A sweet face

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Movie
German title A sweet face
Original title Funny face
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1957
length approx. 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Stanley Donen
script Leonard Gershe
production Roger Edens
music Adolph Deutsch ,
George Gershwin
camera Ray June
cut Frank Bracht
occupation

A sweet grimace , also known under the reference title The Pink Mannequin , is an American film musical by Stanley Donen from 1957. Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire can be seen in the leading roles . The film is based on the original screenplay by Leonard Gershe . The music comes partly from the musical Funny Face by George and Ira Gershwin from 1927, but the storyline has nothing in common with the storyline of the musical.

action

The successful Maggie Prescott, editor of the US fashion magazine Quality , is not often satisfied with the ideas of her own employees. So she first came up with the idea of proclaiming pink as the new fashion color (see the song Think Pink ), and then the idea of ​​building a new supermodel , the “quality woman”, which the most famous Parisian couturier is to furnish exclusively for her magazine . This woman is said to have all the ideals of the modern American woman and thus embody the newspaper and Maggie Prescott.

With her photographer Dick Avery and the model Marion, she goes to Greenwich Village in the hope of being able to take the ideal pictures in an intellectual, existentialist bookstore in front of an unfamiliar backdrop. During this photo shoot, photographer Avery discovers the inconspicuous bookseller Jo Stockton, who, in his opinion, should become the new “quality woman”. However, he first has to convince Miss Prescott and then Jo Stockton. He succeeds with a trick: Although Jo Stockton rejects fashion in principle, he can convince her that the recordings are to be made in Paris, where her great idol, the founder of “empathicalism”, Professor Emile Flostre, lives and teaches. Empathicalism is a parodic allusion to existentialism.

Jo Stockton, a staunch empathicalist, sees this trip to Paris as an opportunity to get to know the professor personally. However, when it turns out in Paris that Professor Flostre is more interested in her body than in her mind, she falls in love with the photographer Dick, who previously courted her. At first still torn between her world of “empathy” and the world of fashion, Jo finally decides for a life as a model that begins with resounding success and for the love for Dick.

Background information

Stanley Donen's film is very different from the Gershwin musical Funny Face in terms of both content and music . Only five song numbers are from Gershwin. Fred Astaire was seen alongside his sister Adele Astaire in the Gershwin musical as early as 1927. Fred Astaire's role is loosely based on the career of photographer Richard Avedon .

In contrast to her later music film My Fair Lady , Audrey Hepburn sings all of her songs herself in this film. She was able to pursue her great passion at Astaire's side: dancing. Some scenes were shot in a meadow on the outskirts of Paris, but after days of rain and the ground became increasingly muddy, the filming turned out to be difficult. Hepburn sighed: “I've waited 20 years to dance with Fred Astaire and what do I get now? Swamp!"

synchronization

The dubbed version was created at Berliner Synchron for the German cinema premiere, the dialogue book was written by Fritz A. Koeniger , and CW Burg directed the dubbing .

role actor German Voice actor
Jo Stockton Audrey Hepburn Marion Degler
Dick Avery Fred Astaire Hans Nielsen
Maggie Prescott Kay Thompson Friedel Schuster
Professor Emile Flostre Michel Auclair Friedrich Joloff
Paul Duval Robert Flemyng Erich Fiedler
Lettie, one of the secretaries Ruta Lee Sigrid Lagemann

criticism

  • Lexicon of international films : “A funny and lively musical staged throughout with lots of delightful dance scenes, which in the best moments turn into pointed parodies. Well played, great the color dramaturgy. "
  • Evangelischer Filmbeobachter (Review No. 14/1958): “An ugly duckling becomes a radiantly beautiful swan in a sequence of lined-up dance and song performances, which are of course held together by a very weak framework. Despite some successful scenes, a disappointment. "

Awards

The film was nominated four times for an Oscar in 1958 . The categories included "Best Costume", "Best Equipment", "Best Camera" and "Best Original Screenplay".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanley Green: Hollywood Musicals Year by Year. 2nd Edition. 1999, p. 208.
  2. ^ Stanley Green: Encyclopedia of the Musical Theater. 1976, p. 138.
  3. ↑ Bill Marshall, Robynn Stilwell (Ed.): Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond. 2000, p. 64.
  4. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | A sweet face. Retrieved December 27, 2017 .