DIRECTOR Stanley Donen

BOTTOM LINE:

“Funny Face “, the 1957 musical romantic comedy directed by Stanley Donen, boasts Audrey Hepburn’s most charming screen performance. Looking fabulous in black during the movie’s first half, she plays a lowly book clerk in a Greenwich village store who is “discovered” by Fred Astaire’s Avedon-inspired photographer Fred Avery and then whisked off to Paris for Fashion Week. Writer Leonard Gershe and producer Roger Edens were one of Hollywood’s A-lister gay couples during the 1950s and ’60s.

The film’s two big musical numbers, both written by Edens, are “Think Pink” in which Kay Thompson’s Maggie Prescott, the lesbian doyenne of the New York fashion world, unveils her vision for the year ahead (immortal line: “think pink…..bury the beige!”) and, “Bonjour, Paris”, in which Audrey, Fred, and Kay, individually, and in concert, celebrate their arrival in Paris (immortal line: “everything from the Montmartre to Jean-Paul Sartre“). The rest of the songs in the movie are by George and Ira Gershwin and include such classics as “How Long Has This Been Going. On?” and “S’Wonderful.”

POST TITLE:  55 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967) (Part 2)

CATEGORY: My Favorites
SUBCATEGORY: Queer Film

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