BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

'''Breakfast at Tiffany's''' is a 1961 Academy Award-winning film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and featuring Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney. It was directed by Blake Edwards. The portrayal of Holly Golightly as the naive, eccentric socialite is generally considered to be Audrey Hepburn's most memorable and identifiable role. She herself regarded it as one of her most challenging roles to play, as she was an introvert who had to play an extrovert. Hepburn's singing of "Moon River" helped garner an Oscar for Best Song for composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer. The film also featured what was arguably George Peppard's greatest acting role and the high point of his career. The film is based on the novella of the same name by Truman Capote.

Contents

The screenplay

Summary

Production

Academy Awards

Award wins

Award nominations

Cast

DVD availability

Musical adaptation

Cultural references

Trivia

References

External links

The screenplay

The Oscar-nominated screenplay was written by George Axelrod, loosely based on the novella by Truman Capote.
Truman Capote, who sold the film rights of his novella to Paramount Studios, wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the role of Holly Golightly in the film. Barry Paris references a quote by Capote: "Marilyn was always my first choice to play the girl, Holly Golightly."^[1] Screenwriter Axelrod was hired to "tailor the screenplay for Monroe." When Audrey was cast instead of Marilyn, Capote remarked: "Paramount double-crossed me in every way and cast Audrey."
A number of changes were made to the storyline to adapt the story to fit the medium of cinema. Capote's novella included language that was toned down for the film. The character of 2E (Patricia Neal) was invented for the movie. And the film changed the novella's unresolved, open ending to a more conventional "Hollywood" romantic happy ending.

Summary

Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in ''Breakfast at Tiffany's''

The movie is about Holly Golightly, a young woman always on the run from herself. Lacking a stable childhood, she marries at the age of fourteen, has the marriage annulled, moves to Hollywood to start a film career, leaves Hollywood for New York (where she earns money as a call girl and by unknowingly carrying coded messages for an incarcerated mafia boss), and plans to leave New York for Brazil to marry one of the world's richest men.
The main plot of the movie is Holly's relationship with neighbor Paul Varjak, who has confidence problems of his own. The story explores the relationship between Holly and Paul, her other paramours, and the resolution that occurs within Holly's own mind and between Holly and Paul. The film includes Hepburn singing the original performance of "Moon River" and the famous closing sequence that shows Paul's "lecture" to Holly and Holly's self-discovery of who she really is and who makes her truly happy. The film ends with a famous scene in the rain.

Production

It has been rumored that the film's on-location opening sequence, in which Holly gazes into a Tiffany’s display window, was extremely difficult for director Blake Edwards to film. Although it was simple in concept, crowd control, Hepburn's dislike for pastries, and an accident that nearly resulted in the electrocution of a crew member are all said to have made capturing the scene a challenge. However, Edwards, in an interview given for the 45th anniversary DVD, said that the sequence was captured rather quickly due to the good fortune of an unexpected traffic lull despite the location in the heart of Manhattan.
Hepburn introduced the film's signature song, "Moon River", by Henry Mancini, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Sung by Hepburn herself, it was written to her singing range based on the vocal solos she had performed in 1957's ''Funny Face''. According to Mancini and Edwards, a studio executive hated the song and demanded it be cut from the film; Hepburn, who was present when this proclamation was made, responded to the suggestion by standing up and saying, "over my dead body."
Wisp-thin Hepburn as Holly, carrying a cigarette holder, is considered one of the iconic images of 20th century American cinema. The film rejuvenated the career of 1930s movie song-and-dance man Buddy Ebsen, who had a small but effective role in this film as Doc Golightly, Holly's ex-husband. His success here led directly to his best-known role as Jed Clampett on ''The Beverly Hillbillies''.
Many critics consider the film's sole blunder to be Caucasian Mickey Rooney's "yellowfaced" racist performance as Holly's bucktoothed, stereotyped Japanese neighbor. In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes for this, stating "If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie." Edwards does not apologize for the portrayal. He does, however, indicate that he would not have cast Peppard in the lead male role of the film if he were to do it over again.

Academy Awards

'Award'	'Person'
Academy Award for Original Music Score	Henry Mancini
Academy Award for Best Song: "Moon River"	Johnny Mercer Henry Mancini
'Nominated:'
Academy Award for Best Actress	Audrey Hepburn
Academy Award for Best Art Direction	Hal Pereira Roland Anderson Sam Comer Ray Moyer
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay	George Axelrod

Award wins

★ Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album or Recording or Score – (John Addison)

★ WGA for Best Written American Drama – (George Axelrod)

Award nominations

★ DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures – (Blake Edwards)

Cast

★ Audrey Hepburn: Holly Golightly

★ George Peppard: Paul "Fred" Varjak

★ Patricia Neal: 2E

★ Buddy Ebsen: Doc Golightly

★ Martin Balsam: O. J. Berman

★ José Luis de Villalonga: José da Silva Pereira

★ Mickey Rooney: Mr. Yunioshi

★ John McGiver: Tiffany's salesman

★ Alan Reed: Sally Tomato

★ Dorothy Whitney: Mag Wildwood

★ Stanley Adams: Rusty Trawler

★ Claude Stroud: Sid Arbuck

★ Orangey: Cat (trained by Frank Inn)

DVD availability

Standard DVD release cover

''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' was one of the first Hepburn films to be released to the home video market in the early 1980s, and is also widely available on DVD. On February 7, 2006, Paramount released a 45th anniversary special edition DVD set in North America with featurettes not included on the prior DVD release:

★ ''Audio Commentary'' - with producer Richard Shepard

★ ''Breakfast at Tiffany's: The Making of a Classic'' - a making-of featurette with interviews by Edwards, Neal, the "laughing/crying" woman from the party, and Sean Ferrer, Hepburn's son. (16:13)

★ ''It's So Audrey! A Style Icon'' - a short tribute to Hepburn. (8:15)

★ ''Brilliance in a Blue Box'' - a brief history of Tiffany & Co. (6:04)

★ ''Audrey's Letter to Tiffany'' - an accounting of Hepburn's letter to Tiffany & Co. on the occasion of the company's 150th anniversary in 1987. (2:29)

★ ''Original Theatrical Trailer'' (2:38)

★ ''Photo Gallery''

Musical adaptation

In 1966, David Merrick produced a Broadway musical of the same name starring Mary Tyler Moore as Holly Golightly. The troubled production closed after four previews.
In 2004, A new musical adaptation of the film made its world debut at The St. Louis Muny.

Cultural references

★ In 1995, the Texas band Deep Blue Something had a hit with a song called "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The song was inspired by Hepburn's performance in the film ''Roman Holiday'', but the author, Todd David Pipes, thought that one of Hepburn's other films would make a better song title.^[2] The song reached the top five in the United States and number one in the United Kingdom.

★ The band Jets to Brazil takes their name from the poster seen in Holly's apartment. ^[3]

★ The Japanese toy company Jun Planning produced a doll based on Holly Golightly, for the March 2006 Pullip doll. ^[4]

★ On episode 605 of ''Seinfeld'', entitled "The Couch", George joins a book club and has to read ''Breakfast at Tiffany's''. However, George tries renting the movie instead so he doesn't have to actually read it.

★ Episode 302 of '', "Not What It Looks Like", features a trio of women who dress as Holly Golightly and rob a jewellery store.

★ In ''The Simpsons'' episode "I'm with Cupid", on Homer's spying on Apu, Apu literally has breakfast at Springfield's Tiffany & Co. ''"Aw, that's right, they have breakfast at Tiffany's now."'' ^[5]

★ The song "Let Me Entertain You" on the Queen album Jazz references the movie with the line "We'll Breakfast at Tiffany's, we'll sing to you in Japanese, we're only here to entertain you."

★ In the film, '', Bruce Lee and his girl friend, Linda, go see the film at the theater, but Linda decides they should leave midway after she notices that Bruce is upset at the stereotypical depiction of an Asian man by Mickey Rooney.

★ Lisi Harrison's 9th Clique story is called Bratfest at Tiffany's.

★ The iconic image of the movie was once duplicated by Shinya, the drummer of a Japanese band, Dir en grey.

Trivia

★ In the original novella, Mag Wildwood, a model with a stuttering problem, moves into Holly's apartment after Holly falls out with the novelist upstairs. The true nature of the relationship is not detailed in the book although both characters are described as heterosexual and both engage in subsequent heterosexual relationships later in the story. Wildwood still appears briefly in the film, a guest at the party at Holly's, with her stutter intact.

★ One of three dresses designed by Givenchy for Hepburn for possible use in the movie sold at auction by Christie's ^[6] on December 5, 2006 for £467,200 (~US$800,000), about seven times the reserve price. ^[7]

★ Kim Novak was approached to play the role of Holly Golightly, but she turned it down, for fear of being typecast as a scared sex kitten.

★ The ring from the Cracker Jack box is inscribed with the initials "HG" in Old English lettering. This is revealed in the copy of the script that came with the 1996 Collector's Edition Boxed Set.

★ The character Mrs. Failenson is called ‘2-E’ because her real name is Emily Eustace, as revealed in the film’s script.

★ In the commentary on the anniversary edition DVD, producer Richard Shepherd says that about 9 cats were used for the role of “Cat”.

References

1. Barry Paris, ''Audrey Hepburn'', Berkley Books, 1996.
2. British Hit Singles & Albums (Edition 18), Guinness World Records Limited
3. http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/jets_to_brazil
4. http://www.junplanning.co.jp/english/item/pullip/2006/f550/f550_e.html
5. http://www.snpp.com/episodes/AABF11
6. [1]
7. [2]

External links

★

★

★ Breakfast At Tiffany's On The Cast Album Database