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Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
In Blake Edwards' 60s comedy:
- a spirited and radiant New York call girl socialite
- Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), a gold-digging prostitute wearing
a sculpted black Givenchy evening gown and sunglasses and standing
outside the locked Tiffany's jewelry store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan
in the film's opening credits sequence - window-shopping while
eating her breakfast from a to-go white paper bag (coffee in a
polystyrene cup and a dry pastry or croissant); after a night on
the town, she was enroute, via walking, to her NY brownstone where
she often plied clients
- the iconic view of Holly loudly whistling for a cab
outside her brownstone for her neighbor: aspiring writer (with writer's
block) Paul Varjak (George Peppard) - he was amazed ("I never
could do that"); and then she met the woman exiting the cab:
a wealthy married 'decorator' Emily Eustace (nicknamed 2E) Failenson
(Patricia Neal) - Paul was her 'kept man'; Holly lowered her sunglasses
to get a closer look
- Holly's description of her tabby Cat (Orangey), and
why she couldn't commit to giving it a name - when speaking to Paul: "Poor
old cat. Poor slob. Poor slob without a name. The way I look at it,
I don't have the right to give him one. We don't belong to each other.
We just took up by the river one day. I don't even want to own anything
until I can find a place where me and things go together. I'm not
sure where that is, but I know what it's like. It's like Tiffany's...I'm
crazy about Tiffany's"
- the same scene of Holly's advice to Paul who urged
him to overcome the fearful and horrible 'mean reds' - by a trip
to Tiffany's: ("You know those days when you get the mean reds?...
The blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining
too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible.
Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of.
Do you ever get that feeling?...Well, when I get it, the only thing
that does any good is to jump into a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms
me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it. Nothing
very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place
that made me feel like Tiffany's, then, then I'd buy some furniture
and give the Cat a name")
- the crowded apartment cocktail party scene in Holly's
cramped one-bedroom brownstone on Manhattan's East Side with loud
mambo music; before the party really started, Paul listened to Holly's
self-important agent O.J. Berman (Martin Balsam) ask a question about
his client: "Is she or isn't she?...A phony"; after Paul
answered: "I don't think so", Berman continued: "Well,
you're wrong, she is. But on the other hand, you're right, because
she's a real phony. You know why? Because she honestly believes
all this phony junk that she believes in. I mean it. Now look, I
like the kid. I mean, I sincerely like the kid. I do. I mean, I'm
sensitive, that's why. I mean, you gotta be sensitive to like the
kid, you know what I mean? It's what you call a touch, a streak of
the poet, you know what I mean?"; Berman then took credit for
discovering Holly, for giving her class after a year-long effort
to smooth out Holly's accent, and described how she often acted impulsively
(and skipped her screen test)
- brief party scene vignettes included: Holly's Cat
jumping on a guest's back, Holly setting the purple hat of a guest
on fire with her long cigarette holder (while somebody else doused
it with their drink), Holly's neighbor Paul placing his cold drink
glass against the naked back of a blonde and then having his drink
stolen by Holly, the delivery of "reinforcements" (more
booze and food), lots of over-imbibing and smoking, the incensed
complaining of upstairs bucktoothed Japanese photographer-neighbor
Mr. Yunioshi (Mickey Rooney in a controversial buffoonish, racist
role) who phoned (Holly's phone was hidden in a closed suitcase)
and threatened to call the police, soused red-haired model Mag Wildwood
(Dorothy Whitney) reprimanding a rich male for flirting with Holly
("To think I'd find a beau of mine, mousin' after a piece of
cheap Hollywood trash...You know what's gonna happen to you? I am
gonna march you over to the zoo and feed you to the yak. Just as
soon as I finish this drink") - and then collapsing face-first
onto the floor as Holly cried out a warning: "Timber!",
the sounds of a siren marking the arrival of NYPD officers who passed
Holly (she directed them upstairs) walking away on the arm of Mag's
millionaire beau, and the discovery behind a shower curtain of O.J.
Berman kissing a sexy blonde (Thayer Burton) who had earlier identified
herself to him as "Irving"
- the simple scene of Holly strumming a guitar and
singing Johnny Mercer's Oscar-winning song "Moon River" on
her fire escape landing
- Holly's reacquaintance with her ex-husband, Texan
Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen), who incessantly called her Lula Mae
- they had been married (now annulled) when she was only 15 years
old; in the scene at a bus station, Holly explained why their love
hadn't worked and why she wasn't going back with him to Texas:
"It's a mistake you always made, Doc, trying to love a wild thing.
You were always luggin' home wild things. Once it was a hawk with a
broken wing and another time it was a full-grown wildcat with a broken
leg. Remember?... You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing. The
more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to
run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and
then to the sky"; when he departed broken-hearted, she admitted
to Paul: "I am still Lula Mae. Fourteen years old, stealing turkey
eggs and running through a briar patch. But now I call it having the
mean reds. Well, it's still too early to go to Tiffany's. I guess the
next best thing is a drink"
- the sequences of Holly and Paul fulfilling Holly's
idea: "We can spend a whole day doing things we've never done
before. We'll take turns. First something you've never done, then
me" - beginning with their magical visit to Tiffany's - where
she exulted as they entered: "Don't you just love it?...Tiffany's.
Isn't it wonderful? You see what I mean how nothing bad could ever
happen to you in a place like this? It isn't that I give a hoot about
jewelery, except diamonds, of course - like that!"; however,
his offer of buying her a present for $10 or less made their choices
"limited"; the two rejected a $6.75 sterling silver telephone
dialer; Paul suggested a ring in his pocket from a Cracker Jack box,
that could be engraved with initials at Tiffany's - Holly was pleased
that the salesman (John McGiver) was accommodating - she kissed him,
and then told Paul: "Didn't I tell you this was a lovely place?"
Visiting Tiffany's With Paul
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- their visit to a public library, where Paul showed
her how to find his published book in the card catalogue from five
years earlier: "Varjak, Paul. Nine Lives"; after retrieving
the book, Holly bragged to the librarian-clerk that Paul was the
author, and foolishly suggested that he autograph the book, although
the clerk vehemently objected: "What are you doing? Stop that!
You're defacing public property"
- the scene in the local Carter's 5-10-25 store of Holly
demonstrating her love of shop-lifting: ("Hey, did you ever
steal anything from a five-and-ten, when you were a kid, I mean?...I
used to. I still do every now and then, sort of to keep my hand in.
Come on. Don't be chicken. Anyway, you've never done it, and it's
your turn"; the two wore Halloween masks and exited the store
without paying, and she yelled "Boo!"
at a cop on the corner as they ran across the street
- their slow-kiss, after they returned to Holly's apartment
and removed their masks; and shortly afterwards, Paul found Holly
in the library, where she was reading a book about South America;
he professed his love ("Holly, I love you"), but she stubbornly
admitted instead that she was determined to marry José da
Silva Pereira (Vilallonga), a wealthy South American politician ("I
thought if I'm going to marry a South American, I'd better find out
something about the country...Well, my dear, you won't believe this,
but it turns out not only is he handsome and wildly rich,
he's absolutely cuckoo for me")
- the film's final scene in a cab during a downpour;
Holly stubbornly insisted to Paul that she would still travel to
NYC's Idylwild Airport and fly to Brazil (even though Jose had decided
to break up with her through a letter delivered by his cousin, to
protect his reputation) - Paul read the letter outloud, with its
final line: ("I have my family to protect and my name and I
am a coward where these institutions enter. Forget me, beautiful
child. And may God be with you. Jose")
The Taxi-Cab Ride and Abandonment of Cat
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- in a heartbreaking moment, she decided to abandon
her nameless Cat by letting it out the taxi's back door: "I'm
like cat, here. We're a couple of no-name slobs. We belong to nobody.
And nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other. Stop
the cab. What do you think? This ought to be the right kind of
place for a tough guy like you. Garbage cans, rats galore. Scram!
I said take off! Beat it! Let's go!"
- the sequence of Paul's angry lecture at Holly after
ordering the cab to pull over and stop: "You know what's wrong
with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You've got no guts.
You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, 'Okay, life's a fact.'
People do fall in love. People do belong to each other because that's
the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself
a free spirit, a wild thing. And you're terrified somebody's gonna
stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You
built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas
or on the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter
where you run, you just end up running into yourself" - he tossed
the engraved Cracker Jack ring at her ("Here. I've been carrying
this thing around for months. I don't want it any more"), and
left the cab to find Cat
- in the film's final moments, with a sudden change
of heart, Holly put on the ring, exited the cab and ran back down
the rain-soaked street, joyously located Cat, and was reunited with
both Cat and Paul in an alleyway - she kissed Paul with the Cat squeezed
in-between them - her last line: "Cat! Cat! Oh, Cat... ohh..."
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Holly Outside NYC's Tiffany's at Dawn
Holly Eyeing Emily Failenson or 2E (Patricia Neal)
Holly: "Poor old Cat"
Holly's Description of Fear: "The mean reds"
Apartment Cocktail Party Scene
Complaints From Neighbor Mr. Yunioshi
Holly: "Moon River"
Holly's Ex-Husband Doc Golightly (Buddy Ebsen)
Paul and Holly's Visit to Library
Wearing Halloween Masks
Slow-Kiss
Ending Scene: Cat Found - and Reconciliation in the Rain
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