Barry Weber Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson are all fabulous and perfectly cast. Great music with great singing and dancing. Thompson's character sings 'Think Pink' then claims she wouldn't be caught dead in it. Half an hour later in the film, guess what she's wearing? Pink! Great film, watching it now as I write this.
Leofwine_draca FUNNY FACE is notable as a colourful '50s-era music teaming the talents of two of the best-known stars of all time, Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. In this film, whose story feels like an earlier version of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Astaire and Hepburn consummate a May-December relationship when they're brought together by chance.Hepburn stars as one of those unbelievable mousy characters - here a bookshop assistant - who's transformed into an ultra-glamorous model when she goes to Paris for a photo shoot. Astaire is the top-of-his-game photographer, and much of the film gets by on their easy charm.Of course, there are there requisite song-and-dance numbers to enjoy, and a storyline that's never too heavy or too much. In all, it's just right, and old hand Stanley Donen brings plenty to the production with his assured direction. A very good-natured and pleasing effort.
James Hitchcock There is a stage musical entitled "Funny Face", written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1927, but it has a totally different plot to that of the film, although several of its songs are included. Jo Stockton, an assistant in a Greenwich Village bookshop, is discovered as a fashion model by Maggie Prescott, the editor of a prestigious fashion magazine, and Dick Avery, a famous fashion photographer. Jo, however, is something of an amateur intellectual, has a low opinion of the fashion industry and only goes along with Maggie and Dick's plans because they offer her an assignment in Paris, a city she has always wanted to visit because her greatest ambition is to meet the great philosopher Professor Emile Flostre, founder of the doctrine of empathicalism. (Flostre was clearly based upon Jean-Paul Sartre and his doctrine of existentialism). A romance grows up between Jo and Dick in Paris, but Dick finds he has a rival for her affections in the form of the professor, younger and better-looking than his real-life counterpart but no less lecherous. The film was a box-office flop when first released in 1957; it only made a profit when it was re-released seven years later following the huge success of Audrey Hepburn's only other musical, "My Fair Lady". It upset the film critic of "The Times" (aka The Thunderer) who thundered, "There is that in the film's attitude towards the "intellectual", whether in Greenwich Village or Paris, which offends. It is not amiable parody and it is not telling satire; it has its roots in the ill-based instinct to jeer, and its jeers are offensive." When we consider that these words were directed towards a light, frothy musical comedy, this looks like is a particularly po-faced example of a critic taking himself too seriously (although criticisms of the film's supposed "anti-intellectualism" still surface). The film's main target was not intellectuals but hypocrites (although it also sends up some of the inanities of the fashion industry). The point about Flostre is that he does not practise what he preaches; "empathicalism" is supposed to be all about putting oneself in the other person's shoes, but in his dealings with Jo he is only capable of thinking about himself. For all her book-learning, Jo's initial attitude towards Flostre is one of uncritical idol-worship and she still has to learn the important lesson that idols can have feet of clay. The "funny face" of the title is Jo herself, and the implication of the words of the title song is that, although she is not very attractive, Dick still loves her because she has got so much character and personality. So why, then, was, the Divine Audrey, the most luminously beautiful actress of her generation, cast in the role? Was this simply a piece of miscasting? The answer to that question is an emphatic "no". There are a few things wrong with the film, but Audrey is not one of them. The main mistake is the miscasting of the fifty-eight year-old Fred Astaire as the male lead. Although he shows that his advancing years have done little to diminish his dancing skills, away from the dance-floor he looks embarrassingly out-of-place as the lover of the twenty-eight year-old Audrey. Sometimes the teaming of Audrey with an older man paid off, as with Bogart in "Sabrina", but this is one case where it didn't. For all his faults I was rooting for Jo to end up with Flostre rather than Dick.The music is tuneful but not particularly memorable, apart from two songs, "'S Wonderful" and the title song, and the plot is a fairly banal one. There is, however, a good performance from Kay Thompson as the autocratic Maggie. (I wonder if this was the inspiration for Meryl Streep's portrayal of a similar character in "The Devil Wears Prada"). This was Thompson's only film appearance; she was best known in her day as a singer and musician and is best ed today as a children's author. The dance numbers are well choreographed and the visual look of the film is an attractive one. The film's biggest plus, however, is the presence of Audrey Hepburn. She was one of those rare actresses with true star quality, by which I mean the ability to take any film and make it quite different from what it would have been with anyone else in the leading role. Few will be surprised that Audrey was a great dancer- she did, after all, train as a ballerina- but those who know the story of how she was not allowed to do her own singing in "My Fair Lady" will be surprised by what a melodious voice she had. (Certainly better than Astaire's). Her main contribution here, however, is neither her singing nor her dancing but simply the force of her personality. "Funny Face" is not a great film; it is in nothing like the same class as "My Fair Lady" or its director Stanley Donen's masterpiece "Singin' in the Rain". (Mind you, Donen seemed to spend most of the rest of his career trying to repeat the success of that great film without ever really pulling it off). It could have been a pretty dull musical, but Audrey transforms it into something memorable. Unlike King Midas she couldn't quite manage to turn everything she touched into gold. "Paris When It Sizzles" and "Two for the Road", for example, obstinately remain base metal despite her presence. "Funny Face" might not be pure gold, however, but at least Audrey is able to turn it into silver. 7/10
