In one of her early roles, Hepburn stars as Jo Stockton, an intellectual girl working in a quaint bookstore in Greenwich Village. She is discovered when Dick Avery (Astaire), well-known photographer for a leading fashion magazine, decides he needs a bookish setting for his airhead model and fashion shoot. Avery later becomes entranced by Jo's unique look as he captured her in those same pictures. He believes she has the look that Quality magazine needs for the "Quality Woman." The magazine's editor, Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson), is not so convinced, what with Jo's "funny face" and all. Jo is not convinced either, since she focuses her time and energy on learning and follows the teachings of Professor Flostre, who speaks on empathicalism. When she realizes the modeling job comes packaged with a trip to Paris, where Prof. Flostre resides, she jumps at the chance.
As it turns out, Jo cleans up really well and the awkward girl becomes a swan, however when she misses her first photo shoot because she spends all day in the local café philosophizing, the fashion team is more than a little miffed. Once she gets serious about her work, Avery is able to take some amazing shots. As Avery and Jo spend time together snapping pictures all over the city of lights, they begin to fall for each other, despite Avery being a good bit older. On the night of the grand introduction of Jo as the "Quality Woman," fate intervenes and Jo discovers Prof. Flostre will be speaking at the café. Unable to resist meeting her philosophy mentor, she stops by the café, only to have Avery pull her away from the handsome professor and bring her to the event. Jo, furious and embarrassed at Avery's behavior, fights loudly with him and their tussle ends up ruining the photo set and the event winds up a fiasco. As Jo and Avery part ways angrily, Jo soon comes to realize that Flostre is a generic cad and Avery was right all along. In a true Hollywood ending of the time period, the two dance and sing their love to one another.
Let me first say that Funny Face is a musical and one from the 1950's no less. That being said, expect lots of moments where people burst into silly song. I found some scenes laughable because they are just so unrealistic in this day and age, however, the movie is still a delight and it contains the music of the amazing Gershwin Brothers. Funny Face has been masterfully restored and looks simply gorgeous. I couldn't help thinking to myself what this movie would look like in Blu-ray because, while there aren't cool sci-fi special effects here, there are lots of tricks with color and photography that are really neat to see. The famed photographer Richard Avedon was the loose basis for Avery's character, but more importantly, had his hand in the style of the photography used for the film. Lots of movement is evident in the shots and they are just fun to see. There is also a montage where some interesting photography and techniques are used and you can just tell they had lots of fun making this film.
Since this release of Funny Face is one of Paramount's Centennial Collection, it is chock full of special features, and not just on the film itself. There's a featurette on actress and songbird Kay Thompson, who played Quality editor Maggie Prescott. What an amazing woman - and I never even knew who she was prior to watching this movie. There's a featurette on VistaVision, the movie presentation style that brought people out of their living rooms and back into the theaters; one on fashion photographers in general; one on Givenchy and how he and Audrey became friends and would be linked to one another by fashion for the rest of their lives; one on Paris and one on Paramount in the 1950's, plus the trailer and photo galleries. For the fan of this film and movies of this era, these featurettes are amazing and quite lengthy too!
At least as far as the DVD format goes, Paramount's Centennial Collection of Funny Face is the penultimate version for fans to own. If you loved this movie back in the day, add this one to your collection.
