BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961) (***1/2)
If romantic comedies were more like this one, I'd have to re-think my general opinion of the genre. Director Blake Edwards, working from George Axelrod's Oscar-nominated adaptation of Truman Capote's novel, is witty and nuanced. Led by an effervescent performance from Audrey Hepburn, the film is light as air and still has meat on its bones.
The story follows the eccentric New York playgirl Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn, SABRINA) as she sets her sights on marrying a millionaire. She has Brazilian Jose da Silva Pereira (Jose Luis de Villalonga, DARLING) and American Rusty Trawler (Stanley Adams, TV's THE TWILIGHT ZONE) on short leashes, while she's getting paid $100 an hour to visit Sing Sing and talk to gangster Sally Tomato (Alan Reed, TV's THE FLINTSTONES). George Peppard (A-TEAM leader Hannibal Smith) plays Holly's new next-door neighbor, Paul Varjak, a writer who's being "sponsored" by a wealthy older woman named Mrs. Failenson (Patricia Neal, THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES), who is referred to throughout the film as 2-E.