Funny Face (1957)

Funny Face
Directed by Stanley Donen
Written by Leonard Gershe
1957/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Jo Stockton: Take the picture, take the picture![/box]

A musical with Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn, Paris, Givenchy, and George Gershwin tunes can’t be all bad.

Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) is the flamboyant editor of a Vogue-type magazine called Quality.  She is always looking for a gimmick.  Her latest one is to choose a model to be the “Quality Woman”.  The model will be featured in a special issue and introduce the season’s fashions of a famous Paris designer (based on Givenchy who did the high fashion gowns).

Photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) – clearly based on Richard Avedon, who was the special visual consultant – is doing the photoshoot.  He takes an airhead fashion model to a bookstore because the Quality Woman is supposed to be intellectual.  There he spots truly intellectual shop clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn).  Obviously, this woman is photogenic to the max!  She will sell out her lofty principals to get a free trip to Paris to visit the philosopher she idolizes.

Jo quickly falls head over heels for her photographer.  She is equally passionately devoted to the philosopher, but in a strictly platonic way.  In Paris, her search for her idol interferes comically with her modeling duties.

Why does it seem that Hepburn’s love interest is always about 30 years older than she is?

I like the clothes and the music in this. My favorite parts are Hepburn singing “How Long Has This Been Going On” and the fashion shoot in Paris.  The very broad cartoony late 50’s style of the thing, especially when Thompson is on the screen, doesn’t work for me, however.  There are large stretches of time where I just don’t care.

Funny Face was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen; Best Cinematography; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; and Best Costume Design.