There came a point in the movie when I was almost convinced that Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) was mentally ill. I mean, how would one not be, having married a dirt farmer at fourteen, run away to the city to become a free spirit, and survive on fifty bucks a throw while partying their life away? Underneath the glitz and glamour of Holly's life was a troubling aspect of alienation and despair that couldn't be easily fixed by a next door neighbor 'kept' by an older woman. It was the perfect set up for that happy ending I think most viewers expect and which the movie delivered, but lacking in virtually any credibility when one really stops to think about it.
And yet the movie does serve up it's share of entertainment value. Hepburn is very pleasing to the eye and her fashion sense is exquisite, she even wears a bed sheet glamorously. If I had to guess, the character of Rusty Trawler (Stanley Adams) looked to me like a stand-in for the novel's writer Truman Capote, though that idea was given less credence when the newspaper headline declared he took his fourth wife. And gosh, up till now I thought the worst characterization of an Asian in a movie was James Cann's impression of a Chinese man in "El Dorado", but Mickey Rooney ran the table here on that score. What was anyone thinking about when they came up with the Yunioshi character? Pretty pathetic.
But as a time capsule reminder of New York City life in the early Sixties, this one has to be classic. Get a load of the vendor prices in Central Park - a frankfurter for twenty cents, peanuts and popcorn for a dime, and if you're willing to pony up a couple more pennies, a box of Crackerjacks for twelve cents! I know it was a half century ago but those numbers just don't sound right to me, but I was just a kid back then and not paying attention.
Well if there's a message here it would probably be Lula Mae's advice to Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) - "You musn't give your heart to a wild thing", even though that idea seemed to capture the spirit of Holly's confused character. I'm sure the story's happy ending elicited more than it's share of teardrops for movie audiences of the Sixties, coming as it did in the face of Paul Varjak's (George Peppard) challenge to break free of her cage and stop running into herself. You just had to wonder if she could do that after the final credits rolled.
And yet the movie does serve up it's share of entertainment value. Hepburn is very pleasing to the eye and her fashion sense is exquisite, she even wears a bed sheet glamorously. If I had to guess, the character of Rusty Trawler (Stanley Adams) looked to me like a stand-in for the novel's writer Truman Capote, though that idea was given less credence when the newspaper headline declared he took his fourth wife. And gosh, up till now I thought the worst characterization of an Asian in a movie was James Cann's impression of a Chinese man in "El Dorado", but Mickey Rooney ran the table here on that score. What was anyone thinking about when they came up with the Yunioshi character? Pretty pathetic.
But as a time capsule reminder of New York City life in the early Sixties, this one has to be classic. Get a load of the vendor prices in Central Park - a frankfurter for twenty cents, peanuts and popcorn for a dime, and if you're willing to pony up a couple more pennies, a box of Crackerjacks for twelve cents! I know it was a half century ago but those numbers just don't sound right to me, but I was just a kid back then and not paying attention.
Well if there's a message here it would probably be Lula Mae's advice to Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen) - "You musn't give your heart to a wild thing", even though that idea seemed to capture the spirit of Holly's confused character. I'm sure the story's happy ending elicited more than it's share of teardrops for movie audiences of the Sixties, coming as it did in the face of Paul Varjak's (George Peppard) challenge to break free of her cage and stop running into herself. You just had to wonder if she could do that after the final credits rolled.