rest of the evening (Deception #2). Feeling responsible for leaving a vulnerable woman in such a condition, Bradley takes the girl back to his apartment to sober up. He soon finds himself amused that such a presumably dissolute woman should act as if she is accustomed to being served by anyone around her.

3.  A Day on the Town
The next morning Bradley wakes up and realizes he has overslept a scheduled assignment – to attend a royal press conference held for Princess Ann. He rushes off to his news office and pretends to his boss, the English-language paper’s editor, to have attended the press conference (Deception #3), but his lie is soon exposed. Then when Bradley sees a photograph of the princess, he suddenly realizes that the sleeping girl back in his apartment is actually Princess Ann. So he sees a chance to seize an opportunity, and he gets back in graces with his boss by promising to secure an exclusive interview with the princess for the paper.

Bradley gets back to his apartment just as Ann is leaving.  She wants to walk around town on her own, so Bradley secretly follows his precious find in the background.  Wanting to break away from her social confines, Ann walks into a hair salon and has her long hair shorn off so that she can have a “cool” new perm.  We could call this Deception #4, because Ann now looks rather different and is less recognizable to people. 

Bradley, though, has been following her and is not thrown off track. He now “accidentally” runs into Ann, and they go off to a café and chat, where Bradley presents himself, not as a potentially off-putting newshound, but instead as a successful businessman (Deception  #5). Then Bradley’s American photographer pal, Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert), shows up to join them. Irving seems to recognize the princess, and Bradley, wanting to maintain the relative anonymity of their socializing, gives him nudges and kicks in order that he not spill the beans.  This all-too-obvious winking and nudging between the two friends continues throughout the story and is one of the more hilarious elements of the film.  Eventually Bradley convinces Irving that with candid pictures taken, their exclusive story about the princess will make a financial killing for both of them.

So off they all go about Rome, with Irving surreptitiously taking pictures of Ann with his micro-camera inside his cigarette lighter. They visit famous monuments, idle in the local street bazaars, and cruise through the city on a motor scooter. Along the way, Ann’s spontaneous delight in all these activities gradually charm Bradley and divert him from his goal of making a journalistic  killing.  The two of them are falling in love.

In the evening the three of them head off to a river boat where Ann would like to go dancing.  On the dance-boat she runs into her coiffeur, who earlier had sported a mustache but is now clean-shaven.  Apparently he had earlier had a mustache at the hair salon in order appear more of an artiste (Deception #6). 

Their festivities proceed splendidly on the boat until a gang of secret service “black hat” (literally!) agents from Ann’s home country show up searching for the missing princess and, recognizing her, attempt her capture. A wild brawl breaks out, during which Bradley and Ann manage to escape by jumping into the river and swimming to safety. Still soaking wet when ashore, they embrace and share a kiss.

4.  Return to “Normalcy”
The next day back in Joe Bradley’s apartment, Ann and Joe look at each other uneasily.  Joe says, “There’s something I want to tell you.”  But Ann only responds with, “No, please, nothing”.  Ann is responding to the call of duty and ready to resume her royal responsibilities.  They exchange one final kiss, and then Ann is swallowed back up in her world of officialdom.  At a royal press conference the next day, the two of them see each other in their proper roles, and now all the previous misperceptions are cancelled.  They can only stare at each other wistfully from afar in the closing shots.

Roman Holiday was served up by producer-director William Wyler as a rich Italian confection for the American viewing public. The film was shot entirely in studios and locations in Rome and seems to feature a famous monument or ancient site in the background of almost every outdoor shot. Oddly, although Wyler was a long-standing veteran who was nominated for more Best Director Oscars than anyone else, this film does has some technical oddities. One peculiarity is the surprising number of on-axis jump cuts (action cuts with only minimal changes in perspective) throughout the film, which jar the viewer throughout.  Some of these appear to be shots that were stuck on at the ends of moving-camera shots in order to extend the duration of the overall shot. There is also a noticeable discontinuity in the background of one sequence between Hepburn and Peck, when an action cut reveals distinctly different times on a building clock in the background.

But there are some nice touches, too.  I liked the none-too-subtle signals Joe was trying to send to Irving when they were interacting with the princess.  Another delightful scheme was in Joe’s apartment when he awkwardly tries to lift the sleeping Ann and deposit her in another bed.  He tries to do this twice and makes a mess of things on both occasions – awkward on Joe’s part, but artful on Wyler’s.

And the presentation of Audrey Hepburn is superb. Wyler managed to capture the inimitable charm that was peculiar to Hepburn.  Hepburn, herself, was somewhat mystified why people found her so attractive – she thought she was too skinny and that her feet were too big and her nose was not pretty. But you had to see her in action, her spontaneous delight in little things, in order to appreciate her magic. Wyler did manage to capture that particular Hepburn magnetism, and that ultimately was his most important contribution.

On the other hand, I thought Gregory Peck was not quite right for the role of Joe Bradley. He is too stiff, and he doesn’t project the kind of reflective character that the Bradley role would have seemed to demand. We need a better window on the inner turmoil that Joe Bradley must have experienced in the story.

 
Overall, I would say that Roman Holiday’s inner theme of deception/misperception is an intriguing angle.  We suspect that the deceptions here are not so deceitful as they might appear to the others.  After all, though they cloud an external truth, they help uncover something more real and authentic about the characters engaged in them.  Sometimes a little deception is necessary in order to get at the things that count and have meaning.  The key thing is that I should only tell you what I want you to know about myself in the present context. And that’s an important positive to take away from this film.

Of course, the film’s outer theme is about a romantic relationship that never took flight. It was rumored, by the way, that Peck and Hepburn had their own offscreen amorous relationship during the shooting. However, since Peck was a married man with children, they apparently mutually agreed to terminate the affair. In any case, what does it all amount to? Was it just a one-day flirtation, a momentary fantasy that merely created a nice memory? Perhaps. But the story here uncovers the kind of crucial-to-life opportunity that rarely comes along – true love. In this film’s case, that opportunity was abandoned in favor of attendance to mundane responsibilities. That crucial opportunity should not have been lost.

★★★

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” - Blake Edwards (1961)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), directed by Blake Edwards, has always been immensely popular with audiences, though critics have tended to dismiss it as a lightweight romance.  To be sure, the film has all the commercialized luster and trappings of Hollywood, including some almost burlesque comedy scenes, but I think it still holds up as one of the great movies. Although the film is based on Truman Capote’s 1958 novella of the same name, it departs significantly from the original story so that the two works have rather different feelings to them. Capote was unhappy about some of the changes made, but the screenplay, by the gifted writer and director George Axelrod, has its own virtues apart from the novella.  Capote’s story is more bittersweet, more bleak, while the film holds more promise about life.  From my perspective, both works are outstanding in slightly different ways, and I recommend you both see the film and read the book.   Here, though, I will just concentrate on the film.

Actually, critics who do like the film sometimes have a hard time articulating why.  After all, the story about a frivolous, selfish girl hardly seems to have much of a plot to it, features some outlandish characters, and contains many implausible moments throughout.  Yet the film rises above all that and manages to capture something almost mythic about love.

As with Capote’s novella, the film story depicts the life of a glamorous young lady, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), as seen from the exclusively focalized perspective of a young writer, Paul Varjak (George Peppard), who is Holly’s neighbor.  Since much of the film is a profile of Holly Golightly, your appreciation of the tale will depend on the degree to which you find her interesting. 

The narrative goal takes awhile to crystallize, but it is clear from the outset that this is going to be a relationship narrative.  The question is: what will happen to the relationship between Paul and Holly?  The story goes through about seven stages, the first two of which provide the viewer with background information about the life of Holly.  The remaining five acts represent narrative episodes depicting Paul’s evolving relationship with Holly.

1.  Paul Meets Holly
The film starts with Paul moving into the apartment above Holly’s in an east side Manhattan (New York City) brownstone.  They soon chat and learn about each other.  Holly is a socialite, but she lives off the favors (“50 dollars for the powder room”) of men she meets at various night spots.  It’s never quite clear just how promiscuous Holly is, but her incessantly flirtatious nature suggest that she is used to seducing men for money, in a high class way, of course.  One evening she sneaks up the fire escape ladder and enters Paul’s apartment in order to flee one of her overly aggressive drunken conquests.  Wearing only a bathrobe, she chats with Paul, and they get to know each other. Holly says that she wants to earn money to look after her older brother, Fred, who is currently in the military but is evidently mentally impaired.  She also earns money by making weekly visits to a mafia narcotics boss, Salvatore Tomato, who is a prisoner in Sing Sing penitentiary north of New York City.  It later becomes evident that her visits are used to pass coded information between the mafioso and his fellow gangsters.

Though Paul has published some stories, he is unemployed and  financially supported by his lover, Emily Eustace Failenson (Patricia Neal), an older, married woman of considerable wealth. So both Holly and Paul are living off favors from the opposite sex – not exactly an admirable profile from either’s perspective in terms of a potential relationship between them.

2.  Holly the Socialite’s Party
Paul is invited the next day to party in Holly’s apartment, which turns out to be wild, almost ridiculous affair.  Here is where the burlesque comedy comes in, as we meet a cast of odd New York socialites.  A socialite friend of Holly introduces her to two wealthy men in her company, Rusty Trawler, whose underwhelming appearance is compensated for by his being the “ninth richest man in America under the age of fifty”, and a rich Brazilian patrician, José da Silva Pereira.  Paul meets Holly’s Hollywood agent, O. J. Berman (Martin Balsam), who tells Paul how he has taken Holly from the backwoods of Texas and groomed her to be a star.  But, he tells Paul, just when he had arranged a screen test for Holly, she had tripped off to New York City.  When Berman had asked her why, she responded, “when I find out what I want, I’ll let you know.”

At this point in the story, forty minutes into the film, we have enough information about Holly and Paul.  And we know that though Paul is relatively taciturn, he is very attracted to Holly.  But Holly is a will-o-the-wisp who calls everybody “darling”, even the taxi drivers.  The rest of the story concerns the progress made concerning their evolving relationship.

3.  “Doc” Golightly’s Story
The first hurdle is presented by the appearance of “Doc” Golightly (Buddy Epsen), a Texas veterinarian who shows up in New York City and reveals that he is Holly’s husband and wants to take her back to Texas. This is the first of the seemingly insurmountable hurdles that Paul faces in his quest for Holly. Paul is crushed to learn that Holly, then known as Lula Mae Barnes, had married “Doc” when she was only fourteen, and he reluctantly agrees to let him take Holly away.  But Holly tells Paul that her marriage had been annulled and sends “Doc” packing on a bus back to Texas.  OK, one hurdle cleared.

4.  The Rusty Trawler Affair
Paul and Holly get drunk together at a nightclub, and then Holly reveals to Paul that she intends to marry the wealthy Rusty Trawler for his money.  Again Paul is miffed.  However, luck comes Paul’s way in two forms.  He gets one of his stories published, and he learns that Rusty Trawler, who had run into financial straits, has gone off and married someone else for her money.  Another hurdle has been cleared.

5.  Paul and Holly on the Town
Now Paul and Holly go out to celebrate Paul’s new publication.  They visit Tiffany & Company’s famous jewelry store, where they have a wonderful interaction with a Tiffany salesman (memorably played by John McGiver), who treats their impecunious circumstances with respectful dignity. They also visit the famous New York Public Library and finally indulge their impish urges by robbing a five-and-dime store. By the end of their day, they are in love and embrace each other in a passionate kiss.  The next day Paul, now committed to Holly, breaks off his relationship with his friend Emily.

6.  The José Affair
Paul, now in the thralls of love, looks to find Holly, but she has gone out.  When he eventually finds her in the New York Public library, she is cold and indifferent to him.  She tells him that she has now decided to marry José da Silva Pereira for his money.  Incredulous, Paul can’t believe that he has been dumped so abruptly.  José, it turns out, is a gentleman and is sincere about wanting to marry Holly, so Paul can do nothing.  At this point Holly learns that her brother, Fred, has died in an accident, and is overcome with grief.  But Paul realizes that it is now up to José to comfort her.  Paul’s relationship with her is over.

7.  Finale
Time passes.  It seems that the better part of a year has gone by, and Paul has gotten a job and moved elsewhere. He gets an invitation from Holly to visit her and say good-bye just before she is to depart on a plane to Brazil. The meeting is cordial, but Holly is totally immersed in her future plans for life with José.  When after a farewell dinner out they return to Holly’s apartment, however, they are arrested by the police in connection with Holly’s relationship with mafia boss Salvatore Tomato.  Her paid weekly visits to Sing Sing prison had been used by the mafia to exchange coded messages, so Holly is jailed. 

Paul calls O. J. Berman in Hollywood, who arranges to get Holly released on bail and tells Paul to pick up Holly and put her up at a new address.  While collecting Holly’s things, including her cat, at her old apartment, Paul finds a message from José.  It turns out that having learned about Holly’s arrest, José’s concern for his family’s social standing has led him to break off their engagement.  When Paul picks up Holly in a taxi and the message is revealed to her, she tells him that she is going to Brazil anyway – now not to marry José, but just to explore an exciting new place and find more rich men to seduce.  She tells him that she is like her mongrel cat, a gypsy and eternally wandering free spirit.  Then she pitches her cat out of the taxi and tells it go look for mice.  Paul can’t believe that she could be so heartless.

"I love you; you belong to me,” he implores. 

“People don’t belong to people,” she responds. 

But he tells her: “People do belong to each other.  Because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.”

Then he says his final farewell and storms out of the taxi to go back and look for the cat. 

But for once, Holly has a change of heart.  She goes to him . . . and to retrieve the cat.

So what is it that makes Breakfast at Tiffany’s a great film?  It is all about the depiction of Holly Golightly and her way.  I have personally known a Holly Golightly, and probably you have known someone like that, too.  Holly uses people by charming them.  This is her habitual way of survival and is second nature to her. But she runs away from any real personal involvement.  Joni Mitchell’s song, “Cactus Tree”, comes to mind in this respect, a stanza of which reads:

    There's a lady in the city
    And she thinks she loves them all
    There's the one who's thinking of her
    There's the one who sometimes calls
    There's the one who writes her letters
    With his facts and figures scrawl
    She has brought them to her senses
    They have laughed inside her laughter
    Now she rallies her defenses
    For she fears that one will ask her
    For eternity
    And she's so busy being free

Some people have asked me, why would such a person like Holly be appealing?  When it comes down to it, isn’t she just an exploitative narcissist?  Well, I don’t think so.  The Holly Golightly here, as well as the one I knew, is completely guileless.  As O. J. Berman had told Paul, Holly is a phony, but at least she’s a “real phony”.  She believes in the dream world that she fabricates. Her social kisses are on the lips, not this French-inspired buss-on-the-cheek business. She innocently shares her thoughts with everyone, and she never intends harm (although her frequent disappointments with the men she has “dated” led her to designate most of them as “rats” or “super rats”). She invited intimacy with everyone, and this part was sincere, but she was afraid to go further and hold on to something. This combination of openness and invited intimacy – carrying an assumption that everyone is inherently good, combined with an innocent vulnerability – is what makes Holly appealing.  And Audrey Hepburn’s performance embodies this ideal image of vulnerable, timorous openness perfectly.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s features a number of established Hollywood performers, including Patricia Neal, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Epsen, and John McGiver.  But their portrayals, though emphatic and effective in their way, were rather schematic and in stark contrast to Audrey Hepburn’s genuineness.  George Peppard’s restrained performance as Paul is a good complement to Hepburn’s. He effectively portrays the barely concealed anxiety of a frustrated man in love who is not supposed to reveal his feelings.

In fact, though, it is Audrey Hepburn’s performance that makes the movie.  Her acting style is so natural to her visible persona that one doesn’t really think of her as a real actress.  She just seems to be herself every time.  But when she acts, she inserts herself so perfectly into the role, that it makes a natural fit with the interactive context.  The attraction people feel is to her whole being and not just to her physical appearance. Perhaps this was why she was nominated for a best acting award for most of her film performances over her career.  Audrey Hepburn even does a good job singing the evocative song, “Moon River”, which became a classic.  But for some reason Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the lead role, and while Ms. Monroe might have given a decent performance, it would have been different and resulted in a different film.  I can’t believe that she could have conveyed the essence of Holy Golightly’s personality as well as Audrey Hepburn did.

In the real world, the Holly Golightlys out there invariably run away in the end, always looking for their next adventure, but never finding true happiness. But films, particularly great films, reflect our dreams more than actual reality.  Rather than run away, the will-of-the-wisp Holly lingers in Breakfast in Tiffany’s, . . . and in our own dreams, too.

★★★★