They All Laughed

Not too much, they didn’t. Meant to be priapic, this would-be romantic comedy winds up flaccid. I rather like Peter Bogdanovich, and I can see why this is his favorite of all his films -- it’s practically a home movie -- but it will not be anyone else’s favorite. I had more tolerance for this film because I happened to watch the dvd extra interview between him and Wes Anderson beforehand, and thus had the backstory to a film that doesn’t have much story at all. So I knew Ben Gazzarra and Audrey Hepburn were actually having an affair, as were Dorothy Stratton and Bogdanovich, who is impersonated by John Ritter. The long-haired hippie who is fellow detective to the other two guys was actually the producer of the film, and created his own patter. Perhaps the most vivid character in the film is the city of New York, and the caught-on-the-fly footage on the streets of the city is the best part of the movie. It’s the staged moments that seem surprisingly awkward, and the sound design is notably amateurish. Dorothy is authentically lovely as a young, golden dream, but the film’s comedy is shadowed by the fact that the jealous husband, glimpsed only through the windows of their apartment, in real life wound up killing her. (See Star 80.) And Audrey is authentically lovely as a middle-aged matron (her actual 20-year-old son plays vapid foil to several young women), but whatever she had going on with Ben, it doesn’t come across the screen. Other young lovelies bounce around the film, but nothing adds up or has any narrative drive. (1981, dvd, n.) *5+*

Though much too little is made of her in one of her very last films, it was neat to see Audrey in her 50s the day after seeing how she was in the ’50s. I showed Funny Face (1957) as part of my “Crossing Channels: Art & Music into Film” film series at the Clark, and she was delightful as the bookstore clerk turned high-fashion model. Fred Astaire was also good as the Richard Avedon/Pygmalion character who discovers her, and then woos her. He can still hoof it for an old guy, but makes a bit of a queasy match for our young Audrey. The film procedes with a marvelous energy -- not least in Kay Thompson as the Vogueish magazine editor -- which peters out into nonsensical complications and a repetitious resolution. Stanley Donen’s direction begins as a swirl of color and movement, including a whirlwind travelogue of Paris, but flaws start to accumulate toward the end, so the final effect is less than euphoric, despite the charm on view.