Funny Face (1957)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Featurette-Paramount In The 50s Gallery-Photo
Rating
Year Of Production	1957
Running Time	99:01
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (48:00)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Stanley Donen
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Audrey Hepburn Fred Astaire Kay Thompson Michael Auclair Robert Flemyng
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	George Gershwin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.00:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Italian Spanish Slovenian Spanish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    A little earlier, a young man auditioned for a Hollywood studio. The report on his screen test read (or so the legend goes): "can't act, can't sing, can dance a little". That man was Fred Astaire. I kinda think he was better than that, or he learned quickly.

    So a movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire should be wonderful, right? Well, maybe. Even the best performers need a decent script, and if they are making a musical, they need good music, too. Funny Face is a musical, and the music and lyrics are provided by George and Ira Gershwin, so you'd think they had that side covered. Maybe George and Ira had an off-day, because the songs in this musical are not their best work. The script is fairly slight, too.

    Does all that mean that this is a bad movie? No. But I don't want you to think that it's wonderful, or marvellous. It's just OK.

    Fred Astaire plays Dick Avery, a fashion photographer working for Quality magazine. The managing editor, Miss Prescot, is played by Kay Thompson, in a delightfully over-the-top manner (her opening song and dance "Think Pink" is fun). These two, with an entourage, burst into a bookshop in Greenwich Village (called Embryo Concepts) to attempt to give an intellectual look to a fashion shoot. The bookshop is run by Jo Stockton, played by Audrey Hepburn. She is bewildered by the fashion people, and quite unimpressed by the lack of respect they show her and the books. Dick Avery stays behind when the others leave, ostensibly to help clear up the mess. Jo mentions her interest in a particular breed of philosophy called "empathicalism" (I remain unconvinced that that is a real word), and her desire to visit Paris to meet Professor Emil Flaustre, the founder of this movement.

    Quite soon, the magazine is looking for a Quality woman, and Dick Avery is certain that Jo Stockton is the woman they need, because she is different. There are numerous mentions that Jo has a "funny face" ( not completely credible when it is Audrey Hepburn we are talking about, but hey, it's a musical, let's suspend our disbelief.). They get Jo Stockton to come to the Quality office by ordering some books, and attempt to force her into a new look. She escapes and takes refuge in a dark room being used by Dick Avery to make some blown up shots of her face. There's a song and dance number in the dark room, in the dim red glow of the safe lights. Dick convinces Jo to take the job, because it means a trip to Paris, allowing her to fulfil her dream.

    It will come as no surprise that she turns out to be a remarkably good model, that they fall in love, that things go wrong, ... It's a musical - things are supposed to be fairly straightforward in the plot development so that they have time for the song and dance numbers. Even so, I felt this one was a bit too simple. There is little character development, even by musical standards. The song and dance numbers are a bit disappointing, too.

    I noticed, by the way, that the costumes were by Edith Head (weren't all costumes at that time by her?), but Audrey Hepburn's Paris outfits were by Hubert de Givenchy.

    I was amused to note that Kay Thompson did her dancing in high heeled dance shoes, while Audrey Hepburn wore flats. I suspect a big difference in their dance backgrounds - I understand Hepburn was classically trained. Oh, and that brings me to a statement in the trailer, where it proclaims that Audrey Hepburn covers every dance style from "ballet to be-bop". I thought about that for a while, and the only style of dancing I can think of that fits between "ballet" and "be-bop" is "ballroom"... 

Video

    The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. It is difficult to discover the exact theatrical ratio (the best information we can get is that it was 2.00:1), but it was quite clearly wider than this. They have cropped the image somewhat - some of the opening credits are clipped on the right side, for example.

    The image is reasonably sharp and clear, but with reduced shadow detail, for some well-lit interiors and set shots, but some of the exteriors are rather blurry. Perhaps the worst of the lot comes behind the church in the wedding dress photo shoot - the picture nearly dissolves into a pointillist abstract. I must thank Michael D for pointing out that this movie was made in the 50s, and so the likely culprit is a soft focus filter, to give a "special air" to the love scenes. These days we are accustomed to sharp clear images, so the soft focus effect is quite irritating. I guess we have to bear in mind that different styles pertain to different eras. Certain interiors, most notably some of the cafe scenes, contain large amounts of smoke, reducing the clarity of the picture - I rather suspect that this is to convey the idea that they are in Paris, in seedy intellectual dives, or something like that. Naturally, all of this is part of the source material, but it doesn't help the image quality at all, and in fact it gets in the way of the MPEG encoding.

    The colours are generally bright, if a little inaccurate. Again, I attribute the inaccuracy to the source material, rather than the transfer. There is some colour bleed, but I think this is due to film grain, and that soft-focus filter.

    There is a fair bit of aliasing, and a moment or two of moire. There's an interesting effect on Audrey Hepburn's top in the book shop: when she is stationary it is quite clear that she's wearing a vest of some tweed-like material (well, she is an intellectual). However, the moment she moves the material smooths out into a solid colour - I think this is a bit of motion blur, exacerbated by the MPEG encoding. Whatever it is, it is quite an interesting effect, and a little distracting. There are quite a few film artefacts, but they are not too noticeable until the scene in the dark room, where all the light is dull red - the white flecks stand out strongly.

    There are nine subtitle tracks, but I only checked the English. It is clear and easy to read, and as accurate as any. It does not subtitle the songs, which is a bit of a shame, because some of the words are clever.

    The disc is single sided and dual layered (RSDL-formatted). The layer change is located at 48:00. It is visible on some players, but it is not troubling.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are four soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1, and French, Italian, and Spanish mono. I only listened to the English soundtrack.

    Dialogue is clear and generally easily understood, even with the accents of some of the actors. There are few really clear lapses in audio sync, but there is a noticeable change in ambience between speech and song in a few places.

    As I mentioned earlier, the score is courtesy of the Gershwins. The incidental music is delightful, but I'm disappointed in the big song and dance numbers.

    The soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1, but as the original sound was mono, the surrounds get very little to do - they give a mild "deep stereo" effect, but that's about all. The subwoofer is not called upon at all - mine switched off from lack of signal - but it wasn't missed; there aren't a lot of explosions in this movie. This sounded more like a mono soundtrack than anything else.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are a few extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent, with quite a blurry shot from the movie in the background - it may be that soft focus filter at work again.

Theatrical Trailer (2:14)

    This is a classic 50s trailer. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced, which is a pleasant surprise.

Featurette - Paramount in the 50s (9:09)

    This is a short piece extolling the output of Paramount during the 50s. It makes interesting viewing, but I doubt you'd watch it again. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, in a mixture of black-and-white and colour.

Photo Gallery

    These are 16 black and white stills from the movie.

    The Region 1 version of this disc has identical features, and is presented in the same aspect ratio. Looks like we have a tie. 

    Funny Face is a pleasant-enough movie, with a disappointing transfer to DVD, but I doubt we could get much better, due to the age and condition of the source material.

    The video quality is somewhat disappointing..

    The audio quality is fair.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall