Audrey Hepburn Films

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Farerb
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Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Farerb »

I've seen a bunch of Audrey Hepburn's films and I thought to make a thread ranking them and discussing them.
So here's my rank of the films I've seen so far:

1. Sabrina - while I think Audrey did better roles in other films, I like this one her best film because I felt that the writing was really witty and clever. I'd call it one of the best romantic comedies I've ever seen.

2. Charade - there wasn't a dull moment in this murder-mysrery film and a lot of great humor as well. I really liked all the twists and the dynamic between Audrey and Grant was great.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany's - I think this is the role with the most range, Audrey can go from comedy to drama in here really naturally. I also think that what distinguish this film from other romantic comedies is how it can be sad and melancholic sometimes and I like the theme of loneliness presented here. Also Moon River is a great song.

4. My Fair Lady - I liked this film, though I feel like I haven't been fair with it cause I kept comparing it to The Sound of Music, which is better, I guess I'll give it another watch. The plot was good enough.

5. Roman Holiday - TBH I was really disappointed in this, not that it was bad, but I guess I expected something more. I guess I should have watched it before Sabrina cause Sabrina was really good and this doesn't really compare. I was however excited seeing Belle's dress.

6. The Children's Hour - this one is really depressing, though I would say that Audrey was great in it, probably her best dramatic performance, but I was really depressed and honestly that annoying kid ruined the movie for me.

7. Funny Face - I just didn't really feel anything for this, the songs weren't that good or memorable, Audrey's character was inconsistent and it used the same tropes as her other better films.

So what is your opinion on Audrey Hepburn and her films?
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by UmbrellaFish »

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?
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

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I bought Sabrina because I had heard it was a good modern version of Cinderella. I was not really feeling the film from the moment it started, and I didn't like Audrey's character being so into someone she was gonna kill herself even though she didn't even really interract with him before that, if I'm remembering correctly. I thought it was a really over dramatic and pathetic character action. I loved her dress when she went to the ball, and honestly, the dress was my favorite part of the film because I fell asleep in the last act. Does anyone wanna specify why the writing was so good? Examples? I didn't like the film very much is basically what I'm saying.

I love My Fair Lady. I saw it with very little info on the Julie controversy so I just enjoyed seeing the person I thought was "supposed" to be in it, Audrey. I thought the costumes at the horse races was astonishing costume work. I didn't really like Eliza's moaning and I hated that the song "Get Me to the Church On Time" had nothing to do with the plot, but by the end of the film, it felt like a rightful Best Picture win, what with the way they showed the love between the two leads in the end.

I sought out and saw Roman Holiday shortly after I saw the Netflix movie about its screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. I really think this was the best movie out of the three I am listing, which are the only Audrey films I have seen. I hated the journalist being such a jerk to the princess at first, but he grew on me as he behaved better, and I loved Audrey's character from the get go. How can you not fall for a princess dropping her shoe to scratch herself secretly under her dress? You really feel for her rather sad life as a princess and the ending has a huge punch to it. I thought the writing for the story, comedy, dialogue, and character was all so, so good. Maybe I was influenced by the Trumbo film being about how great the screenwriter was, but seeing if it really was so great for myself, I did think it really was that great.
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Disney's Divinity »

I don't know much about her. I've only seen My Fairy Lady and The Children's Hour (and the latter I watched more for Shirley MacLaine). I thought Hepburn was phenomenal in MFL. I mean, her voice throughout the beginning of the film made me laugh so hard. I think she was talented and of course very beautiful. Not much else I could think to say about her, really.
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Avaitor »

My favorite Audrey Hepburn films are Charade, which is a terrific espionage feature, and Two for the Road, which is a good balance between experimental and traditional. Wait Until Dark might have my favorite performance of hers overall, though.

One thing I admire about Audrey as an actress is how she's able to radiate chemistry with pretty much any of her co-leads, even when (admittedly too often) they have a questionable age gap. I'm not sure if she did have strong chemistry with Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, although it's been a while since I've seen that, and I wouldn't blame her for that, as all account prove that he was difficult to work with. I do generally like her acting in the film, even if it would've been better for Julie Andrews to have played Eliza.

While I like or at least like her in just about all of her films that I've seen, I'm ultimately a bigger fan of her life outside of the screen. She helped to raise money for the Dutch resistance during WWII was very active with UNICEF near the end of her life. I'm not super well-versed in her life, but the handful of information that I know makes her out to be pretty cool.
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by DVDBuff1 »

If I had to rank the ones I've seen:

Charade
Sabrina
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Roman Holiday
Funny Face
My Fair Lady
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Escapay »

Went through my Audrey phase in high school and college, so I own the majority of her filmography across VHS, DVD, and then Blu-Ray (covering basically every movie from Roman Holiday through Always, but I hated Green Mansions so I don't own that one on principle). Favorite Audrey film of all time is Sabrina, although I've likely seen Breakfast at Tiffany's the most times. Those two plus Funny Face went through regular rotation on my VCR in high school, then added Charade and Roman Holiday on DVD to that mix. My Fair Lady was the first Audrey film I ever saw (in the mid-90s on PBS), and subsequently was one of the earliest DVDs I ever owned, although the original single-disc in the snapper case was given to my brother when I upgraded to the two-disc DVD.

There was a television miniseries with Emmy Rossum and Jennifer Love Hewitt about 20 years ago that's not too good, but was the first time I learned about Audrey's pre-Hollywood life and is worth watching if only for Rossum's portrayal of younger Audrey.

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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Farerb »

Be Kind Rewind did a good video about Audry Hepburn:
https://youtu.be/SBWaQUabpus
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Disney Duster »

Oh, I loved that video farerb, thank you! I loved how they say she was very Cinderella-like in her movies, and yeah, she's like the most powerful of Cinderellas for surviving the war but doing good things for people while Nazis could have killed her (I think, is that what happened?!) and she became a princess of movies and helped the world so much as an adult.

Btw her gown in Sabrina is one of the best dresses ever created!!!
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Re: Audrey Hepburn Films

Post by Redadoodles »

farerb wrote:I've seen a bunch of Audrey Hepburn's films and I thought to make a thread ranking them and discussing them.
So here's my rank of the films I've seen so far:

1. Sabrina - while I think Audrey did better roles in other films, I like this one her best film because I felt that the writing was really witty and clever. I'd call it one of the best romantic comedies I've ever seen.

2. Charade - there wasn't a dull moment in this murder-mysrery film and a lot of great humor as well. I really liked all the twists and the dynamic between Audrey and Grant was great.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany's - I think this is the role with the most range, Audrey can go from comedy to drama in here really naturally. I also think that what distinguish this film from other romantic comedies is how it can be sad and melancholic sometimes and I like the theme of loneliness presented here. Also Moon River is a great song.

4. My Fair Lady - I liked this film, though I feel like I haven't been fair with it cause I kept comparing it to The Sound of Music, which is better, I guess I'll give it another watch. The plot was good enough.

5. Roman Holiday - TBH I was really disappointed in this, not that it was bad, but I guess I expected something more. I guess I should have watched it before Sabrina cause Sabrina was really good and this doesn't really compare. I was however excited seeing Belle's dress.

6. The Children's Hour - this one is really depressing, though I would say that Audrey was great in it, probably her best dramatic performance, but I was really depressed and honestly that annoying kid ruined the movie for me.

7. Funny Face - I just didn't really feel anything for this, the songs weren't that good or memorable, Audrey's character was inconsistent and it used the same tropes as her other better films.

So what is your opinion on Audrey Hepburn and her films?
You should watch Wait Until Dark. One of her best performances.
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