I’m not going to rank them because it’s been so long since I’ve seen most of them... she was a fine actor who made very good movies.
Way back when, The Nun’s Story was my favorite performance of her’s but now I do not remember the plot! I loved Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Wait Until Dark. I cannot for the life of me understand why Paramount has yet to release Roman Holiday on Blu-Ray.... it’s bizarre.
When I was a teenager, The Children’s Hour was probably the oldest movie with LGBT themes I’d ever seen, so that was important for me although the movie is a massive downer. As a theatre major in college, my lesbian professor hated the play and vetoed it every time one of her straight colleagues suggested staging it.
My Fair Lady is a mixed bag for me because I am physically incapable of ever watching that movie without imagining Julie Andrews in that role, which she originated and sang on stage. Over the years, I’ve mellowed about this, but when I was a kid and introduced to My Fair Lady there was definitely this weird, continued rivalry between Julie fans and Audrey fans. It dates back to movie magazines of the 60’s but in truth, Hepburn and Andrews were never on bad terms and the drama was manufactured to sell magazines. Actually the two became friends in later life.
The casting in My Fair Lady still makes me sad, because I wish I could have seen Julie perform Eliza and I think it hurt her not to have the chance. That said, Hepburn does indeed cut a ravishingly beautiful figure in those Cecil Beaton costumes and it’s not hard to see that her performance has otherwise been generally well-loved. The creator of the YouTube “Be Kind Rewind” series on Oscars history said that if Audrey (who did not receive an Oscar nom for My Fair Lady) was bad as Eliza, it wouldn’t make sense for that movie to win the Best Picture Oscar as it did, because the entire movie relies on Hepburn giving a convincing performance as the flower seller and as the lady.
But back to her other movies! Green Mansions is weird. Fred Astaire is especially old opposite Hepburn in Funny Face, which is saying something for a man who regularly starred opposite younger women and for a woman who regularly starred opposite older men. I never finished Robin and Marian which was written by the man who wrote one of my favorite movies, The Lion in Winter, so I’ve been meaning to return to it. I own Sabrina, Two For the Road, and How to Steal a Million but I haven’t gotten around to watching them, either. I know I should get on Sabrina right away... I’ve also never seen Charade, but it sounds right up my alley. It’s on streaming, so I have no excuse now... I haven’t watched War and Peace either, and I also want to watch her early television film, Mayerling, if I can find it anywhere.
She died too young. Sometimes I think she’s the only other person who could have played Queen Clarisse Renaldi in the Princess Diaries, and coming from me, that’s a pretty high compliment. Maybe in an alternate universe, PDII could have been about Julie Andrews’ granddaughter meeting the grandson of a queen from a neighboring kingdom, played by Audrey Hepburn. After all those years... wouldn’t it have been loverly?
|