Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Funny Face Blu-ray Movie Review

My Fair Book Clerk

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 8, 2014

Funny Face is a musical. I state this up front so that members of the Blu-ray-buying community who hate musicals can stop reading here and move on to something else.

Now that we're alone, let's talk about Stanley Donen's 1957 VistaVision extravaganza starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Sometimes described as the first (and last) MGM musical made at Paramount, Funny Face shares its title, four songs by George and Ira Gershwin and nothing else with a 1927 Broadway musical, in which Astaire happened to have appeared. Screenwriter Leonard Gershe stuck the title onto a plot borrowed from one of his own Broadway creations, which he updated and adapted based on the life of fashion photographer Richard Avedon, who supplied some of the film's signature images. In addition to the four Gershwin songs from the Broadway musical named Funny Face, several others were added.

Funny Face is a Pygmalion story that follows a chapter in Avedon's life in which he turned a previously unknown woman into a major fashion model, then fell in love with his own creation. No one could foresee that, just seven years after Funny Face, Hepburn would grace the screen in an even more famous Pygmalion story, playing Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. The success of that film provided a boost to Funny Face, which was poorly received on its initial release but, after My Fair Lady, was re-released to substantial box office.

Funny Face was the biggest screen role for Kay Thompson, whose influence on American movie musicals from behind the camera was enormous. The head vocal coach and arranger at MGM during the Forties, Thompson mentored numerous singers, of which the most notable was her life-long friend, Judy Garland. Thompson's successful children's book Eloise and its four sequels were partly based on Liza Minnelli, Garland's daughter and Thompson's goddaughter. In Funny Face, Thompson is perfectly cast as a grande dame of the fashion world, a kind of musical precursor to Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada .

In outline, the plot of Funny Face is simple and straightforward. Seeking a new look for her vaunted fashion magazine, Quality, fearsome editor and publisher Maggie Prescott (Thompson) descends upon a tiny Greenwich Village bookshop with her twittering minions and her chief photographer, Dick Avery (Astaire)—to the utter horror of the determinedly unfashionable and intellectual store clerk, Jo Stockton (Hepburn). The group from Quality plans to use the store as a backdrop, but Avery spots something intriguing in Jo and inveigles her into joining the Quality delegation to the international fashion show in Paris. Jo agrees, because it's a chance to meet her idol, a French philosopher named Prof. Flostre (Michel Auclair). Although Jo thinks her face looks "funny", under Avery's influence she becomes a fashion model. Naturally Avery falls in love with her, and, after some necessary complications, Jo realizes she loves him too.

Now, any reader who thinks the above description contains "spoilers" is someone who should have quit reading after the first paragraph. Musicals from the era of Funny Face have predictable plots, and besides the conclusion is foregone from the moment the names Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire appear in the titles (even though Astaire was thirty years her senior). The plot—or, in the classical term for stage musicals, the "book"—is just a structure on which to hang the film's production numbers, which are fully loaded with everything that Stanley Donen, the director of Singin' in the Rain, could muster. So, of course, we get Fred Astaire dancing one of his signature solo routines with an umbrella and raincoat ("Let's Kiss and Make Up"), plus a modern pas de deux with Kay Thompson when both of them disguise themselves as bohemians to infiltrate Prof. Flostre's home looking for Jo ("Clap Yo' Hands"). Astaire and Hepburn share several dance numbers ("He Loves and She Loves", "'S Wonderful", and the title song), but perhaps most memorable is Hepburn's elaborately choreographed dance in a nightclub, when Jo demonstrates to Avery how she's surrendered to the spirit of the Parisian intelligentsia. The routine veers from sophistication to parody and back again, but Hepburn is never anything less than graceful. (She trained as a ballet dancer.)

But there's more. Kay Thompson's memorable opening number, "Think Pink!" (music by Roger Edens, lyrics by screenwriter Gershe), is not only a tour de force by Thompson, but also a montage of the era's advertising styles, recreated with input from photographer Avedon. A later montage of Avery photographing Jo all over Paris for Quality magazine also reflects Avedon's influence, as Donen repeatedly freezes the frame, reverses it to negative, then cycles through the color spectrum—in effect, providing an illustration of how the fashion photographer's hand shapes an image.

The city of Paris, with its distinctive mixture of grand buildings and open spaces, provides an ideal background for these comically self-important comings and goings. With its tradition as a city for lovers, Paris also provides the perfect locale for the story's happy ending.

Funny Face Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Funny Face had the benefit of being photographed by cinematographer Ray June (Ziegfeld Girl), one of the creators of the rich, glossy "MGM look", for which VistaVision was an ideal medium. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, mastered from a Paramount transfer, successfully conveys the smooth textures and intense, varied palette of the VistaVision experience that makes Funny Face a visual treat. The detail in the various sets, locations and the all-important fashion designs is remarkable, and it is notable that detail doesn't suffer in scenes with obvious opticals, a clear benefit of the large-format negative (and no doubt a reason why George Lucas and ILM resurrected the format for their optical effects work, prior to the advent of digital technology). The colors are striking, and not just in obvious moments like the photographic freeze frames. A scene of Avery photographing Jo in the rain has a bunch of colored balloons that stand out brightly against the gray of the cloudy sky. By comparison to the intensity of the fashion world's colors, Paris itself seems almost bland. (Almost.)

The grain pattern is very fine but natural, without any indication of filtering, artificial sharpening or other untoward manipulation. The average bitrate of 25.47 Mbps is not the highest we've seen from Warner but certainly more than adequate, and no obvious artifacts appeared.

Addendum: After this review was published, I was contacted by several viewers who advised me that, at larger sizes, the image on the Funny Face Blu-ray revealed significant problems. To confirm these reports, I asked a trusted colleague with access to state-of-the-art projection systems to view the disc and report back. (Readers familiar with my previous reviews should be able to guess his identity.) The report was disheartening. While the colors and densities remained impressive, the integrity of the image disintegrated at larger sizes. What I had seen was a neatly engineered electronic illusion designed for smaller screens. Usually, such things reveal themselves on my 72" display, but apparently this time that size wasn't sufficient (or I wasn't paying close enough attention).

Because I trust my colleague's report, I am dropping the video score by two points and the overall score by one point. My apologies to anyone who was misled. It's still a wonderful film and, on smaller displays, the Blu-ray should provide an acceptable viewing experience.

Funny Face Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Funny Face was released in mono, but it has been remixed in 5.1 for home video and presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA. It's a conservative remix with little or no use of the surrounds and the soundstage kept in front and spread across the front speaker array. Dynamic range is quite good for the era, and fidelity is very good indeed. The dialogue and singing are exceptionally clear. (Unlike in My Fair Lady, Hepburn's singing voice was not overdubbed.)

Funny Face Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Paramount's 2001 DVD of Funny Face had a trailer and the "Paramount in the 1950's Retrospective Featurette". In 2007, the studio released a "50th Anniversary Edition" with an additional two featurettes, both of which were included on the two-disc "Centennial Collection" issued two years later. All of the Centennial Collection features have been ported over to Blu-ray, with the exception of "Paramount in the 1950's" and the photo galleries.

• Kay Thompson: Think Pink! (1080i; 1.78:1; 26:37): A portrait of Thompson, told by her biographer Sam Irvin and Eloise illustrator Hilary Knight, among others.



• This is VistaVision (1080i; 1.78:1; 24:42): In the early Fifties, every major studio experimented with different approaches to widescreen projection. VistaVision was Paramount's contribution. This featurette examines the format, which lasted for only a short time in mainstream use.



• Fashion Photographers Exposed (1080i; 1.78:1; 17:54): While not exactly an exposé, this featurette delves into the world of fashion photography.


The Fashion Designer and His Muse (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 8:08): Fashion author Pamela Keogh and designer Jeffrey Banks discuss the working partnership between Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy, which began with Sabrina  and continued for the rest of Hepburn's career.


• Parisian Dreams (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 7:40): Film historian Drew Casper and Olivier-Rene Veillon of the Ile de France Film Commission discuss the role of Paris in Funny Face.



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:23): "You're going to have a Marvelous Time!"

Funny Face Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Funny Face is not in the same league as My Fair Lady, Singin' in the Rain or any of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics. It treats everything with equal frivolity: fashion, philosophy, even love (since the relationship between Hepburn's Jo and Astaire's Avery isn't credible for a moment). But what the film lacks in depth, it makes up for in "pizzazz" (to borrow a favorite word of Kay Thompson's Maggie Prescott). There's always something interesting on the screen to look it, even if it's just Hepburn in one of her stunning Givenchy outfits. Warner/Paramount's Blu-ray presents this frothy concoction to best advantage and, for that reason, is highly recommended.