I'd call it a dark, dark film, with endlessly repeating scenes of smoking, drinking to excess, hopping in and out of taxis, climbing in and out of windows next to fire escapes, and losing keys. And it's the old, old fairy tale of a young girl who constantly needs to be rescued by older, and less lovely men, men of questionable intentions but mostly men wanting her sexually and willing to pay for it.
It's a story of a man and woman who in the end do fall in love, but who in the beginning are both kept by the older and wealthier as sex interests as they pursue their "dreams." Holly wants to reinvent herself from an Okie teen-age, step-mom married to an older farmer to a glamorous party-girl New Yorker on the prowl for a wealthy husband. Paul (George Peppard) is a kept man by an older, wealthy married woman (Patricia Neal who died this week). Hepburn, who looked anorexic in so many films, look healthier and heavier in this film; Neal was only about 3 years older but was swathed in heavy capes and jackets, maybe to hide a pregnancy, or just to look less attractive.
Until you see a 50 year old film where the drinking and smoking is so over the top it is distracting, and a Caucasian impersonates a cariacature of another race (Mickey Rooney plays a stereotypical buck tooth, screaming Japanese landlord) you forget how far we've come in "correctness,"--thankfully. Also, you see how the strong, capable female film characters of the 1930s and 1940s fell off the pedestal in the 1950s-1980s films where they seem to be perpetual sex toys with no brains or ambition except to meet Mr. Right or Mr. Money bags.
Capote apparently wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part--a poor girl in real life who changed her name and made good through her sexuality. It might have been a good choice, because I had trouble translating Audrey Hepburn into this character.
And I'll always be mad at her for dumping the no-name cat out in the rain; yes, I know it was just a movie and it all turns out well in the end, but can you trust a fictional air-head who does that?
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Perhaps because Neal had had an affair with a married man, she was able to forgive her friend who had an affiar with her husband and broke up the marriage.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/08/10/roald-dahl-s-first-wife-patricia-neal-dies-91466-27030168/
The cat's name was Orangey.
Neal was a bimbo.
I thought one of the running lines was that she didn't name the cat because she wanted to remain a free spirit.
Neal survived great hardship and grief plus a philandering husband. I'd hardly call her a bimbo, at least not after she finally grew up.
I can' think of any Audrey Hepburn film in which I didn't spend much or the film admiring her physiognamy. One of the most beautifu; women in the history of film.
I think the cat that was let out of the car was named Orangey, there were a number of cats used I believe.
Perhaps I am not thinking of Ms. Neal, but if I recall it correctly she had an affair with Gary Cooper while he was married, got pregnant and had an abortion. Gary Cooper was no prize package either.
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