I'd seen this once before, some years back on vhs. This is the first time I've ever seen it on the big screen.

-- This has one of my all-time favorite movie openings. I guess it's a cliched choice, but that doesn't make it any less true. That terrific wash of melancholy strings, and Hepburn looking as beautiful as she ever did, impossibly sophisticated, staring through the Tiffany's window. It just does it all: sets the tone, sets the mood, introduces the character, suggests the conflict. All of it.

-- In fact, this time through I was really struck with Hepburn just as an icon, an image. She's always smaller and thinner than everyone else -- that's even remarked upon in the movie -- and you feel protective toward her. She's too well put-together for the character she's playing, but that's part of the fantasy of NYC, that you can recreate yourself, and she does look fantastic in those sleek gowns and jewelry she wears. The hats and the cigarette holder and the sunglasses at night are over the top but they don't seem over the top on her, she carries it all off. It's really quite extraordinary.

-- I think this is a good movie, but it's good almost in spite of itself. Certainly there's a lot of off-key notes: everyone brings up Mickey Rooney, and he's pretty bad, but there's also the dialog, which sounds incredibly arch and mannered and pseudo-literary to this ear. Yes, I know that's sort of the point, it's supposed to be brittle and fake, Holly's lines especially, but even the most eccentric among us have some surface plausibility, sound at least a bit natural. This sounds very "written" to me. Plus there's a sort of bowing down to Hollywoodish conventions, with some forced brisk joviality here and there that just doesn't seem to fit (the whole bit with the fatherly Mobster, or the two of them gamboling about NYC before the first kiss -- though there is that great, very funny sequence in Tiffany's itself).

What's interesting about the movie is that underneath all that there's a much harder, darker, sadder story struggling to come out. These are frustrated, lonely, hurt people very defensive about their pain -- Peppard is a kept man who obviously feels he's wasting his life, Hepburn isn't exactly a prostitute but is close to it. I thought the scene where the two of them hurt each in just the intimate ways people who know each other well can hurt each other was effective, as was Hepburn's maniacal attempts to marry money even after the presumed reason for it was gone. That all rang true: I've known people like Peppard and Hepburn here, I understand that sort of struggle. Sadly in real life this duo probably wouldn't have a happy ending, but I don't begrudge TIFFANY'S ending for that, one of the reason we go to the movies is to kid ourselves, at least for a couple of hours, that it'll all work out in the end.

So, a good movie. Not a great movie -- too compromised to really be a great movie -- but a good movie.

By the way, I always liked "Moon River", both with and without lyrics, but what's the deal with "huckleberry friend"? What the heck is that supposed to mean?

doug

"Huckleberry friend" is a play on Huckleberry Finn, who, along with friend Tom Sawyer, lived by the Mississsippi River. I think it's trying to invoke an image of a friend and a romantic river by playing off a familiar name and what people associate with it. I've never read the book so maybe there's a deeper metaphor in it's use. I've always liked the sound of that lyric, regardless.

I think you sum up BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S pretty well. This used to be one of my all-time favorite movies. I used to catch it every time it was on TV. At one point, before VCR, I even recorded the entire soundtrack on reel-to-reel from the TV speakers.

But watching more recently, on video, I realized I had lost most of my affection for this movie. The archness, the over-written quality of the dialogue, and what I consider the indulgences of the main character really annoyed me. I also discovered I am just not an Audrey Hepburn fan. Something about her preciousness just annoys me.
Still, the movie has some aspects I can appreciate: its New York setting, evoking a time when everyone was on the verge of being glamorous in some way; the photographic beauty of the film; and all the Mancini music, especially "Moon River".