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Funny Face
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Stevie McCleary (23rd October 2007). |
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The Film
 From 1957 comes "Funny Face", a musical starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn (and co-starring the really loud Kay Thompson) in their only on-screen pairing apparently, as a fashion photographer and an outspoken bookstore clerk respectively. When the very loud head of the world's foremost fashion magazine (Thompson) decides to start a new campaign of "fashion for the woman who doesn't care about fashion", they head to a bookstore in order to make their model look more intelligent. Of course, Dick (Astaire) ends up thinking that the clerk, Jo (Hepburn), would make a better model. He tries to sell her 'funny face' to the rest of the team and eventually wins them over. However, winning over a woman who would rather discuss philosophy than model clothes is a lot harder. The best and worst part of "Funny Face" is that it is a really good 80 minute film is trapped in the body of an average 103 minute film. It simply just runs too long and you feel it as you watch. If it had been tightened up then it would have been much better, yet still not the best musical of the era. It is one of those films where, if you don't take it too seriously, is quite enjoyable. For the most part it flies and falls based on the cast's chemistry and the success of the musical numbers. Well, they have oodles of chemistry but the songs do tend to feel forced. And the talent of the starring duo can't do much to stop them starting to grate. But don't get me wrong, there is a lot of goodness throughout the film. But some has dated quite badly and some is just plain irritating. Of particular note is the "Great American Tourist" number, which has every French person fawning over Americans because they're so great, capped off by the weird "Americans should come here to die" line. It's stunning how much Americans and the French seemed to love each other in 1957. At most other times though, the French appear lazy or obsessed with booze and abstract philosophy. While most of it is firmly tongue in cheek, in today's climate it comes across as more than bizarre. Seeing Americans getting fawned over so much for being so great is just painful. If only the French knew about the 'Freedom Fries" back then... For a lot of people, the idea of spontaneous dancing and singing is rather off-putting. Well you won't have a good time watching this then. Not only do the songs spring up for the most bizarre reasons, but a few of them get repeated over and over at times. I'm now very tired of the title track "I Love Your Funny Face" getting repeated so often. The music is still arranged nicely though and the location shooting is particularly nice. It's always good to see Paris. Hopefully the next I see Paris though; there won't be a gaggle of singers running around telling me how great it is. Still, you get the feeling that they really tried to go all out on this one. Its heart shows at all times and it calls back to a lighter era in our history. The lack of cynicism is quite refreshing. And while it potentially won't go down in history as one of the greats in Musical Comedy/Drama, overall it still holds its own as an entertaining 103 minutes. If only it'd been a tad shorter.
Video
Presented in a widescreen ratio of 1.78:1 this anamorphic transfer is apparently improved over the previous DVD release, I say apparently because do not have the previous release to compare but from a bit of research it seems that older release suffered from a number of problems including some dirt and specks, sharpness wasn't entirely maintained and colors were a bit off. This new transfer seems to have fixed these problems and has undergone a color correction to boot. The image is generally sharp although take note a few scenes are shot with a soft focus so sharpness is lost among those moments of the film, impressively the colors appear quite lush and vivid. The striking colors are match with a generally clean print and most dirt has been wiped clean a few specks still remain. Detail isn't always clear, especially in close ups, perhaps this is a result of the film stocks used during that era but I'm happy to report that skin tones appear natural. Finally some minor grain can be seen but this isn't a distraction, overall it still cold use some improvement but judging by what I've read of the previous release this new edition is a great step forward and taking into consideration the film is 50 years old most fans should be pleased with the presentation.
Audio
A total of five different audio options are included on this release and they are in English Dolby Digital 5.1 as well as a restored version of the film's original English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, French Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and finally Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. Purists will likely hover towards the 2.0 Mono track, but for the purposes of this review I was curious as to how the 5.1 mix would fare for a film that was originally released in Mono. This mix has been separated and mixed to accommodate the 5.1 sound space and while dialogue is nice and clear and the music comes across well the track lacks depth and range, which was to be expected when up-mixing for more channels. The primary audio is very center focused and the film's score tends to float around the surround speaker. Optional subtitles are also available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
First up is "The Fashion Designer and his Muse", a featurette that runs for 8 minutes 11 seconds and takes a look at the cinematic collaboration between Hepburn and fashion design Hubert de Givenchy as we get a look at some of the iconic dresses worn by the actress in some of her classic films including "Sabrina" (1954) and "Funny Face". The clip also covers Givenchy's career and how Hepburn inspired the designer to create some timeless pieces. Next up is "Parisian Dreams", a featurette which runs for 7 minutes 43 seconds and takes a look at the Parisian setting for the film and the themes and tone of the film, but most importantly what Paris and it's locations added to the film, it's character and musical elements as we get a look at a few key scenes. The third featurette is "Paramount in the 50's" a retrospective that runs for 9 minutes 37 seconds, this clip takes a look at the types of prestige films that were produced by the studio in the 1950's and shows you the diverse direction in which they went throughout the decade. It's a shame this clip is only under 10 minutes as it's subject matter cold have easily been a feature-length documentary instead of a promotional piece. Following that is a photo gallery which features 54 images taken during the production and include publicity shots and a few behind-the-scenes shots as well as a couple of posters for the film. Rounding out the extras is the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 25 seconds.
Overall
I suppose the ultimate question for fans of the film is, is this release worth the price of a double dip? The disc is reasonably priced and can be picked up online for around $13 so that helps, the film's improved transfer is also a plus, although the extras leave a lot to be desired. If you were a big enough fan then go for it, for casual viewers it may not be enough.
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