Audrey Hepburn is so cute and lovely that she at times made me forget how annoying certain parts of this movie could be. I'm not a huge fan of the old school Hollywood big flashy musicals.
Maggie Prescott is basically a sort of nicer version of Meryl Streep from "The Devil Wears Prada" In fact the opening scene of her coming into her office is near identical, and even the look of her office and her assistants desks look the same, or very close. I can see where they took some of the visual aspects for "Prada" from. She comes into her office and calls all her little lackeys in, she is distraught over the newest issue, its dead to her, with a bit of genius and ingenuity she comes up with "Think Pink" Everything should be pink, the whole issue will be Pink. There's a whole dance number involved that screams consumerism and a certain soullessness. That is until the end of the song when everyone else but Prescott is in Pink someone asks her why not, she says she wouldn't be caught dead in the color. It was at that moment I was seeing the tongue in cheek humor of the whole thing. In that way it was very funny.
When Prescott and her photographer Dick Avery can't get a dimwitted model to photograph well they take her to a small book store in Greenwich Village where they meet the girl who works there, Jo Stockton. They treat her like garbage, and ultimately decide she will be the new face of their magazine and take her to Paris with them. She is against everything they stand for, but in Paris is her favorite Philosopher, so she's willing to play along, for a while. Once in Paris there are plenty of dance numbers and opportunities for Jo and Dick to fall in love, and for the rest of it to fall in place just like they all do.
If I had seen this when I was younger I'm sure I would have gotten bored, and not understood most of the humor. The movie makes fun of basically all the types of people in it. The narrow minded and rather shallow magazine editor. Her yes (wo)men drones, the photographer who doesn't care about anything of substance, even the Philosopher we meet is generally mocked for having his high values and outlook but is little more than a man.
When on their way to the book shop at the beginning Prescott says, "Look there's a good one, it looks just sinister enough" referring to the book store. Pretty funny stuff. The whole sequence about pink became a terrific lampoon when it ends and she shows just how little she actually cares about the nonsense she spouts.
Audrey Hepburn actually looks much better before her makeover. She is what really made the movie for me, as funny as it was at times there were still many cliched and boring parts that weren't meant to be cliched, but just were what they did at the time. When she tries to stop the girls from rearranging all the books in her shop, and eventually push and lock her out you just want to step into the movie and help her she's so cute.
The music was pretty good for the most part, as was the dancing, it wasn't to flashy and overdone, In fact the best dance sequence they have in it is just Audrey Hepburn, and a few male dancers who are there sort of doing their own thing, emphasising her as she dances in the middle of a cafe. Most people have actually seen it, there was a Gap commercial about 3 years ago for their new skinny pants that has her saying "I rather feel like expressing myself now, and I could certainly use a release" She then starts dancing. Its a great commercial, they take only her out of the movie and bring in a yellow background and play around with the footage of her dancing. That scene was probably my favorite in the movie. The air is thick with smoke, she's wearing a simple black pant (skinny) and black shirt with her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her face becomes obscured at times, the whole room is rather smoggy, not the usual look for a musical.
It was funny, and wasn't as annoying as some musicals Ive watched, but the thing that really made it worth watching was Audrey Hepburn, doesn't she make everything shes in worth the time? 7/10 stars.
Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair
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