funny face

Whilst gaining inspiration for the latest grad school project, I watched one of my all-time favorite movies last night - Funny Face (1957) starring Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, and Kay Thompson (yes, the same Kay Thompson who wrote Eloise.)

Kay Thompson plays Maggie Prescott, the pushy editor of "Quality Magazine," beginning the movie with a new idea for the next issue...

"Banish the black, burn the blue, and bury the beige. From now on, girls, think P I N K !"

Sounds good to me, Elle Woods.  Her next inspiration is "clothes for the woman who doesn't care about clothes" which takes the magazine staff on a hunt for dreary "intellectual" space to shoot their clothes.  They settle on a used bookstore in the Village, where the Quality photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) and the whole team come across boring, mousey shopkeeper Jo, (Audrey Hepburn).

While the rest of the team brushes her out the door, Dick is inspired by Jo's "interesting" look...

...and convinces Maggie that Jo should be the candidate for the next issue's "Quality Woman." 

In exchange for a trip to Paris with the Quality Mag squad, Jo reluctantly agrees to pose for the magazine... and oh, the fun they have...

Jo gets to enjoy the part of Paris she was looking forward to: she hangs out at funky clubs, talks philosophy, and experiments with interpretive dance in Montmarte. (SIDENOTE: is this where Michael Jackson got the cropped pants/white sock/loafer thing from? I think maybe so...)

Of course my favorite part is the fashion shoot... which takes the team all over Paris:

"I don't want to stop. Take the picture, take the picture!"

Sigh. If you haven't seen it, well, now you have a small taste of what you're missing.  The songs are hit or miss (mostly miss) but the film is total eye-candy.  Add it to your Netflix queue and see what you think.  :)

Do you all have a favorite "classic" film?