Movie Monday: Breakfast At Tiffany's

Breakfast At Tiffany’s, 1961. Starring Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen. (Director: Blake Edwards)

Plot: In this Blake Edwards-directed adaptation of Truman Capote’s novel, fortune hunter Holly Golightly (Hepburn) finds herself captivated by aspiring writer Paul Varjak (Peppard), who’s moved into her building on a wealthy woman’s (Neal) dime. As romance blooms between Paul and Holly, Doc Golightly (Ebsen) shows up on the scene, revealing Holly’s past.

 

Trailer!

 

Trivia, Scenes,& Clips!

 

Tiffany's opened its doors on a Sunday for the first time since the 19th century so that filming could take place inside the store.

Author Truman Capote envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the part of Holly Golightly. Monroe was originally cast as Golightly, but her drama coach, Lee Strasberg, told her that playing a call-girl was not good for her image. The film went on to be a huge success, with Monroe's replacement Audrey Hepburn receiving Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress.

Audrey Hepburn hated Danish pastries, making filming the famous opening scene a bit of a chore for her

Although not visible on camera, hundreds of onlookers watched Audrey Hepburn's window-shopping scene at the start of the film. This made her nervous and she kept making mistakes. It wasn't until a crew member nearly got electrocuted behind the camera that she pulled herself together and finished the scene.

Audrey Hepburn said the scene where she throws Cat into the rainy street was the most distasteful thing she ever had to do on film.

Holly's pad is much larger than the real-life brownstone used for exteriors.

The movie was shot only three months after the birth of Hepburn's first son, Sean H. Ferrer.

George Peppard was a student of Method acting, a style Hepburn found difficult to work with. Nonetheless, the two actors remained close friends until her death.

Holly's couch is really an old-fashioned bathtub split in half. In some scenes, you can still see the gold handles at one end and the legs on the bottom.

Audrey felt that she was miscast as Holly Golightly in this film, although it was one of her most popular roles.

The song "Moon River" was written especially for Audrey Hepburn, since she had no training as a singer. The vocals were written to be sung in only one octave.

At a post-production meeting following a screening of the film, a studio executive, in reference to "Moon River," said, "Well, I think the first thing we can do is get rid of that stupid song." Audrey Hepburn stood up at the table and said, "Over my dead body!" The song stayed in the picture.

Truman Capote maintained that he based Holly Golightly on Carol Grace (the former wife of William Saroyan and future wife of Walter Matthau), who had been a friend of his while living in New York.

Steve McQueen was offered the co-starring role. However, he was still under contract for the show "Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1958), which prevented him from appearing. The role eventually went to George Peppard.

Contrary to popular belief, the movie follows Truman Capote's original novel quite closely. The character of Mag Wildwood, the Amazon-like model who crashes Holly's party in the film, is a major character in the novel. Capote describes her as having a stutter. In the film, Mag does indeed stutter though this isn't explained. During the shoplifting sequence, Holly briefly dons a Huckleberry Hound mask; a direct reference to a line in her song, "Moon River." Although Audrey Hepburn's performance of "Moon River" is unsurpassed, it would not be officially released until after her death. Holly's "bad date" prior to her first visit to Paul's apartment is only heard behind a door. The man who provides this voice is uncredited, but he sounds a lot like Mel Blanc, who at the time was working with film co-star Alan Reed on "The Flintstones" (1960).

Audrey Hepburn's salary for the film was $750,000, making her the second highest paid actress (behind Elizabeth Taylor) per film at the time.

The story which Paul received the $50 check for is called Roman Caper, a reference to Audrey Hepburn's first starring role, Roman Holiday (1953).

About nine cats were used throughout the film as the role of Cat.

The movie's poster was as #18 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere

The famous black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the opening scenes of this movie was sold for $807,000 on December 4, 2006 at Christie's Auction House in London, making it the second most expensive piece of movie memorabilia ever sold. The first is the Best Picture Oscar for Gone with the Wind (1939).

Although it's never explained why Holly is wearing a bed sheet at her cocktail party, an earlier scene (cut before release) established she'd been taking a bath and had to improvise a gown on the spur of moment. The cut scene was featured in Life magazine pictorial shortly before film was released.

After seeing Buddy Ebsen in his country role in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), the creator of "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962) wanted him to play family patriarch Jed Clampett. At the time, Ebsen was thinking of retiring, but the producers sent him a copy of the script, and he changed his mind.

The uncredited voice of the "terrifying man" tearing up Holly's apartment is actually George Peppard. Years later, in 1983, as Hannibal Smith of TV's "The A-Team", Peppard's character regularly disguised his voice - a talent he used to deceive the show's villains. Rather than dubbing his voice for those sequences, Peppard did the various voices himself.

Holly Golightly is supposed to be just nineteen years old when she meets with Paul. Audrey Hepburn was thirty-one years old when playing Holly.

The perfume Holly is spraying in the apartment hallway during her drunken scenes is Makila by Jean Patou.

Director Blake Edwards was lunching with Mickey Rooney at a posh Hollywood restaurant when Rooney objected to how his salad was being tossed by the waiter and proceeded to show the 'proper' way to do it. Edwards thought Rooney's attention-getting routine so funny that he wrote it into the movie.