Perhaps the most exciting experience of watching the movie is the explosive performance from actress Kay Thompson, playing fashion magazine editor, Maggie Prescott, in addition to being a driving force behind the vocal arrangements. Although she appeared in only a handful of Hollywood films, Thompson is the lynchpin of this movie and an unbridled powerhouse on the screen.
With her rapier-sharp comic timing, steady vocals, and the skill to move through complicated choreography as though playing hopscotch, Thompson steals every scene in which she appears. This is certainly the reason the Centennial Collection DVD contains a new special feature covering Thompson’s life and work and is well worth purchasing this edition of the film, even if you already have an older copy of Funny Face on your shelf.
For those buying the new DVD release there are two other new special features: a documentary piece on Paramount’s VistaVision format and another featurette on fashion photography that takes viewers along to a real fashion shoot while discussing Richard Avedon’s contributions to the making of the feature. For those who never tire of hearing about Audrey Hepburn’s friendship and collaboration with French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, your needs are fulfilled with a fitting homage to the relationship between these icons of the golden age of icons.
Why is Funny Face so durable? Perhaps in the film’s naïve representation of love, it fuels a yearning for fantasy that still beats strong in our hearts despite our best attempts to rationalize it into extinction through pop psychology and other attempts to gain control over the riskier parts of our nature. For those of us who still like to live dangerously and let life’s winds muss our hair, we can be thankful that the big studios keep movies like Funny Face on the shelves.
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