I Watch Films: Funny Face

 

Funny Face

Maggie, the editor of Quality, a fashion magazine, is looking for a new look. She’s decided intellectual is in. She and photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) are having trouble as the model they’ve picked is not especially intellectual* and apparently he’s a method photographer.

In an effort to get the right idea they head down to Greenwich village to find a horrible old bookstore. They discover one, being kept by Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) who initially is in some of the pictures, then when she protests that they put all the books out of place is shut out by all the women who assist Maggie.

Dick realises that Jo is the face Quality has been looking for (after all she looks like Audrey Hepburn, a famous beauty of the period). They get her to come over by ordering some books, and then try and make her be a model; to the surprise of Maggie and the other women she has no interest in that. Dick convinces her to become one, when he suggests she can join them on a photo shoot in Paris, where Quality has an exclusive with a famous fashion designer. She’s keen to go there to meet Emile Flostre, the leading philosopher in empathicalism.

Maggie Dick and Jo have a great time in Paris, and Dick and Jo start to fall in love. But Jo’s true passion is philosophy and so she keeps vanishing to try and see Flostre, even as the fashion show goes wrong. Of course it turns out that Flostre is a big perv.

Watch This: Funny romance of a musical, one or two good dance numbers
Don’t Watch This: Sadly Fred’s charm and Audrey’s grace don’t seem to match up, Paris doesn’t seem all that interesting and none of the song and dance numbers stand out

* She reads a comic book and when she manages a pensive look it’s because she’s thinking about collecting her partner’s laundry. Ho ho.