MovieChat Forums > Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) Discussion > wasn't he gay

wasn't he gay

posted 9 months ago by raymondoz2007 (2098)
33 replies | jump to latest

[–] willjbeau (725) 9 months ago

Yes

[–] roger1 (3703) 9 months ago

Which begs a few questions, doesn't it?

Gay but...kept sexually by an older woman(Patricia Neal).

Gay but...madly in love with Holly Golightly and -- at fade out -- in a standard Happily Ever After clinch with Hepburn at the end.

What gives?

I have not read the novel by Truman Capote, but he was an openly gay man -- with MANY beautiful female friends(The Swans, they called them -- there is an FX series about this currently playing in 2024) . In the real world, but certainly in show business in Hollywood and on Broadway, there have been a number of marriages between straight women and gay men -- more for companionship than for sex, but sex is evidently sometimes acheivable by the gay men with the women.

I would suppose that Capote's book played out the relationship between Holly and Paul in that ambiguous gay manner, but a 1961 late Hays Code Hollywood studio production with a major star(Hepburn) ..could not.

Still, I suppose this is an early nod from Hollywood to the ambiguity of sexual relationships -- straight WITH gay.

It has been written that the Audrey Hepburn/George Peppard love story in Breakfast at Tiffany's was later REPEATED wih the Liza Minelli/Michael York love story in Cabaret (1972 -- R?)-- where Liza's Sally Bowles is just as irritatingly inaccessible and flighty and self-deluding as Holly -- and in which the male lover is EXPRESSLY gay -- or bi.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 9 months ago

[–] roger1 (3703) 9 months ago

He's implied to be gay in the book. Even in the rapidly changing landscape of early 60s Hollywood, they weren't going to go with that, hence him being in love with Holly rather than merely fascinated by her.

Interestingly, Holly is bisexual in the book. The movie mostly nixes this,

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I'm beginning to think that Breakfast at Tiffany's could use a...eeek!..remake.

Rather as Lolita got one to specify things that Kubrick could not in his 1962 version of the novel(but the first one is still the "classic" anyway, yes?)

And was not the entire issue of Paul Newman's character being gay -- in the Broadway version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -- removed and obscured for the 1958 film of THAT one?

Late Hays Code Hollywood had a devil of a time bringing plays and novels to the screen that had been "racy for the 50s." I'm thinking of Donna Reed as a "dance hall girl" in From Here to Eternity(but honestly, I'm sure that savvy 1953 audiences who had read the book especially -- knew what she was REALLY playing.

Anyway, how about a "new" Breakfast at Tiffany's. Remove Yunioshi entirely (or make him Jewish -- the late Jerry Stiller would have been great). Stop hinting at Holly having sex, or Paul being gay, or Holly being bi. Say it. Show it.

The remake would HAVE to have the Mancini score restored -- just as Gus Van Sant wisely had Danny Elfman reorchestrate Bernard Herrmann's famous score for his Psycho remake(1998.) Moon River, too.

Ah...but who exactly would want to take on the Holly Golightly role? Oh, somebody would (just as Vince Vaughn gamely took on Norman Bates.)

Emma Stone perhaps. Natalie Portman?

though Holly does give that stripper a very appreciative once-over

[–] raymondoz2007 (2098) 9 months ago

are you sick??...Yes show jewish sterotypes instead of Jap ones

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 9 months ago

I think there have been post-1961 stage versions of BAT that hew more closely to the novella. As much as Hollywood loves remakes, I'm not sure if they'd find BAT enough of a nostalgia draw for their beloved Gen X/millennial audiences, who they regular churn of Star Wars and Ghostbusters legacy sequels/reboots/whatevers for.

Interestingly, in the 1990s Hollywood remade Sabrina, Hepburn's sophomore star feature. Aside from Harrison Ford in the Bogart role, nothing much about the movie works, certainly not better than the original. There was also talk of a Nora Ephron penned remake of Two for the Road and an attempt at finally doing the unproduced No Bail for the Judge with-- get this-- Madonna. None of those went through.

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I think there have been post-1961 stage versions of BAT that hew more closely to the novella.

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A little "memory work" took me to the internet and discussion of a Broadway MUSICAL, circa 1966, starring Mary Tyler Moore(!) and Richard Chamberlain in the George Peppard part. I vaugely remember news stories at the time, and in a recent cable documentary about MTM, this was featured as a huge bomb as MTM was coming off the Dick Van Dyke show. I don'lt think it efver actually made it TO Broadway. Further research reveals a book by...EDWARD ALBEE...the writer of the famous Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf -- which was historic 1966 movie the same year as his musical flopped! That's showbiz.

The MTM version is an actual memory for me; I could go digging on other productions, I suppose, but ...not right now. Hah.

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As much as Hollywood loves remakes, I'm not sure if they'd find BAT enough of a nostalgia draw for their beloved Gen X/millennial audiences, who they regular churn of Star Wars and Ghostbusters legacy sequels/reboots/whatevers for.

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I fight my years every day but I've come to this conclusion: however young at heart I may FEEL and I think -- there can be no doubt that my having actual memories of seeing BAT first run , or Dr. No in its first release(yep, I was with James Bond from day one -- taken as a kid by my parents!) , or Psycho as a taboo ultra-shocker for the ENTIRE SIXTIES (two re-releases, one aborted CBS showing, local forbidden-to-me TV showings) makes me, if not old NOW(ha) from such "ancient times" in movie releases that -- what I am THINKING about Breakfast at Tiffanys as a remake in the 21st Century? Ha. Indeed, we are moving beyond 80's nostalgia and into 90s and 2000s nostalgia. (Though so much of the 2000s thus far has been remakes and sequels, we are running out of "past to exploit."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

Interestingly, in the 1990s Hollywood remade Sabrina, Hepburn's sophomore star feature. Aside from Harrison Ford in the Bogart role, nothing much about the movie works, certainly not better than the original.

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I always felt that Sabrina remake was doomed as soon as the casting was announced, and that was educational:

The original starred Bogart, Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. Three major stars -- with Hepburn and Holden just having won Best Actress(Roman Holiday) and Actor(Stalag 13) Oscars, and Bogart's African Queen win not too much earlier. So...THREE major, Oscared stars.

The remake starred Harrison Ford in the Bogart part, Julia Ormond in the Hepburn part...and Greg Kinnear in the Holden part!(This before As Good As It Gets for Kinnear, when he was still a cable clips-show host.)

This was, among other things, a perfect manifestation of the "rule" that stars were very expensive in 1995(the year of the Sabrina remake) and...the producers could only afford ONE (Ford.) Which threw the entire balance of the original off. There was talk for awhile that Tom Cruise would take the Holden role but I knew it wouldn't happen: in 1995, Cruise generally was above the marquee ALONE(on his demand), he wasn't going to share with Ford (and yes, Cruise had made his name with Newman and Hoffman and Nicholson, but they were "older mentors.") You'd think they could have at least cast Jeff Bridges in the Holden part.

My push-pull about the value of movie stars(I resist worship of them, but I respect the career success of the "big ones") fully comes to roost with Sabrina 1995. It was NOT a vehicle for only one star.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

Which reminds me: I took some grief over at its board for extolling the virtues of "The Towering Inferno"(1974) -- which some seem to think was "just another disaster movie" in that cycle. NO. It was the diaster movie that managed to pair two of the biggest superstars -- Paul Newman and Steve McQueen -- together (not for the first time, McQueen was in a tiny supporting role to Newman in 1956's Somebody Up There Likes Me.) As superstsars, they had just missed doing "Butch Cassidy" together(over billing)...now here they were.

WITH William Holden(one of the biggest stars of the fifties, and still prestige) AND Faye Dunaway(hot off of Chinatown and THE female lead of the 70's behind Streisand) AND Fred Astaire(a musical superstar from the 30s on) AND contemporary sports legend OJ Simpson(uh oh.) That really mattered that year. I had always read that The Towering Inferno was the highest grossing movie of 1974, but evidently Blazing Saddles has overtaken it.

Thanks -- only -- to the main stars taking pay cuts -- a "kinda sorta" Towering Inferno cast was summoned for the 2001 Ocean's Eleven remake, but it seemed " a little short on legends." Nonetheless, Pitt and Clooney and Julia Roberts and Matt Damon(right BEFORE he exploded with the Bourne movies) was...pretty big.

But, I digress...well, on point -- Sabrina had no room to cast three major stars (In 1995, I suppose Ford, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt would fit the bill.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

here was also talk of a Nora Ephron penned remake of Two for the Road and an attempt at finally doing the unproduced No Bail for the Judge with-- get this-- Madonna. None of those went through.

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Hmm. Sabrina. Two for the Road. Both Hepburn star vehicles. No Bail for the Judge. INTENDED as a Hepburn star vehicle. She agreed to star in the Hitchcock picture but pulled out. This book on the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's does a couple of pages No Bail for the Judge. Of interest, Hepburn would have played a woman ACTING like a prostitute to infiltrate London's criminal underworld. She bailed on a scene that felt (in 1960 terms) too much like a rape scene. And yet she immediately segued into playing a "maybe, maybe not" REAL prostitute in BAT.

The failure of No Bail for the Judge to be made comes with grand irony attached: instead, Hitchocck did a little thing called...Psycho! (The novel of Psycho appeared as No Bail was in pre-production, and Hitch pounced on it.)

I rather like movie history with the great North by Northwest(and its great Mount Rushmore climax) right ahead of Psycho(a historic variant on the "haunted house" movie.) No Bail for the Judge has always read to me as too sedate and regular a mystery movie to have been placed between them.

And yes, Madonna wanted to make the movie in the Hepburn role. There are SEVERAL unmade Hitchocck scripts in the vaults and its always been a "teaser" to consider what might happen if someone made them. Elliott Gould tried to buy the rights to the screenplay of "The Short Night"(a movie Hitchcock aborted when he got too ill and had to retire). And there is a pretty brutal post-Psycho psycho movie called "Frenzy" that had nothing to do with the movie Hitch made with that title in 1972. The First Frenzy was set in NYC; the final Frenzy was set in London.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I have read "The Short Night" script. Its pretty dull...another Torn Curtain but lesser(no major murder scene.) I've read excerpts from '"The First Frenzy" script and...they are pretty good. The movie would have had a great sequence on a mothball fleet on the Hudson River ( a scary knife murder and later a high overhead night shot of police boats approaching an old battleship with their lights on -- eerie even on the page. )

Interesting topic buried here: remakes are one thing, and we've had them and we will have more. But there doesn't seem to be much of a record of "unmade movie scripts" being rescued and filmed. No Bail for the Judge is a 1959 script, too long ago?

I read one script for a movie right before it was to go into production(a studio friend lent it to me). It was called "Night Train Down" and had Harrison Ford as the star. It was an action movie on a train with the "catch" that it was set in the 30s and Ford's partner against the bad guys was to be a black porter(not cast yet when i read the script.) It was a very exciting "movie on paper" to read -- I looked forward to seeing the movie. But Paramount got a new studio chief -- he killed "Night Train Down" and shifted Harrison Ford to "Patriot Games"(cutting Alec Baldwin loose from the role he created in "The Hunt for Red October" in the process.)

Hollywood Games. Oh well-- I "saw" "Night Train Down" in script form and it was pretty exciting. (The main 1930's bad guy wears a watch on a chain from his vest -- that chain catches on a door handle and forces him to die when the train goes hurtling off the bridge. I could SEE that scene. Can't you?)

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

Interesting topic buried here: remakes are one thing, and we've had them and we will have more. But there doesn't seem to be much of a record of "unmade movie scripts" being rescued and filmed. No Bail for the Judge is a 1959 script, too long ago?
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I could certainly approve of refurbishing unmade projects rather than remaking classics. With some tweaks, I think a modern version of NO BAIL set in the 50s could be very interesting.
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Hollywood Games. Oh well-- I "saw" "Night Train Down" in script form and it was pretty exciting. (The main 1930's bad guy wears a watch on a chain from his vest -- that chain catches on a door handle and forces him to die when the train goes hurtling off the bridge. I could SEE that scene. Can't you?)
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That film sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than PATRIOT GAMES turned out to be. And that villain demise sounds awesome!

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I could certainly approve of refurbishing unmade projects rather than remaking classics. With some tweaks, I think a modern version of NO BAIL set in the 50s could be very interesting.
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I suppose in all of these cases, if the scripts WERE produced..they would have to "go period" FROM the period.

That said, the Gus Van Sant "Psycho" gave us the interesting spectacle of a script and structure from 1960 "transferred" to 1998 and...it just didn't work. Too many things seemed archaic. This is different from a Broadway revival of "Oklahoma" - or is it?

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Hollywood Games. Oh well-- I "saw" "Night Train Down" in script form and it was pretty exciting. (The main 1930's bad guy wears a watch on a chain from his vest -- that chain catches on a door handle and forces him to die when the train goes hurtling off the bridge. I could SEE that scene. Can't you?)
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That film sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than PATRIOT GAMES turned out to be. And that villain demise sounds awesome!

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Yes. It all seemed like a bad deal all around. An exciting "GO": project was shut down, Harrison Ford was shoehorned into Patriot Games, Alec Baldwin was pretty much fired(not helpful to his leading man career) and Patriot Games was...just OK.

You know, I've been thinking since I posted this on Night Train Down. The Johnny Depp-led "Lone Ranger" of 2013 has a GREAT final train-to-train chase and shootout, and at the end of a train goes off a bridge and I DO remember the villain pulling out a watch -- or a locket -- and the train goes over the bridge and the last shot (underwater) is of the watch/locket floating out of the dead villain's hand. Not an EXACT match to "Night Train Down" but -- similar?

Plus: note that Night Train Down would have been yet another "White man/black man" buddy action film -- but with the added elements of the 1930's, more difficult race matters and a "servile" porter who becomes a hero. It might have added some social weight to an action movie.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

She agreed to star in the Hitchcock picture but pulled out.
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Actually, I did some research on NO BAIL recently and the dissolution of the project did not come about because of Hepburn bailing (pun intended).

This article by Frederik Gustafsson (which I've linked to below) goes into the history of the NO BAIL FOR THE JUDGE project and its demise is much less sensational than Hepburn balking over a violent scene. In fact, Hitchcock left the project before Hepburn did.

The project was postponed in 1959/1960 due to Hepburn's pregnancy and Hitchcock working on PSYCHO, and it kept getting postponed for various reasons. Hitchcock left in 1961, but trade publications said Hepburn and intended co-star Laurence Harvey were still on board. Then Hepburn and Harvey jumped ship in 1963. By 1965, director Lewis Gilbert (best remembered as a James Bond director) was on board, but then the project fizzled out that same year when Paramount couldn't get George Peppard to star, presumably in the Harvey role.

It's a fascinating history, if you're interested-- and it shows how contradictory the many reports of what went down are:

https://fredrikonfilm.substack.com/p/no-bail-for-the-judge-the-unmade

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

Actually, I did some research on NO BAIL recently and the dissolution of the project did not come about because of Hepburn bailing (pun intended).

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Ha. Good pun. And that movie would have had a great title (No Bail for the Judge.) That's the plot in a nutshell as I have read of it: Hepburn is a barrister(lawyer) whose Judge father is framed for the murder of a hooker. She goes underground to clear him. I've read one great scene in the script is: the Judge entering prison to face all the crooks and killers he put away there!

Well, I'm all up to read what the REAL story is of the collapse of No Bail for the Judge.

Which reminds me: the "story" on Vertigo had always been that Vera Miles had to quit the picture because she got pregnant. Not so, evidently. Vertigo was delayed(for Hitchcock's surgeries, for James Stewart's vacation) and Miles had HAD the baby and COULD have returned to the movie. But Paramount, MCA superagent Lew Wasserman and Columbia head Harry Cohn("owner" of Kim Novak) wanted Kim Novak in, Miles out.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

This article by Frederik Gustafsson (which I've linked to below) goes into the history of the NO BAIL FOR THE JUDGE project and its demise is much less sensational than Hepburn balking over a violent scene. In fact, Hitchcock left the project before Hepburn did.

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OK..I'm reading this! "Hitchcock left the project before Hepburn did." That's NEWS.

One thing about Psycho -- the book pretty much appeared "out of nowhere" in Hitchcock's life. He read a short positive review of it in the New York Times. The book published in April 1959, and Hitchcockl bought it IMMEDIATELY, spent the summer getting the script written and was shooting the film by late November 1959. Hitchcock had been searching "desperately" for a horror plot to compete with Diabolique and William Castle and -- maybe Psycho was such an exciting prospect that it pushed No Bail for the Judge off the schedule. I'll have to read more.

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The project was postponed in 1959/1960 due to Hepburn's pregnancy and Hitchcock working on PSYCHO, and it kept getting postponed for various reasons. Hitchcock left in 1961, but trade publications said Hepburn and intended co-star Laurence Harvey were still on board.

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As I've mentioned elsehwere in this thread, Hitchocck "used" Laurence Harvey as the star of a 1960 Hitchcock half hour, directed by Hitch himself. This struck me as a bit of a comedown -- Harvey couldn't be in a HItchocck MOVIE so they put him in a Hitchcock TV episode?

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CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

Then Hepburn and Harvey jumped ship in 1963.

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I suppose -- as happens modernly -- stars can remain "attached" to a project for years until a "contingency" contract expires. Modernly, Naomi Watts was "attached" to a remake of The Birds for years. Whether just as a rumor or by actual contract, nobody knows.

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By 1965, director Lewis Gilbert (best remembered as a James Bond director) was on board, but then the project fizzled out that same year when Paramount couldn't get George Peppard to star, presumably in the Harvey role.

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George Peppard! Criss-cross!

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It's a fascinating history, if you're interested-

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I am!

- and it shows how contradictory the many reports of what went down are:

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Just like with Vera Miles and Vertigo.

On some chat years ago, I asked if anyone had read the "No Bail for the Judge" novel and..how did it CLIMAX? As good as on Mount Rushmore?

Well, evidently there were TWO alternate climaxes. In the book: the villain hangs from a chandelier and falls to his death("The Hitchcock Fall.") In the script, the villain runs onto a horse race course and is trampled to death.

Not quite Mount Rushmore.

It remains my contention that North by Northwest and Psycho are PERFECT back -to -back -- the greatest chase up to that time followed by the greatest horror movie. No Bail for the Judge should not have come between them. But if it had been made AFTER them...it might have been another "Hitchcock film of decline" in the Torn Curtain tradition...

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

It remains my contention that North by Northwest and Psycho are PERFECT back -to -back -- the greatest chase up to that time followed by the greatest horror movie. No Bail for the Judge should not have come between them. But if it had been made AFTER them...it might have been another "Hitchcock film of decline" in the Torn Curtain tradition...
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To be honest, I agree with you. Before PSYCHO, it might have been classed a minor work akin to the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and DIAL M-- appreciated but not considered a masterpiece. After PSYCHO, it would seem a step back, no matter its good qualities, not unlike THE BIRDS and MARNIE. We'd be falling it a "regression" to the 1950s and not the trailblazer PSYCHO was.

I do think had it been made after VERTIGO and before NbNW it would have been seen as very transgressive for the period and in the context of Hepburn's career to that point. But timing is such an important thing-- no doubt the same would have been the case for MARNIE had it been released in 1958 and not 1964.

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

To be honest, I agree with you. Before PSYCHO, it might have been classed a minor work akin to the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and DIAL M-- appreciated but not considered a masterpiece. After PSYCHO, it would seem a step back, no matter its good qualities, not unlike THE BIRDS and MARNIE. We'd be falling it a "regression" to the 1950s and not the trailblazer PSYCHO was.

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There you go. Because of my "Hitchcock fandom," I've kind of made a study of Hitchocck's various "eras," and there was this real "climactic perfection" to North by Northwest ending the 50s and Psycho starting the 60's with nothing in between. Hitchcock closed out one era and opened a new one -- even though the two movies were less than a year apart in release!

If one adds Vertigo to the mix, you get the perfect "Big Three" in my estimation, largely because these are the ONLY Hitchcock three with a Bernard Herrmann score and a Saul Bass credit sequence -- the three are "packaged together as the epitome of thriller making" -- and the music is as important as everything else. As for Saul Bass, his were and are the greatest credit sequences of all time -- and Hitchcock got three of them for, arguably, his three best movies (Fans of Notorious and Rear Window, well, no Herrmann and no Bass. Notorious has a particularly dated credit seqeunce and score.)

Anyway, my reading of "No Bail for the Judge" is that it sounds indeed like one of Hitchcock's more "standard" mystery-suspense films(Dial M is a great example) but mixed in with SOME attempt to "modernize" (sexually in the main.)

It just sounds too damn "regular" to compete with the peaks of NXNW and Psycho.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I would like to note, moreover, that I find North by Northwest to be JUST as revolutionary and ground-breaking as Psycho, but in a different way.

I love To Catch a Thief of 1955 , but one looks at it now and 1955 Hitchcock wasn't too big on putting action in a thriller in that one. Its more of a romantic comedy with gorgeous Oscar-winning cinematography. Unlike QT, I think the final rooftop climax is truly great (the COLOR, the precision of the rooftop cliffhanger shots, the movement of the actors and stunt people) but...it ain't Mount Rushmore, and getting there isn't terrilbly action-packed at all.

No, it seems like by the time he reached the original screenplay of North by NOrthwest(and scenarist Ernest Lehman's desire to "make the HItchocck picture to end all Hitchcock pictures")...Hitchcock HIMSELF dug it: to compete with TV and to take movies into the 60's ahead...there had to be MORE action, BIGGER action.

NXNW had THREE major action sequences, perfectly paced through the film: the early drunken car drive; the crop-duster chase at midpoint, and the Rushmore climax. Thus was the stage indeed set for James Bond , but pretty much for action thrillers all through the 60s(Charade, Arabesque Mirage.)

Anyway, its hard to fit No Bail for the Judge properly in Hitchocck -- I think if it came BEFORE Vertigo it would have fit best.

And poor Hitchcock, he never really topped the double-whammy of action and horror that were NXNW and Psycho. The spy movies Torn Curtain and Topaz paled against the fantastical action in NXNW; NXNW screenwriter Ernest Lehman worked in a non-spy comical mode with Family Plot but couldn't come close to the scale of NXNW. The Birds and Frenzy were probably the best post Psycho pictures for HItchocck but not as fun as Psycho. And oh, Marnie went up against Vertigo and was found lacking.

CONT

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

I would like to note, moreover, that I find North by Northwest to be JUST as revolutionary and ground-breaking as Psycho, but in a different way.
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Oh absolutely. The spy craze of the 1960s would hardly exist the way it did without NxNW. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE in particular is very influenced by so much in the Hitchcock film-- the banter, the action scenes, the suspense on the train, the sexual tensions amidst international intrigue.
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No, it seems like by the time he reached the original screenplay of North by NOrthwest(and scenarist Ernest Lehman's desire to "make the HItchocck picture to end all Hitchcock pictures")...Hitchcock HIMSELF dug it: to compete with TV and to take movies into the 60's ahead...there had to be MORE action, BIGGER action.
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That becomes even more apparent when you compare it with Hitchcock's earlier spy films like THE 39 STEPS and THE LADY VANISHES. Two of my favorite films, but certainly more sedate and genteel in comparison to NxNW.

Man, I really need to rewatch NxNW now.
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And poor Hitchcock, he never really topped the double-whammy of action and horror that were NXNW and Psycho.
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No and it's so weird because those movies pushed such boundaries while his later work doesn't. I suppose one could argue FRENZY is an exception, though I'm not so sure. FRENZY is very of the early 70s in its extreme violence-- Truffaut once said it feels more like a young man's film than the work of an old pro-- but you could say it wasn't pushing boundaries so much as freely running among the debris of the old onscreen taboos.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

If one adds Vertigo to the mix, you get the perfect "Big Three" in my estimation, largely because these are the ONLY Hitchcock three with a Bernard Herrmann score and a Saul Bass credit sequence -- the three are "packaged together as the epitome of thriller making" -- and the music is as important as everything else. As for Saul Bass, his were and are the greatest credit sequences of all time -- and Hitchcock got three of them for, arguably, his three best movies (Fans of Notorious and Rear Window, well, no Herrmann and no Bass. Notorious has a particularly dated credit seqeunce and score.)
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Absolutely on all counts-- though NOTORIOUS is one of my top 5 Hitchcocks. I rewatched it yesterday and it's exquisite romantic suspense.

Saul Bass' openings are divine. Really an opening title sequence should give you a foretaste of the tone and/or themes of the film to follow, and for me, the VERTIGO opening in particular is so wonderful. I saw that one on the big screen and those spirals combined with Herrmann's score gave me chills.
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Anyway, my reading of "No Bail for the Judge" is that it sounds indeed like one of Hitchcock's more "standard" mystery-suspense films(Dial M is a great example) but mixed in with SOME attempt to "modernize" (sexually in the main.)
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The kinkiest thing about it would have been the gimmick of Audrey Hepburn in an openly erotic role-- I think Hitchcock really liked the idea of subverting her virginal image. Even now, that is what predominantly intrigues people about the project, moreso than the mystery angle or the irony of a stern judge getting accused of a sensational crime.

It probably wouldn't have been bad-- but I wouldn't trade PSYCHO or NxNW for what could have been.

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

Absolutely on all counts-- though NOTORIOUS is one of my top 5 Hitchcocks. I rewatched it yesterday and it's exquisite romantic suspense.

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There are lots of "Hitchcock's Best" lists on the internet now, and I'd say that Psycho(my favorite) only occasionally hits Number One. More often: Vertigo or Rear Window. Never: North by Northwest(it tends to come in between 5 and 3.)

But a few times, Notorious has indeed hit the Number One spot. Maybe because Roger Ebert(influential, but I'm not sure why) has put it as his Number One Hitchocck? Maybe because Truffaut told Hitchcock in their interview: "Notorious" is my favorite Hitchcock...at least among the black and whites" (which ruled Psycho out and left a ton of possible color faves.)

I dig on Notorious as a possible Number One. The black and white perfection of Grant and Bergman together for Hitchcock, as we would later have the Technicolor perfection of Grant and Kelly together for Hitchcock, and the witty perfection of Grant and Hepburn for Donen, together.

The waaaayyy ahead of its time "unspoken sexual candor" of the film. Grant pushing the woman he lives into the bed of another, sexually lesser man(once Bergman marries Claude Rains, even by 1940's Hays Code, she is having sex with the man.)

The brilliantly devised sense(so real,so real) of how the intensity that makes you love a person can make you hate them...even at the same time. This great exchange:

Bergman: This is a strange love affair.
Grant: Why?
Bergman: Maybe because you hate me.

And the absolute visual perfection of the thing ("Almost like a cartoon," said Truffaut.) The compositions , the camera moves, the close ups (the key.)

And this: Claude Rains as an utterly sympathetic villain. Grant and Bergman are like the Big Man on Campus and the Homecoming Queen pulling one over on the Campus Nerd. And Grant sends Rains to his death at the end(when he could have been a great witness against the Nazis.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

All good, all great for Notorious but...I'm a man from childhood "enthralled by the packaging." A great Saul Bass credit sequence. A thunderous or vertiginous or terrifying Bernard Herrman overture and score.

And Notorious simply can't compare with either the action of North by Northwest(there IS no action in Notorious) or the shock murders of Psycho(there ARE no graphic murders in Notorious; just one offscreen. Well, likely two.)

The otherwise ignoble screenwriter Joe Eszterhas wrote of seeing Psycho on first release in 1960 as a teenager and deciding "it was the most exciting movie I had ever seen." A great way to characterize Psycho and -- in a different way -- a great way to characterize North by Northwest(which was NOT beaten for awhile by the Bonds -- Dr. No is cheapjack and the helicopter chase in From Russia With Love is much sloppier than the crop duster scene in NXNW.)

But that excitement derives as much from the Saul Bass launch(yes, I think Vertigo has the best one) and the Herrmann score as Hitchcock and his actors.

I need to say this in some other place, but I will also say that NXNW and Psycho "lock in" as the exciting movies they were THEN, breaking all sorts of records about how much excitement a movie could have. That they were followed by decades of more of bigger action(with more machine guns and explosions) and bloodier slasher kills(and more of them) is totally true but irrelevant to what those two movies did THEN. And generally with better actors and better scripts than most of what followed.

And so, no, Notorious simply doesn't have the grip on my imagination, my past, my passion for exciting films as NXNW and Psycho.

And No Bail for the Judge? Well, we really don't know.

I mean, on paper, Vertigo isn't all that thrilling I suppose. Even the bell tower climax is more in emotion than thriller stuff(Gavin Elster ain't there to be fought and killed.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

The kinkiest thing about it would have been the gimmick of Audrey Hepburn in an openly erotic role-- I think Hitchcock really liked the idea of subverting her virginal image. Even now, that is what predominantly intrigues people about the project, moreso than the mystery angle or the irony of a stern judge getting accused of a sensational crime.

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Yes..its hard to believe that Audrey Hepburn could NOT have seen that the role had a sexual edge throughout -- she would be ACTING as a prostitute and likely HANGING OUT with real prostitutes, in a movie that probably COULD specify that(Hitchocck had great clout with the censors) without showing a thing.

One would hope that the "rape-like" attack on Hepburn in the script wasn't fully a rape. That detail is lost to history -- unless one can find the book. However, we do know that Hitch went for rape scenes in Marnie and Frenzy later -- and "symbolized rape" in Psycho and The Birds.

In some ways, this thread is digressing from Breakfast at Tiffany's, but I wouldn't mark it "OT." "No Bail for the Judge" seems to have come to Hepburn as a challenge she backed away from -- but perhaps it prepared her to take the hooker-ish role in BAT. What Hitchcock had hoped to do with Hepburn in No Bail for the Judge, Blake Edwards DID do with Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Hitchcock/Blake Edwards anecdote: When Julie Andrews was making Hitchcock's Torn Curtain at Universal, Blake Edwards -- soon to be her husband -- was dating her. He dropped by the set to pick her up after a day's work, but Hitchcock was there, saw Blake Edwards(surely known to Hitchcock as another director.) Andrews said that Hitchcock proceeded "to stand in front of me, with his hands on my chair arms, blocking my view of Blake, blocking Blake's view of me, demanding my full attention."

So Torn Curtain may not be a great Hitchcock movie, but he still worked on
controlling his female stars and lording over his sets even while making that one.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

(No Bail for the Judge) probably wouldn't have been bad-- but I wouldn't trade PSYCHO or NxNW for what could have been.

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Nor I. Nor movie history. Nor Hitchcock's bank account...

It is a scary "what if?" that if Hitchocck had moved on No Bail for the Judge when the Psycho novel was published, some lesser light like William Castle might have bought Psycho and made a nothing movie from it.

The other "scary what if" about Psycho came from Bernard Herrmann, who said that Hitchcock looked at a rough cut of Psycho(without music) said "this doesn't work, I think I'll cut it down for my TV show." Yikes!
Hitchcock's show was only a half hour at this time, less without commercials. He probably could have turned Psycho into a three part episode(he did some of those), but likedy all the shocks would have been removed and much of the "Marion part" removed. Lucky break we got Psycho after all.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I would like to note, moreover, that I find North by Northwest to be JUST as revolutionary and ground-breaking as Psycho, but in a different way.
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Oh absolutely. The spy craze of the 1960s would hardly exist the way it did without NxNW. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE in particular is very influenced by so much in the Hitchcock film-- the banter, the action scenes, the suspense on the train, the sexual tensions amidst international intrigue.

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Yep. AND the helicopter-chases-Bond sequence, which many a critic dissed as "a sloppy rehash of the crop duster sequence in North by Northwest." Indeed. Run the two sequences back to back and you'll see that early Bond wasn't up to Hitchcock level.

Moreover, From Russia With Love has a rather silly climax befitting its still low budget roots(the attack on the little boats on the lake) and AWFUL musical scoring for that climax. I mean it sounds like a B-minus level serial. Again, compare that to Herrmann's thunderous climax music on Rushmore (and right up to the fade out) in NXNW.

Still, overall, From Russia With Love comes closest to the "Hitchcock espionage model" of The 39 Steps and of Eric Ambler's written work. And it DOES have a spectacular, crackerjack fight to the death between Connery and Robert Shaw that made later Bond fights (versus silly henchmen like Jaws and the hook-handed guy in Live and Let Die and the little guy in The Man With the Golden Gun) look like kid stuff.

From Russia With Love isn't as good as NXNW but it is at the top alongside Goldfinger with the Connerys(even as my favorite of those is Thunderball -- an epic to me at the time, with three of the most beautiful yes, "Bond Girls" in one movie, all for pleasure.)
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CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

No, it seems like by the time he reached the original screenplay of North by NOrthwest(and scenarist Ernest Lehman's desire to "make the HItchocck picture to end all Hitchcock pictures")...Hitchcock HIMSELF dug it: to compete with TV and to take movies into the 60's ahead...there had to be MORE action, BIGGER action.
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That becomes even more apparent when you compare it with Hitchcock's earlier spy films like THE 39 STEPS and THE LADY VANISHES. Two of my favorite films, but certainly more sedate and genteel in comparison to NxNW.

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Yes. Hitchcock used Technicolor, Vista Vision, a cross-America chase(location photography) and plenty o' action to rather turn The 39 Steps and TLV into "quaint" quiet films, with almost no action in the case of The 39 Steps. And yet some critics in 1959 when NXNW came out, and some critics even today, score the British works higher than NXNW...which has historical relevance but...no. (Except, I'll bet in 1935, The 39 Steps felt just as exciting as NXNW.)

Can't leave out Saboteur -- that all-American WWII mid-point Hitchcock film with ITS climax on the Statue of Liberty(a silent, minimal-movement cliffhanger versus the wide open chase on Rushmore.)

But NXNW had bigger stars(Grant for hero, Mason for villain, Saint for heroine, Martin Landau for Henchman Number One), more action...and Herrmann and Bass.

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Man, I really need to rewatch NxNW now.

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Its a great one. Can't be found on HBO or Max anymore though. I'm holding my DVDs close.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

And poor Hitchcock, he never really topped the double-whammy of action and horror that were NXNW and Psycho.
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No and it's so weird because those movies pushed such boundaries while his later work doesn't.

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Yes. I've always said that NXNW and Psycho -- both summer movies, a year apart -- invented the "summer blockbuster" about 15 years before Jaws did. Hitchocck found gold that the studios refused to program. He also found the "youth market." One critic said of Psycho and The Birds: "They were a private teenage reserve; nobody's parents approved."

It seems that was the problem. After Psycho and The Birds, Hitchcock seemed desperate(for Oscar, maybe?) to make "serious dramatic spy films" about the nucelar age, or a "serious psychological sexual thriller(Marnie.) Its like he didn't WANT that youth audience.

But other problems after The Birds: age, health, drinking, competion (Bond in the main and all the "Hitchocck copycats" with younger POVs) -- Hitch's winning streak had to end sometime.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

I suppose one could argue FRENZY is an exception, though I'm not so sure.

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Ah, Frenzy. The movie that smashed the "Hitchcock got senile" narrative and forced a reconsideration of Marnie , Torn Curtain, Topaz.

What I will always remember about Frenzy - regardless of how great or not the film was -- was ALL those raves: "One of Hitchock's Very Best!" "Return of Alfred the Great" "Return of the Master" "Still the Master." If we could just review the REVIEWS, Frenzy was reviewed like the best movie he ever made. These were also "make up reviews" from young critics trying to make up for Vertigo and Psycho getting poor reviews.

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FRENZY is very of the early 70s in its extreme violence-- Truffaut once said it feels more like a young man's film than the work of an old pro

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Hitchcock's buddy Norman Lloyd (the man whe fell from the Statue of Liberty into working FOR Hitch) said that too.

I say: it was but it wasn't. Age showed its creaky bones in some of the expository scenes, and the three big set-pieces happened: in an office, in a stairwell, and in the back of a truck. "Easy filming locations."

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-- but you could say it wasn't pushing boundaries so much as freely running among the debris of the old onscreen taboos.

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Well Psycho was rather all by itself in 1960 in terms of sex and violence(less foreign films like Peeping Tom and Eyes Without a Face),but Frenzy was surrounded by R and X material, and rapes and other horrors. Still, Hitchcock turned in perhaps the most stylish and in some ways, the most profound of these works. Even the rape scene boiled down to "art" -- alternating shots of the woman saying a prayer and the rapist saying "Lovely, Lovely." It wasn't all that graphic at all -- thank you!

CONT

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 8 months ago

This was, among other things, a perfect manifestation of the "rule" that stars were very expensive in 1995(the year of the Sabrina remake) and...the producers could only afford ONE (Ford.) Which threw the entire balance of the original off. There was talk for awhile that Tom Cruise would take the Holden role but I knew it wouldn't happen: in 1995, Cruise generally was above the marquee ALONE(on his demand), he wasn't going to share with Ford (and yes, Cruise had made his name with Newman and Hoffman and Nicholson, but they were "older mentors.") You'd think they could have at least cast Jeff Bridges in the Holden part.
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You know, I never considered the lack of star power as a shortcoming of the remake but you're right. Ford owns all his scenes, while Ormond and Kinnear are less compelling.

It's a film that really tries to justify itself, going more into Sabrina's time at the French cooking school, presumably beefing up her characterization (it doesn't). However, it lacks the bite of the Wilder original, that balancing act between cynicism and fairy tale enchantment.

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

You know, I never considered the lack of star power as a shortcoming of the remake but you're right. Ford owns all his scenes, while Ormond and Kinnear are less compelling.

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Well, like I say, I have perhaps more of a "box office worship" thing about movie stars than is healthy, but one reason the original Sabrina was such a big deal in its time WAS three stars together. Though it had a tough game to play: its about a triangle so one of the male stars had to LOSE, and people seem to think today that Hepburn picked the wrong guy.

Setting aside "all-star stunts" like Judgment at Nuremberg(with stars cutting pay to do good), I think somewhat wrote that you could never make "The Guns of Navarone" the same way today because at "yesterday's lower star rates" you could afford Gregory Peck AND David Niven AND Anthony Quinn as the "team leaders on a mission."

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It's a film that really tries to justify itself, going more into Sabrina's time at the French cooking school, presumably beefing up her characterization (it doesn't). However, it lacks the bite of the Wilder original, that balancing act between cynicism and fairy tale enchantment.

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I did see the new Sabrina once, but I went in bias against it because of the star casting failures. It was OK at best. I think Ormond came off the weakest against Hepburn. Greg Kinnear DID have surprising star quality, but he didn't last long as any kind of star. (For instance, he got moved down to Vic Morrow's supporting role in the remake of The Bad News Bears 10 years after Sabrina.) Ford demonstrated --as he did in Working Girl - that if you put him in a suit and have him play a non-superhero type -- he's actually quite good in a William Holden way.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3703) 8 months ago

BTW, Greg Kinnear's most dangerous and daring turn was to play Bob Crane in "Auto Focus," one of the rare "over-sexed movies" of our time. Bob Crane was famous on-screen as the star of "Hogan's Heroes" and off-screen as a sex addict who leveraged his TV fame into a life of adultery(against two sequential wives) and one-night stands in the company of a truly creepy "false friend" perfectly played by Willem Dafoe.

The mix of sweet-faced boy next door Kinnear and ghoul-faced Dafoe(who could look handsome when he WANTED to) brought him the perverse theme of the story: to indulge his sex-driven lifestyle Crane had to pair up with a lower life than himself. "Auto Focus"(by director Paul "Taxi Driver" Schrader) pulled off the feat of making an "all sex all the time" lifestyle look truly ugly and banal. And of course, Bob Crane was murdered in a motel.

THAT's my Greg Kinnear performance. Not As Good As it Gets(his most famous role.)