Audrey Hepburn Blogathon–“Funny Face” (1957)

I’m a little late with my post. I honestly didn’t realize that it was only one day, I thought I had the weekend. Whoops. I attended a baseball game (employee appreciation function) with my coworkers that evening and just didn’t have time. Anyway, better late than never, right? I didn’t want to miss out on writing about one of my favorite movies, Funny Face from 1957.

I recently saw The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel to the first film that came out in 2006. I’m not the first person to make this observation, but The Devil Wears Prada shares a lot of similarities with Funny Face, a film that predates it by more than 50 years. Both The Devil Wears Prada and Funny Face feature a protagonist, Anne Hathaway’s Andy and Audrey Hepburn’s Jo, respectively, who initially dismisses fashion as frivolous until they find themselves swept up in the glamour and prestige of the fashion industry. Andy has to deal with a demanding boss in the form of editor Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) and Jo has the less demanding, but very particular Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson). Both Miranda and Maggie have dutiful assistants. Miranda has Emily (Emily Blunt) as her #1 assistant and Maggie has an entire army.

Andy and Jo even both have a male confidant who helps them navigate the fashion world around them, as well as serve as a bit of a buffer between them and their demanding boss. In The Devil Wears Prada, Andy has Nigel (Stanley Tucci), the art director of Runway magazine and Miranda’s right-hand man. In Funny Face, Jo has Dick Avery (Fred Astaire), the photographer of Quality magazine. He also helps her please Maggie. One difference between The Devil Wears Prada and Funny Face in this regard is that Nigel and Andy aren’t paired up romantically, whereas Dick and Jo are. As an aside, I’ve read many criticisms of the pairing of Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. While yes, Astaire is 30 years older than Hepburn, I think they make a charming pairing. I also read that they both signed onto the film because they wanted to work with the other which I find very endearing.

The Devil Wears Prada and Funny Face both feature an annual trip to Paris that everyone looks forward to–one of the perks of working at a fashion magazine. While the circumstances of their respective trips to Paris differ, with Andy being present as part of Paris Fashion Week, and Jo actually appearing as a model in a show. However, both Andy and Jo’s trips are presented as a big moment in their careers.

However, this isn’t to say that The Devil Wears Prada is a remake of Funny Face. Both films are different enough that they can stand as their own original story. I’m not going to go into detail about the plot of the former, as this isn’t a blog about The Devil Wears Prada. In a nutshell, however, this film is an adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same title. In the story, Andy, a recent college graduate and aspiring journalist, lands a job at Runway magazine as an assistant for the highly demanding and critical editor, Miranda Priestley. Andy thinks the world of fashion is frivolous, compared to the more “important” publications for which she wants to work.

In Funny Face, Audrey Hepburn plays Jo Stockton, an employee who works in a bookstore devoted to philosophy. Jo, in particular, is interested in the philosophy of empathicalism. The editor of Quality magazine, Maggie Prescott, decides that she needs a new backdrop for the latest fashions modeled by her cover girl, Marion. Maggie and photographer Dick Avery come across Jo’s bookstore and invite themselves in. They quickly cause chaos and ruin the store’s organization, as they decide to rearrange everything to make the books look more interesting. After the photo shoot, Dick stays behind to help Jo clean up. This scene hints at the future romance in the film.

Jo is very dismissive of Maggie, Dick, and the entire staff at Quality. What she doesn’t know is that Dick snapped some photos of her face, because he saw something in her “funny face.” He convinces Maggie that Quality needs a new face, a different face. Marion is kicked to the curb and Jo is in. However, she doesn’t want to be in. She finds fashion to be shallow and unimportant, but when Dick tells her about the annual trip to Paris, she’s intrigued. Her idol is Professor Flostre, who lectures on his ideas of empathy. He is based in Paris and she wants to hear him speak. She agrees to model for the fashion show that Quality is sponsoring in exchange for the trip.

Of course, like in The Devil Wears Prada, when Andy starts to like how she looks and feels in the high fashion designer clothes, Jo starts to enjoy the fashion shoots in Funny Face for an upcoming issue of Quality. Dressed in beautiful outfits and photographed in various locales around Paris, Jo looks exquisite. Also, if there’s one thing I love, it’s an in-movie fashion show. My particular favorite is the red strapless column gown she wears as she descends the stairs exclaiming to Dick, “take my picture! take my picture!” However, Audrey Hepburn could wear a paper bag and it’d look like Givenchy haute couture. Givenchy of course designed Hepburn’s wardrobe in this film as he designed all her costumes in her films–including Sabrina for which Edith Head memorably won the Best Costume Oscar.

I love Funny Face. Mainly because Audrey and Fred are so charming together. I also loved Kay Thompson. She was mainly a vocal arranger, choreographer and Liza Minnelli’s godmother! She also wrote the popular children’s picture book series, Eloise. Eloise is about a little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Thompson and Astaire perform a very funny musical number, “Clap Yo’ Hands,” while they pretend to be entertainers from Tallahassee, Florida. They are crashing an event at the home of Professor Flostre to find Jo and bring her back to the hotel for the fashion show.

There’s also an iconic performance by Audrey Hepburn, at a beatnik club in Paris. Dressed in slim black pants, black turtleneck, white socks, and black loafers, Audrey delivers a fantastic dance number–full of energy. I remember seeing this entire scene play out again and again on television in the early 00s in a Gap ad advertising skinny black pants, except this time she was dancing to AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” While I don’t know about deceased celebrities being used in advertisements, there’s no doubt that Audrey is an icon, and in particular, a fashion icon. Gap was smart to use her to advertise something simple like slim black pants. People may not know Funny Face, but they know Audrey Hepburn.