Paramount Pictures has done something absolutely extraordinary to mark a day that is etched in history—Breakfast at Tiffany’s is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Normally a studio would announce that that milestone flick was getting the first-time Blu-ray treatment and include a beautiful bevy of bonus features. Paramount could easily have done that.
Well, they did…but so much more.
What they unveiled, instead, is celebrating a legendary film with a weeklong best of their best and brightest. Seven films, a movie a night for a week, to let our feelings known when it comes to “favorite all-time actress” and her films included in this package: Funny Face, Sabrina, Roman Holiday, Paris When It Sizzles, War and Peace, and, of course, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Receiving this seven-film set was like a shot in the arm on a deeply overcast day. There is Miss Hepburn’s smiling face on the cover, it may have blinded the neighbors!
Let’s go back for a moment and salute a studio that saw the need for legacy over profits. Now, a six-decade celebrating film that will make its Blu-ray debut is headline-generating alone. Yet, to be able to also receive six other Hepburn classic Blu-rays in a full-on set is about as much of a must-have collection of films as one can produce.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
I had to commence with the one that spurred this entire project, the Blu-ray debut of the number 61 movie on the American Film Institute’s all-time movies.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is based on legendary wordsmith Truman Capote’s novella. It ensnarled the imagination and curiosity of a global audience and in the process managed to become a timeless classic that audiences will still be fawning over six decades from now.
Blake Edwards (10) directed the iconic film that not only entertained the global masses, but also pushed the envelopes of fashion and popular culture with its story about a New York City party girl, Holly Golightly (Hepburn), who finds herself looking for love in all the wrong places, but never loses hope that “the one” is out there. It’s behind-the-scenes pedigree is strong. For example, the iconic score was written by the legend, Henry Mancini (Pink Panther).
Bonus Content:
- Commentary by producer Richard Shepherd
- A Golightly Gathering
- Henry Mancini: More Than Music
- Mr. Yunioshi: An Asian Perspective
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s: The Making of a Classic
- It’s So Audrey: A Style Icon
- Behind the Gates: The Tour
- Brilliance in a Blue Box
- Audrey’s Letter to Tiffany
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Galleries
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A
My Fair Lady
Before the Academy Awards were over in 1965, Hepburn and company had witnessed their beloved musical earn eight of the statuettes, including Best Picture! It featured Hepburn as a working-class woman who becomes central to a bet between two gentlemen when it comes to that old debate of nature versus nurture. It featured legend Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins, which scored him a Best Actor Oscar that harmonized perfectly with the Belgium-born actress—who in turn would win a Best Actress trophy for her part in bringing the legend, Eliza Doolittle, to life. The idea would be that the big reveal would arrive at a society-centric party and if she makes it through the night without anyone questioning her origins, then a winner is declared.
It too would win a slew of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Music, and Best Actor.
There are beloved classics and there is the sentiment shared the globe over by audiences when it comes to My Fair Lady.
Bonus Content:
- More Lovely Than Ever: The Making of My Fair Lady Then & Now
- 1963 Production Kick-Off Dinner
- Los Angeles Premiere 10/28/1964
- British Premiere
- George Cukor Directs Baroness Bina Rothschild
- Rex Harrison Radio Interview
- Production Tests
- Alternate Audrey Hepburn Vocals
- Galleries
- Comments on a Lady
- Theatrical Featurettes
- Story of a Lady
- Design for a Lady
- The Fairest Fair Lady
- Trailers
- Awards
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A
Funny Face
Set against the luminous backdrop of the timeless City of Lights, the classic tale is filled with dazzling fashion, music, and romance stars the enchanting Hepburn as a bookstore clerk turned modeling sensation and Fred Astaire as the photographer who discovers her. Funny Face was the only pairing of the two stars and remains an irresistible love letter to Paris in the 1950s.
Bonus Content:
- Kay Thompson: Think Pink!
- This is VistaVision
- Fashion Photographers Exposed
- The Fashion Designer and His Muse
- Parisian Dreams
- Original Theatrical Trailer
Who wouldn’t want to spend two hours with Hepburn and Gregory Peck as a fly on the wall as two iconic thespians work their way through one of the most magically intimate cities in Roman Holiday? It actually is a rather rhetorical question because, after Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady, Roman Holiday is necessary for any Hepburn collection. This one was absent from the personal library, so requesting this package that was already an easy decision became even more so.
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A
Roman Holiday
They don’t make straight-up romances like they used to all those decades ago. Roman Holiday currently sits at number four on the greatest love stories of all time, as declared by the American Film Institute. In 1954, the instant classic scored 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress (which Audrey won!), Best Writing, Motion Picture Story (for Dalton Trumbo
Hepburn lights up the screen in her first starring role opposite the fabled Peck in this downright humorous, stunningly gorgeous, and one of those films that are studied in film school for being a perfect rom-com. Ranked as the #4 greatest love story of all time by the American Film Institute, Roman Holiday earned 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won Best Actress for Hepburn, Best Costume Design for legendary designer Edith Head, and Best Writing for Dalton Trumbo.
Bonus Content:
- Filmmaker Focus: Leonard Maltin on Roman Holiday
- Behind the Gates: Costumes
- Rome with a Princess
- Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years
- Dalton Trumbo: From A-List to Blacklist
- Paramount in the ‘50s
- Remembering Audrey
- Theatrical Trailers
- Galleries
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A
Sabrina
Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn together? Sold on that pairing alone! Toss in William Holden and its premise, Sabrina is one for the ages. Holden and Bogart, the supremely wealthy Larrabee bros notice something extraordinary and that is Hepburn. Sabrina Fairchild is something else, alright, and she will get the normally stoic Larrabee brothers to work their tales off to put a ring on that finger. The story works on many levels, not the least of which is the romantic-comedy aspect brought by Hepburn and Bogart. But another pairing—Bogart and Holden—are pure gold as brothers with little in common—until a certain someone walks into their lives.
Bonus Content:
- Audrey Hepburn: Fashion Icon
- Sabrina’s World
- Supporting Sabrina
- William Holden: The Paramount Years
- Sabrina Documentary
- Behind the Gates: Camera
Film Grade: A
Bonus Features: A
Paris When It Sizzles
Speaking of Holden and Hepburn, the duo reunite in Paris When it Sizzles and they do… well, sizzle!
The film is making its Blu-ray debut. It finds Hepburn losing herself as Gabrielle Simpson. She’s an enticing young assistant to scriptwriter Richard Benson (Holden)—who has merely 72 hours to finish his latest work. Collectively there’s some magic created, and it is not merely on the page.
Film Grade: A
War and Peace
Yes, that War and Peace! One of the great literary masterpieces is like the icing on the cake of this Hepburn collection. The Leo Tolstoy classic receives one of its most powerful adaptations by helmer King Vidor with Hepburn joined by icon Henry Fonda and the one and only Mel Ferrer.
Film Grade: A