What is Hepburn? Just a regular person? A fashion icon? A survivor of Nazi occupation? A philanthropist?
Probably all three. Hepburn is one of a kind. A Hollywood starlet who refused all but British citizenship. She’s both flat-out-broke Holly Golightly and royal Princess Anne (though she’s not the British actress of that generation who did become a Princess, that being Grace Kelly). She’s also creepily revived in a Galaxy chocolate advert that was probably my first encounter with Hepburn.
My second encounter was, of course, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I wanted to see it due to my love of the song Moon River. It’s probably the best thing I can play on guitar, as I went out of my way to learn the tab. When I was a kid, I had an old MP3 Player, and the first time I read Tom Sawyer - the part of the book when he struts through ol’ St. Petersburg after running out of the house due to his brother tattling on him going swimming, Moon River fell in maybe one of the most lucky “shuffles” I’ve ever had. It made me ENCHANTED with the song. The film is horribly problematic, making George straight and the whole landlord of it all, but Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s is instantly charming, yelling “timber” as her socialite friends drink themselves to a black out. She’s able to, more than switch between charming and tragic, but be charming and tragic all at once.
The third encounter was Roman Holiday. Roman Holiday FUCKS. It’s not stuffy at all - it’s got more in common with Totally Fucked Up from the ‘90’s than its contemporaries. Yeah, there’s a plot, but most of it is a hang out movie. And - I LOVE a hangout movie. After that, there was no going back, in regards to Hepburn.
The only reason this is notable is due to Hepburn’s small role as an airplane attendant. She’s in it for maybe three minutes. She does good with what she’s given, shows off her bright infectious smile and outshines everyone else.
If you’ve come to the end of Hepburn’s filmography, and need one more hit, though - this ain’t it. Swear to God. I think she did a TV show where she narrated over a bunch of gardens? Watch that instead.
Now, on one hand, I feel a bit bad for the people behind this film. Imagine dedicating your blood, sweat and tears to making a film, just for it to end up as the answer of a trivia question based on an actress who had a bit role. But on the other hand - the film kinda fucking sucks. I watched it on YouTube with their generated English subtitles, so maybe THAT’S why I didn’t dig it fully, but… Nah, it’s just a boring thing. It’s like if Borat wasn’t SBC, but like… Kid Rock. It tries to have its cake and eat it too by being extremely patriotic towards the Netherlands, but still making fun of it. It has that “oh, our wee island” feeling that you’d get in the Nativity movies (the second with David Tennant’s okay), but honestly, it’s not worth your time. If you felt this review of it was a bit of a snooze-fest, brother (or sister or non-binary cuz) - I hate to be the guy to inform you about this, but this is TEN TIMES better than that Dutch propaganda! Keep to making Legos (that’s Denmark, actually), or whatever it is the Dutch do.
Review TBA
Audrey Hepburn’s role is, and this is not trying to diminish it, is to be disappointed when a creepy older guy doesn’t marry her. Does she know the creepy older guy before her expectation of a proposal? No. And HE rejects HER for not being pretty enough. The reason why she expects a marriage is a more realistic premise than him turning her down - he has to get married to the next woman he talks to or he doesn’t get his share of the will of a dead relative. Hepburn is technically the next woman he talks to, and with her expression, it wouldn’t be a “no”, but he instead decides to chase after a woman who - Spoiler, but please don’t watch this movie - is secretly the niece of the older guy’s butler.
She has two scenes - the first, when she gets rejected, and the second, when she gets rejected by the same guy for a second time.
The rest of the film is… it’s okay. It’s a slapstick movie without the slapstick. I’m not like, a massive slapstick fan, so if you have me screaming at the screen for slapstick, the film’s gone wrong. There’s a couple of plots, of a timid bank clerk trying to rob the place he works at, a paperback writer who’s trying to get arrested for 30 days, and a Emily Gilmore-type who has to be employed as a maid.
They did a remake in the 60s or 70s. I didn’t watch it. If you do, comment about it in my guestbook, I’d love to see how a different take on the premise and if it worked.
This is Audrey Hepburn’s third, and first Academy Award winning movie. But, she doesn’t have much to do with that, seeing that it was a screenwriting Oscar. This film is also on a list created by the Vatican. Not that this is a very Catholic flick.
It’s a very good movie. Hepburn’s first good film (but not her last). Essentially, it’s a con-artist movie, where everything … goes right. Yes, I know that’s the tagline for The Asphalt Jungle, and the two films are very similar, but I feel like this one eeks it out, very slightly, in terms of quality. But they are very similar - Asphalt Jungle has young Marilyn Monroe in a small role to match Lavender Hill Mob’s Hepburn. A key difference would be that Lavender Hill Mob is more of a comedy than Asphalt Jungle. Asphalt Jungle’s more of an ironic dark comedy, or maybe a dramedy with moral elements and themes (crime doesn’t pay) while Lavender Hill Mob, especially in a scene that takes place in Paris and involves a school trip, is happy to use all tools at it’s disposal to make you laugh (made me laugh, at least).
This is maybe the first Hepburn film when I was okay when she wasn’t in it. It’s a genuinely fun time, and would be fondly remembered with her. That’s not as big of a dig at Hepburn as it sounds, she has a smaller role here than she did in Laughter in Paradise (apologies for reminding you about Laughter in Paradise).
When people harp on about how much better UK comedy is to America, it’s always an eye roll worthy statement. It’s such a broad statement, and … America is a funnier country. The US Office is better than the UK one, because Ricky Gervaise is, and this is true, a dick. The funniest writer to ever live - Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twains - is from Hannibal, Mississippi. And that’s in the States. And, worst of all, the UK made this film, a little ditty about domestic abuse that treats it like a regular sitcom plot.
It’s about a couple crashing with a different couple, and, for some reason, they pretend to be married with the different people to impress a nanny for the children. Yes, both women don’t work and one of the men “works” (in that he is a paperback writer, and he doesn’t write a single word). Couldn’t they take care of their own children? I mean, I guess, but that’s not very British. They’re send them to boarding school and leer on the girls’ friends when they come of age (which is 16 in the UK, because the Brits are randy motherfuckers who’d stick it in a postbox or bosom-y tree if nobody and their Presbyterian God wasn’t looking).
Making me believe in a God, I don’t remember this well. I do recall it being a bit incestious with it being a couple swap plot - less incestious than The Family Stone, because the women aren’t sisters and the men aren’t brothers. But The Family Stone is more charming, because at least the characters in that have goals other than implementing sexism and making not-so-wisecracks to nobody in particular. Audrey Hepburn is hardly in this, but she unhappily ends up with one of the male characters at the end (I think?).
This is a forgotten masterpiece. It might be the first amazing Hepburn movie. Yes, you have THe Lavender Hill Mob, but she wasn’t in that, and while it is a good comedy, it’s not a masterpiece. Secret People is a masterpiece. It asks the question “how does hurt transform into hate”, and through the examination of many different portraits, it doesn’t come to a single answer, but multiple.
Quick synopsis: Audrey Hepburn and her sister are refugees in the UK from Italy after it got taken over by a Mussolini-type figure, who ordered the execution of her father. Hepburn’s sister carries around a photograph of a boyfriend who stayed in Italy. The day after getting their British citizenship, they bump into her boyfriend, who is part of a violent resistance group who is disturbingly comfortable with civilian casualties.
I don’t want to give more away, because you really should watch it. While made about the anti fascist resistance from Italy, it could really be transplanted to a lot of situations, such as Northern Ireland. And, while a 50’s film from the UK about fringe political groups could seem like it would just state over and over how evil it is, while the group’s actions are shown to be horrific, the group is also, in the first act, sympathetic. Definitely more sympathetic than wannabe Mussolini. It really is a layered discussion.
This is also the first movie where Hepburn has a large role. I think she has third billing? But, unfortunately, as the younger sister, she completely conforms to the younger sister trope. She doesn’t do much of anything, and kinda remains a metaphor for what the older sister could have she walks away from her boyfriend and the group.
This film sounds fun. It’s not. Well, I don’t know if it’s not. There is an English version that has been lost to the sands of time, but the French version, without subtitles of course, is up on YouTube. And maybe because I don’t understand a word they say, it’s not fun. Fun fact, though, Hepburn was fluent in English, French, Italian and Dutch, and comfortable in Spanish and German.
It’s about a baby that gets dropped off at his grandfather’s for baby-sitting, and because the grandfather doesn’t want too, for what my limited French told me due to a very stereotypical idea of gender norms (watch this in a double bill of Claire’s Knee, and find yourself hating all men, yes, but all French men in particular). Chaos ensues.
Hepburn has a tiny role in this. Though, she is the main person on the poster. I guess a genuine strategy for films in the 50s was to accidentally hire a starlet 3-5 years before she breaks out into the mainstream, hire someone to redo the poster, and then re-release it under the guise that the starlet’s bit part is now and always was top billing. Worked for Asphalt Jungle.
I find myself referencing the same things again and again in these lists. Not too bad here, but in the Disney one I keep talking about Mad Magazine. Mostly, because nobody listens normally when I talk about Mad Magazine, but still.
Oh, yeah. Monte Carlo Baby. It’s also a musical. The best song is when the jazz group have to perform but there’s like only ⅕ of them, and they put on a record and dash around the instruments, pretending to play all of them. It’s a funny scene, and French jazz with no lyrics is infinitely less offensive than a train car full of men delighting on how raising children is “woman’s work”.
After seven movies, here we are. The extraordinary thing is that there’s a valid argument that the Hepburn in Seven Lessons is so naturally charismatic that she could have carried this classic on her shoulders even then, but that is not a world we live in. Instead, this is her eighth film.
Hepburn is mystical in this. Joyful and melancholic, all at the same time. Because she’s having a great time, but she knows that the good time has to end. For the genre - mid-century Hollywood European travelogue - it is strangely obsessed with the idea of mortality and legacy.
The image of the princess - helping orphanages, shaking hands - isn’t who the princess is. Not because she hates the orphans, more so that she wants to lose her mask. But her mask is what is engraved into the news, and is what draws the American news reporter towards her.
They capture the real princess with photos, permanent and in black and white, but the photos… aren’t available to the public. When the princess’ obituary is published, it won’t be with a shot of her smashing a guitar over one of her country’s secret service agents. It’ll be her in make up, with long hair, smiling politely.
However - the mask does eventually slip. Spoilers, but when she is asked what was her favourite city she saw on her tour, she reaches in her mind for a diplomatic answer, before abandoning it, and stating “Rome. Without a doubt.” So, that is something the public knows. Why, the public won’t know.
There’s a scene in this, so beautiful it could be a fucking painting. The one with Hepburn, in her Paris apartment, writing a letter about how much she loves Paris and culinary school. It’s a mid-shot, her smack dab in the middle of the screen. To her left, we can see the Eiffel Tower out of the window. The song “La Vie En Rose” plays, presumably drifting through her window from a French busker.
That scene alone elevates this 3 star movie to 5 stars. Which is what I rated it on Letterboxd.
But then, we step back from that scene. And it’s a 1954 film about an older guy trying to marry a woman way too young for him, and the happy ending - spoilers, etc. - is that his older brother, played by Bogart (who was seen as the “older guy” almost ten years before in Casablanca, so you can imagine him in this) manages to end up with Hepburn (the way too young woman).
Making sure that it’s heavily, not just moderately sexist, the fiance of the younger brother - the heiress of a Puerto Rican company - is completely sidelined. She has no wants, no desires, no feelings other than the younger brother feeling her up while trying to make out with Hepburn (who, I want to make it clear, while not as stationary as the fiance, still pretty damn stationary. Hepburn’s whole desire is fucking the young brother - so much that she tries to kill herself when she sees him with someone else and presumably stays celibite in the city of love over multiple years in her devoted love for him).
This is clearly written by a guy who couldn’t tell the difference between a blow up doll and and an actual woman.
Short piece of film history - Jaws wasn’t the first blockbuster. Jaws is the first MODERN blockbuster, which combines historically B-movie tropes and genres with mass appeal and taste, but the blockbuster existed before Jaws.
I’m also not saying that War And Peace is the first EVER blockbuster, so put down those pitchforks.
What I am saying is that the blockbuster, pre-Jaws, took form, somewhat exclusively, in the form of the historical epic. Even better if it was an adaptation of a book. Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and in its finalizing, self-cannibalizing form, Cleopatra (truly the Morbius of its day).
The 1956 version of War And Peace is a blockbuster. And how it demonstrates its blockbuster-ness is through excess, not explosions. Lavish sets and costumes, and insane amounts of extras. Literally, the first scene is just showing off how many extras it has - think about the opening fight scene in either James Gunn’s Superman or Avengers: Age Of Ultron. That type of energy.
The writing of this is similar to the blockbusters of today. It’s not bad - nobody’s walking out of cinemas - but it’s just very… self-indulgent, and non-quotable, and extremely afraid to take risks. It’s what people think Capra is (Capra isn’t actually as patriotic or “safe” as he is characterised - Mr. Smith Goes To Washington is about how the average American’s values aren’t reflected in the unscrupulous congressmen, and how when power isn’t managed carefully, it corrupts).
Anyway - not that it’s my wish to sound like a broken record, but Hepburn is a highlight, Hepburn is a highlight and Hepburn is a highlight.