# Breakfast at Tiffany's: What's the Appeal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 10, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461 "2001-10-10T00:44:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2001, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/21 "2001-10-11T13:13:45Z")
My mistake…maybe she wore Chanel in “Funny Face.” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2001, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/22 "2001-10-11T15:40:31Z")
Okay, you’re clear. I didn’t see it either-I did read a recap over at Mighty Big TV. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2001, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/23 "2001-10-11T21:49:36Z")
Though I like the movie, I cringe when I see AH (1) throw her cat across the room in a fit of rage, and (2) dump the cat from the taxi into a driving rain. Guess they didn’t bother about ASPCA certification in 1961. That was definitely no stunt cat in those scenes! ---
**Author:** ![xanadu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c4cdca/32.png) [@xanadu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xanadu)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2001, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/24 "2001-10-12T03:40:13Z")
I pretty much agree with what everyone has said. The plot (or lack thereof, depending on your opinion)is hardly an issue. Audrey Hepburn is just so charasmatic and so damn fun to watch in this movie. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/25 "2001-10-16T17:39:01Z")
There is a period piece quality to the film that I enjoy. Besides all that’s been said regarding the performances, the cinematography, the colors, the cars, the big party at Holly’s, central park - it’s a neat (though antiseptic) snapshot of NYC at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/26 "2001-10-16T19:49:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WordMan \* > PS: Okay, if someone were to play Audrey Hepburn today, who would it be? As it stands now, the only person I think MIGHT be able to pull it off would be Natalie Portman… I think I remember reading when Audrey Hepburn died, an article quoting her as saying that she believes that Julia Roberts would make a perfect Holly Golightly in a remake. ---
**Author:** ![G.Nome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c89c15/32.png) [@G.Nome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.Nome)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/27 "2001-10-16T23:25:35Z")
When I last saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s on television I was, for one reason or another, sitting very close to the screen. I realised with astonishment that every single close up of Audrey Hepburn’s face was shot with a “vaseline lens”. It was so obvious it was almost farcical. The camera would sometimes move from another actor’s perfectly clear face to Hepburn’s fuzzy, glistening countenance within seconds. I mean, was she a burns victim or something? Breakfast at Tiffany’s was a fine novel by a great author. I recently tried to read James Halperin’s book The Truth Machine at the recommendation of so many people on these boards. I found his writing to be shallow and sterile in the extreme and in comparison with Capote, almost unreadable. Who is the most Capote-like author around today? I’d love to know. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2003, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/28 "2003-12-21T22:56:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by naughty wicked zoot \* > **i think that one of the things that people find so wonderful about this movie is hepburn’s performance. she is so perfect as holly golightly, a little country girl who moves to the big city and becomes someone else. women want to be her, and men want to meet her. hepburn is charming and graceful and beautiful. the script is well-written, the acting is superb, the music is wonderful and the settings used in the movie are perfect. in all, i think the movie is a beautiful story of love conquering fear, which is a universal theme.** I’m curious when you say that “women want to be her”. Isn’t Holly Golightly/Lula Mae essentially a whore (and Varjak, too)? She gets $50 for trips to the powder room, which I understood to be a bit of a euphemism for sexual acts with her rats and superrats (any outright declarations of prostitution for a main character were considered taboo at this time, or so I read). Even if there was no overt sex, she’s basically a one-woman escort service with ambiguous promises of sex… Don’t get me wrong; I couldn’t resist being attracted to Hepburn’s Holly for her charm, brashness, and that kind-hearted vulnerability at the root of her character. But as a role-model, she’s the classic gold-digging leech for most of the movie, and I’m puzzled that this character is held up to such high esteem. Are people going with the Holly at the end of the movie here, or just admiring the good and forgetting the bad? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/29 "2003-12-22T12:20:48Z")
The movie screws up one crucial element from the book, rendering it senseless: the narrator, a Capote-manque, is plainly gay, and thus able to empathize with Holly and to connect with her in ways that a straight guy would never be able to do. The movie turns him into a studly straight guy who manages to suppress all sexual feellings for Holly until the “happy ending” when he all of a sudden gets a case of hots for her and marries her. Makes zero sense. The entire psychology of the book changes, which is okay if you think the book is a piece of crap, but I don’t see how you can admire the book and see the movie as a serious adaptation of it. Everything stays the same, except the characters’ relationship goes from asexual to full-on sexual. Yeah, right. ---
**Author:** ![Ivar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ivar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivar)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/30 "2003-12-22T20:54:34Z")
In the book, Holly is a whore and Fred turns out to be gay, so I really don’t like to compare the movie to the book. In the movie, she’s just a party girl/escort and fred definitley isn’t gay. And it certainly isn’t timeless, with the Mickey Rooney caricature in there. I think I laughed the first time I saw it, but it just makes me uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461/31 "2003-12-22T21:43:26Z")
> [@](#): > > The movie turns him into a studly straight guy who manages to suppress all sexual feellings for Holly until the “happy ending” when he all of a sudden gets a case of hots for her and marries her. Well, there’s a pretty clear indication that they slept together, and not just platonically. That’s when he started in with the “you belong to me” stuff (which is the most problematical element of the film IMO; I choose to hear “with” instead of “to”). And among the reasons this movie is a classic, may I humbly submit the nape of George Peppard’s neck? _Rrrowwrrr._ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breakfast-at-tiffanys-whats-the-appeal/86461.md?page=1)