When Hepburn Met Capote: The Enduring Appeal of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”

Tony Maietta [00:00:28]:
Hello. I'm film historian, Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve [00:00:31]:
And I'm Brad Shreve who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta [00:00:34]:
We discussed movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We'll stir some of your fondest or maybe not so fond memories. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve [00:00:45]:
And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta [00:00:51]:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve [00:00:58]:
So, Tony, as you know, this podcast we started because you were a guest on my other podcast, Queer We Are.

Tony Maietta [00:01:04]:
Right.

Brad Shreve [00:01:04]:
And you were the only guest that I had on twice. I haven't had anybody else on twice so far.

Tony Maietta [00:01:09]:
Really? Wait. Really? Is that true?

Brad Shreve [00:01:10]:
That is true. And the reason why is yours was the most popular episode, and it was so immensely popular. I said, I gotta bring Tony back, and we're gonna talk about movies.

Tony Maietta [00:01:19]:
It was like the Hunger Games of movies. You just were throwing subjects out at me. Katharine Hepburn, go. Cary Grant, go.

Brad Shreve [00:01:27]:
Exactly. Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:01:27]:
It was fun.

Brad Shreve [00:01:28]:
But we started talking about Breakfast at Tiffany's, and we didn't have time to get into it to give it justice.

Tony Maietta [00:01:34]:
No. We did not. So we thought, let's just create a podcast so we can finally talk about it and give it justice.

Brad Shreve [00:01:40]:
Exactly. That that's the only reason we started a podcast. We said we need to talk about gravitas. We better start a podcast.

Tony Maietta [00:01:46]:
Yeah. It's kind of in the zeitgeist right now because of the Ryan Murphy feud, Capote versus the Swans. So this has nothing to do with with Feud. It just it just happened to be con confluence of things that Feud is happening about Capote, and we're talking about Capote's arguably his most famous writing. I mean, In Cold Blood is certainly up there too, but Breakfast at Tiffany's is legendary. So is in Cold Blood, but you know what I'm saying.

Brad Shreve [00:02:13]:
I think when in Cold Blood when it came out as a movie was probably, I would guess, almost equal.

Tony Maietta [00:02:18]:
Oh, yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:02:19]:
It's certainly not as entertaining of a film because it's much darker.

Tony Maietta [00:02:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. Much darker. It's about murder. The worst thing that happens in Breakfast at Tiffany's is a lot of smoking and some cat abuse, and that's about it.

Brad Shreve [00:02:34]:
My sister adores cats. We watched it recently, and she was like she screamed every time. So

Tony Maietta [00:02:40]:
Well, it's funny because I know we're gonna get into this more. But, you know, in the novella, she says, like, get the fuck out, and she pushes the cat out of the taxi. Now I know Audrey Hepburn is not gonna say, get the fuck out, but or fuck off or something like that. She explicative, you you know, whereas Audrey Hepburn just kinda pushes her out of the cab or him out of the cab. I think Cat's a Cat's a male. I I we Cat's a male, I believe.

Brad Shreve [00:03:01]:
The cat is a male, and his name is Orangie.

Tony Maietta [00:03:04]:
Orange. I think cat's better.

Brad Shreve [00:03:07]:
Orangie won the Patsy award for top animal star that year.

Tony Maietta [00:03:11]:
You just stumped film historian. I had no idea about that.

Brad Shreve [00:03:16]:
So let's just introduce the film really quick for those that may have not seen it. I'll kinda give the technical details. I'm not gonna get real deep into those. But the film came out in 1961. The film it starred, Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. It's a screenplay by George Axelrod. I believe he won some awards for it, but it's based on a Truman Capote novel of the same name. Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:03:37]:
Directed by Blake Edwards, who's also known for the Pink Panther film, Victor, Victor, Victorian, plus of others. The film cost $2,500,000 to make. It grossed 14,500,000, which did make it a hit because that equates with adjusted for inflation to a $120,000,000 today, which ain't too shabby.

Tony Maietta [00:03:55]:
That's amazing. No. It was a huge hit. It was it was it was a tremendous hit. That is without that goes without saying. What's interesting is it's become, I think, even bigger as the years have gone on. I mean, we're talking about a film which is over 60 years old. I don't know.

Tony Maietta [00:04:10]:
It's is there something about it that speaks to people to this day? It's the you know what I you know what I think it is. Maybe it's too early to get into this, but I think it's Moon River. That film without Moon River would not be nearly the romantic icon of a film that it is without Moon River. Don't you think so?

Brad Shreve [00:04:29]:
You may have a point. I mean, her sitting on the fire escape, sitting there singing it, it's just a beautiful part of the film.

Tony Maietta [00:04:36]:
It is. But I but even before that, when the movie starts and the cabs coming up Fifth Avenue at dawn on its way to Tiffany's, and you get that beautiful that beautiful, like, melancholy instrumental starting the and just going, you know, it's just so it immediately takes you someplace. You know? And it takes you someplace wonder it's just so romantic. It's such a romantic song. It's such a romantic score. And I feel personally that although I I enjoy the film, it wouldn't be nearly the the iconic film it is without that without that song.

Brad Shreve [00:05:12]:
I think you have a good point. And it's it's one of those films when you think about you hear that song or one of those songs when you hear it, you think of the film. Oh. They're so intertwined, and they were perfect for each other.

Tony Maietta [00:05:21]:
Immediately. Immediately. And, you know, they wanted to cut it. Paramount hated it. Yeah. Movie studios, they want to cut over the rainbow. I mean, you know, it's just like you wonder how any decent film gets made. There has to be one same person in the room, and I believe the legend is is it was Audrey who sent over my dead body, which I don't know if I believe that, but it's a great story.

Brad Shreve [00:05:42]:
I've heard Audrey, and I heard one other name, and I can't remember who it was. It may have been it may have been Blake Edwards. I'm not sure.

Tony Maietta [00:05:48]:
Right. I'm sure. But I'm sure he was or one of the producers. I mean, you know, who who would cut Moonriver from from Breakfast at Tiffany's? I mean, it's just it's inconceivable.

Brad Shreve [00:05:58]:
Well, you mentioned, The Wizard of Oz. The reason they wanted to cut out Somewhere Over the Rainbow is they were like, this is one of our bigger stars, and we're and we have her walking around in in hay and singing a song.

Tony Maietta [00:06:08]:
Don't want to sing in a barnyard. You know? Yeah. And it also slowed they felt they felt it slowed down the movie. You know? And as Judy said, they didn't wanna Judy said, on our TV show, she said, they don't wanna see those fat girls singing in a barnyard. You know? But, it's just, you know, it's in the move the film is inconceivable without Over the Rainbow. And Breakfast at Tiffany's, to me, is absolutely inconceivable without Moonriver. It's their part and parcel. You know?

Brad Shreve [00:06:33]:
I'm gonna keep referencing the novella, but and we're eventually gonna have a conversation about the differences. But what's interesting in the novella, she's always singing a country song.

Tony Maietta [00:06:43]:
Yeah. She's from Tulip, Texas by way of Belgium. You know? That's why she sounds the way she does.

Brad Shreve [00:06:49]:
By Belgium nobility?

Tony Maietta [00:06:51]:
Yes. Yes.

Brad Shreve [00:06:53]:
They were very wealthy, and

Tony Maietta [00:06:54]:
I know a lot of this stuff from my last novel. Forgive me for the plug. My last novel, there was a lot of Breakfast at

Brad Shreve [00:07:00]:
Tiffany's involved in it because one of the characters was a fan, the one that gets murdered. Mhmm. So I had to do a lot of research into it. And what I learned with Audrey was that they were this noble family. Her father left them when she was, like, 6 years old, I think, because he was a Nazi sympathizer.

Tony Maietta [00:07:15]:
Right.

Brad Shreve [00:07:15]:
And the mother was at the beginning, but when the war started, mom's like, oh, wait a minute. This isn't very cool. Dad continued to support the Nazis. And they went from

Tony Maietta [00:07:23]:
a noble lifestyle to so poor, they were grinding up tulip bulbs to use as flour. Oh, is it? Yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons why she was so thin. She never got it's true. It's true, though. She talks about that. She was so malnourished from the war that she was always so reed thin the rest of her life. I don't know if that's a

Brad Shreve [00:07:45]:
She could have fattened up. She had a few years.

Tony Maietta [00:07:48]:
Well, but sometimes that affects your metabolism. You know what I mean? And it's possible that you can. Now I don't know if that's if that's I can't think of the word when, you know, you're not it it might be a a Shreve story or it might not be a real Tony, but I mean, the the truth is is she suffered during the war. There's a great book called Dutch Girl, which is about her childhood and and the things that she did and, you know, the resistance to the Nazis, and it was it's just astounding, the things this woman accomplished in her relatively short life, particularly in the 1st few years. I mean, it's Well,

Brad Shreve [00:08:17]:
that's what blows me away when she considered where she started, and then they hit rock bottom, you know, like eating tulip bulbs for god's sakes. And then she winds up this beautiful star in Hollywood who almost always played, not necessarily royalty, but definitely upper crust.

Tony Maietta [00:08:31]:
Aristocratic.

Brad Shreve [00:08:32]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:08:33]:
Which is what's so amazing about the fact that she's playing Holly Golightly from Tulip, Texas, and we buy it. I mean, I should I should rephrase that. I buy it. A lot of people buy it. I mean, it wouldn't be the the legendary film it is.

Brad Shreve [00:08:46]:
But she also played Holly in an aristocratic way, which is one of the flaws in the film, not my opinion Mhmm. But some many people's opinion.

Tony Maietta [00:08:55]:
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of flaws in the film. I mean There's tons of them. Should we mention the big elephant in the room Well of Mickey Rooney right now, or do you wanna get to it later?

Brad Shreve [00:09:05]:
Gonna get into Mickey Rooney, but I want you to give a synopsis just for those who haven't seen it. I'm gonna say this movie is listed throughout many places, IMDB and the other places, as romance, comedy, and drama. Some of them listed as a romcom, which I would really argue that one. Actually, it's very frequently listed as a romcom. Mhmm. But either no matter how it's described, the comedy is always there.

Tony Maietta [00:09:26]:
If you wouldn't list it as a romantic comedy, what would you list it as? A romance?

Brad Shreve [00:09:30]:
I don't consider it a there's definitely a romance, and there's definitely a lot of comedy, but there's enough drama in there. And it's not you know, you always have conflict in any kind of romcom. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a movie. Yeah. This is kinda heavy stuff sometimes. So I don't know. Maybe romcom with a twist of drama. I don't know.

Brad Shreve [00:09:48]:
I actually ran through my head, and I'm like, how would I categorize it this hard?

Tony Maietta [00:09:51]:
Well, you know, they they designed it. Paramount designed it as a romantic comedy. And one of the reasons, I know we'll get to it later, but one of the reasons that Mickey Rooney is in this is because he was supposed to bring the comic relief. Now that sounds ludicrous from our standpoint right now. You know, he brings the, oh my god, fast forward this part whenever you watch it now. But the I the idea was in Blake Edwards' mind and Robert in Shepherd's mind, who's one of the producers, was Mickey Rooney was gonna bring the comedy to the story, but the there's plenty of comedy without him. Yeah. I mean, the party scene, one of my favorite scenes in the movie, the party scene with with Madge Wildwood and timber when she goes right over that god bless that actress.

Audrey Hepburn [00:10:32]:
Mhmm.

Tony Maietta [00:10:33]:
Right over. I mean, the you know, and the woman who's standing in front of the mirror laughing at herself and then she's crying at herself. I mean, there's lots of wonderful comedic touches in this film. You don't need that outrageous slapstick yep, of mister Yuniyoshi.

Brad Shreve [00:10:47]:
And, listen, I'm gonna tell you, I adore this film, and that gonna that offends some people because I am fully aware it is extremely racist. And I'll set that aside and say, if we cut all that out, I love this film. It has tons of flaws, but I still adore this film. So okay. So we talked about it being a romantic comedy drama. Kinda give a breakdown, Tony, of the plot, the story. What is this about?

Tony Maietta [00:11:09]:
Well, the movie, which is much different from the novella it's based on, Truman Capote's novella, is about basically 2 sex workers, if you're going to use 21st century language, 2 sex workers who find love and purpose with each other. You know, Audrey Hepburn plays a I'm gonna use the word call girl who lives in Manhattan by her wits. She's kind of a 1961, not really Carrie Bradshaw, but you kinda see where the beginnings of Carrie even though Carrie Bradshaw was not a sex worker.

Brad Shreve [00:11:39]:
That's a good connection. I never made that.

Tony Maietta [00:11:42]:
No. That's really it. I mean, when you look at when you look at Sex and the City, what you're seeing is the 19 nineties version of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Because think about it, fabulous wardrobe, single girl, having all these adventures, not having a really viable source of income other than she writes some columns for a newspaper.

Brad Shreve [00:11:58]:
But what they're missing is it wasn't 5 friends walking side by side Right. Down Manhattan without bumping into anybody, but that's a whole different Exactly.

Tony Maietta [00:12:06]:
Well, when you have Audrey Hepburn, you don't need anybody.

Brad Shreve [00:12:07]:
No. You don't.

Tony Maietta [00:12:08]:
None of them are Audrey Hepburn. So yeah. So Audrey Hepburn plays this party girl, Holly Golightly, a name which she made up, and Golightly, according to Truman Capote, was go lightly from man to man. In fact, on her mailbox, it said, Holly Golightly traveling, which, you know, means she's always she's never there. And she meets this man who moves into her apartment building played by George Peppard, who is being supported by the wonderful Patricia Neal. Patricia Neal is his quote unquote patron. She's keeping him in questionable luxury in that apartment, and they fall in love, you know, and they go through a lot of trials and tribulations on getting through their own personal dramas and their own personal walls they put up to eventually come together with each other and kiss happily in the rain with the cat as Moon Shreve plays. It's it's, you know, it's a wonderful it is such a romantic film.

Tony Maietta [00:13:05]:
It's it's hard to to be jaded about it for me. It's hard to be jaded about it because I find it because it's just wonderful. It always makes me it it always makes me happy when I watch breakfast activities. Who am

Brad Shreve [00:13:16]:
I go to? Like, I'm not in

Tony Maietta [00:13:17]:
the mood to read, watch TV. I'll put on breakfast activities. That's great. I didn't know that.

Brad Shreve [00:13:22]:
Oh, yeah. I love this film. Just love this film.

Tony Maietta [00:13:24]:
Oh, it's so cool. So, yeah, it's about 2 people 2 people who are very much alike who have to get through their own personal bullshit to find their ways to each other, and the way they do it is the plot of the film. Although, he seems to be think about George Peppard's character is he's so, he's he he wants it from the beginning. You know, he's clearly very disillusioned. He plays a writer, quote, unquote, a writer who hasn't written in months months months years. He doesn't even have typewriter ribbon in his typewriter, you know, which Holly calls him out on. But they recognize kindred spirits. They recognize themselves in each other, and that's what brings them together.

Tony Maietta [00:13:58]:
And I think that's probably what that's probably what people are drawn to other than the stereotypical romantic aspects of it in the film is that you identify. You can identify with these people, because they're fighting they're fighting themselves. The the novella, character Paul in the in the film played by George Peppard is a nameless character. Doesn't have a name. Yeah. And he's gay. He's living in this building with Holly and their friends. They're more brother and sister.

Tony Maietta [00:14:26]:
They're not romantically involved. And when they decided they wanted to make this into a film, they realized they had to change the main character, but what was the obstacle be? So they decided to make them both make them a call girl and a call boy. They were both prostitutes basically, and they had to they had to come together, and that was the obstacle was getting through themselves. Nothing was keeping them apart but each other, and I find that really fascinating. That's a very modern way of thinking. There wasn't someone Patricia Neal wasn't keeping them apart. She's, like, writing a check. She's, like, you know, here, I'll write your check.

Tony Maietta [00:15:00]:
I'm a very stylish girl. They keep each other from getting together, and and they have to overcome that. Primarily, Holly has to overcome that. She doesn't wanna be owned, she says. You You know, I think one of the most offensive lines in that film is when Paul says to her with, you know, you belong to me. Mhmm. You know? And that every makes everybody's back go up now. You belong to me.

Tony Maietta [00:15:21]:
But what he's saying is is that when you when you love somebody, you kinda do belong to each other. You don't own them, but there's a sense of belonging there. There's a sense of home there, and that's kinda what it's about.

Brad Shreve [00:15:34]:
I'm gonna disagree with you as far as him falling in love with her at the beginning. Okay. And because I'm looking at it from a a writer's perspective. I find him fascinated by her. You know, she's so Holly is so over the top. It's kinda easy to say, well, he had an easy role. Paul just kinda wandered around. But I watched that, and to me, he is totally a writer.

Brad Shreve [00:15:54]:
Like, the party that she has, he is observing and absorbing everything. Mhmm. And he kinda wants to be in the middle of it, but he's also just, like, really taking it in. So my perspective and I can see why somebody would say he's he's in love with her from

Tony Maietta [00:16:07]:
That's interesting.

Brad Shreve [00:16:08]:
Seeing it as a as a writer and and putting myself in that place Mhmm. I think he's fascinated by her and eventually falls in love with her.

Tony Maietta [00:16:15]:
He's at a remove he but he's at a Shreve.

Brad Shreve [00:16:17]:
Yes.

Tony Maietta [00:16:17]:
He's he's pulled himself back. He's observing. He's a writer. He's watching, observing.

Brad Shreve [00:16:21]:
He pulls himself in as the story progresses.

Tony Maietta [00:16:23]:
But he's very involved with her still.

Brad Shreve [00:16:25]:
He loves her. Mhmm. He falls in love with her.

Tony Maietta [00:16:29]:
Yeah. No. I can tell that. I can I can see that? I can I can see that point? Well, there's definitely an attraction there, and it's funny, you know, with with allegedly how Audrey was not crazy about Jordan Lepard because I guess he was a real egomaniac, very difficult to work with. Patricia Neal had worked with him at the Actor's Studio, and she was initially excited to be doing this film with him, but I guess between the time they had worked at the Actors Studio in the mid fifties and they got around to shoot this, his head got incredibly big. And he really became he was really difficult. He fought with Blake Edwards. He was not kind to Patricia Neal.

Tony Maietta [00:17:02]:
He was cold to Audrey, and you're just like, dude, you know, you're not the star of this, that woman over there is you need to be nice to her, you know, and Audrey of course was Shreve reverse, everybody loved Audrey. Audrey was Audrey Hepburn. I mean, her reputation, there's a reason why she still people love her today. She's she's she's adored today 30 years after she died because she was a wonderful person. I mean, look at her work with UNICEF after her film career. I mean, that that kind of stuff and what she did during the war we talked about earlier, you know, that that kind of stuff, there's a reason for that.

Brad Shreve [00:17:36]:
The one thing I heard and because you hear so many different stories. You never know which which are true. But what I heard as far as George Peppard goes

Tony Maietta [00:17:43]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:17:44]:
He and, Audrey Hepburn were close friends till the day she died. She just hated working with him.

Tony Maietta [00:17:50]:
I never heard that.

Brad Shreve [00:17:51]:
Yeah. Because he was a method actor, which I you know, you would know more what a method actor is. I I looked it up, and I still didn't grasp it. But

Tony Maietta [00:17:58]:
Yeah. But he was a he was a method asshole, apparently. According to Beverly. Oh, yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:18:04]:
So what I heard is she hated working with him, but she still liked him as a friend. Really?

Tony Maietta [00:18:08]:
Yeah. I don't think she disliked anybody. I think that's one of the wonderful things about Audrey Hepburn. I mean, for a girl who had every reason to be bitter and angry, you know, after what she went through as a war, I mean, she was just this wonder she was an angel. You know, there are people I believe who are angels, and I think she was one of them, and that comes through in all of her performances, which is kinda leads us back to why she's such an unusual, a crazy, many people think, choice to play Holly Golightly, but Breakfast at Tiffany's was considered unfilmable. You know, like, to, in 1970, Gorbodel's book, Myra Breckenridge, was considered unfilmable because it was about transgender woman played by Raquel Welch. But Holly Golightly was in Truman Capote's novella, She's a Prostitute. There's no shadings about that.

Tony Maietta [00:18:59]:
That's what she does. They're like, how are we gonna film this? You know, we can't do this, but so what they did was and what they often did in Hollywood is they would take I think of it as padding the character. So you take an actor who has enormous amount of audience identification as one thing, say, a Tom Hanks, who people love. Tom Hanks brings an enormous amount of goodwill with him

Brad Shreve [00:19:23]:
Mhmm.

Tony Maietta [00:19:23]:
To anything he does. So what do they do? They put him in a character which is kind of unlikable, so the audience already brings that love they have for Tom Hanks to this character. Billy Wilder did that with Jack Lemmon all the time. He would because Jack Lemmon was kind of like Tom Hanks was, and Jack Lemmon was in the fifties sixties, had this enormous amount of goodwill as Jack Lemmon. So Billy Wilder would put him would would cast him as characters who were kind of, you know, not not the nicest people in the world, you know, in the apartment. He's not a nice guy. He's pimping out his his apartment for people to have extramarital affairs. So when they realized they had to they had to get an actress who was almost the exact opposite of Holly Golightly, and who's that gonna be? It's gonna be Audrey Hepburn because Audrey Hepburn had just made the nun story a few years before.

Tony Maietta [00:20:17]:
So your cast so a few years before this, she was playing a nun Mhmm. And now she's playing a call girl. And it still you know, I gotta tell you, it still works to this day. I watched Beck versus the Tiffany's, and I'm like, it's hard for me to really fathom that she's playing a call girl. She's getting $50 to go to the powder room, which in today's money is, I think, somewhere around, like, 3 or $400 to go to the powder room, and it's so it's so euphemistically presented that I think and the producers have even said this too. It doesn't really hit people that she's playing a call girl like it would have hit people if Marilyn Monroe had played the part, which was who Truman Capote saw as Holly Golightly, and his novella is much more in line with who Holly Golightly was. You put an actress who's known for being angelic, who's known for being almost saintly. Hello.

Tony Maietta [00:21:05]:
She just did the nun Tony. And you put her in this part, it immediately softens all the edges. And that's one brilliant way of getting away with this. And the other way they did it was eliminating the homosexual character and making him the romantic interest.

Brad Shreve [00:21:20]:
The reason he wanted Marilyn rather than Audrey, Audrey, you just adore. She walks in the room and people adore her.

Tony Maietta [00:21:26]:
You adore Marilyn when she walks in the room? Mhmm. You don't adore Marilyn when she walks in the room?

Brad Shreve [00:21:30]:
In a different way. In a different way, and that's kind of what Capote wanted. He wanted Holly to be more like the story where the attraction was her sexuality. Mhmm. And Marilyn definitely exudes that sexual and it's it's not just her look, but her whole personality just exudes sexuality. And that's what he wanted, and that's why he wanted Maryland. Whereas Holly Mhmm. Even if she was even if Sucks wasn't involved, can't help but love to be around her.

Brad Shreve [00:21:58]:
And that's why he didn't that's one of the reasons why he didn't think she was a good choice.

Tony Maietta [00:22:01]:
Well yeah. Well, he and also because she's not like the character. You know. She's she's Audrey Hepburn.

Brad Shreve [00:22:07]:
Truman Capote hated this movie, and he hated Audrey Hepburn in the role.

Tony Maietta [00:22:11]:
After it came out though, he was nothing but he had nothing but praise for it while it was being made. Because he was friends with Audrey Hepburn, and he was friends with Marilyn Monroe. So he did not say anything negative at all about it as it was happening. It was only later in his life as he became, you know, his life became more and more debauched as he was going down the going down the drain of all of his various illnesses and addictions that he would say disparaging things about it. You know, Audree didn't care. She was off doing god given work. I don't know. I would love to see a Breakfast at Tiffany's with Marilyn because that would be the real thing.

Tony Maietta [00:22:46]:
You know, that would be so much closer to what he originally wrote. Maybe. Mhmm. I mean, Marilyn had a very soft side to her. Women love Marilyn and men love Marilyn. That was what was so amazing about Marilyn Monroe was, you know, were women weren't threatened by her the way they might have been threatened by, Jane Mansfield or, you know, women loved her too because they felt they needed to protect her. So there's a very but that's a Holly Golightly thing too. You feel like you wanna protect her.

Tony Maietta [00:23:12]:
Yeah. You know, Audrey has that. You wanna protect her, but it's a different kind of thing. What what is it about Audrey Hepburn? Because when you think about it, and people say this, I mean, she was tall. She was like 5 foot 7, 5 foot 8, big feet, flat chested. She was like there were 2 major sex symbols, if you wanna use that word, or ideals in the fifties, and they were Marilyn, you know, curvaceous and voluptuous, and there was Audrey, the exact opposite, and they were both huge stars in the fifties, and they still are. I mean, they're still huge icons. You see them all over the place on Hollywood Boulevard.

Brad Shreve [00:23:51]:
It reminds me of the Gilligan's Island who is sexier Ginger or Mary Anne.

Tony Maietta [00:23:54]:
Kind of is. You know? Blonde and the redhead or a blonde and the blue I mean, they're polar opposites of each other, and they rule Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:24:01]:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:24:02]:
And Doris Day was in there too, but Doris Day was obviously too old to play on quietly. They ruled the box office in the late fifties, early sixties. Well, Marilyn, of course, died in 62, so she didn't for too long, but the late fifties, definitely. Who are you gonna pick to play Holly Golightly? Are you really gonna pick Marilyn Monroe, or are you gonna Audrey Hepburn? And they went with Audrey.

Brad Shreve [00:24:24]:
I think a good way to talk about this movie is to compare the novella to the movie. I think that's a good way to introduce the story.

Tony Maietta [00:24:32]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:24:32]:
And first thing I wanna say is I do not like the debate of which was better, the movie or the book. Because if you have a a 60,000 to a 160,000 novel, there's gonna be changes in the movie. You just can't fit them in 2 hours. So

Tony Maietta [00:24:49]:
Right.

Brad Shreve [00:24:50]:
You have to look at them separately and say, okay. This is a good movie. This is a good book, and not do that kind of comparison. An exception is when things aren't just compressed, but things like this movie where things are changed dramatically. That's a whole different story to me. Mhmm. Lawrence Block, who's one of my favorite mystery writers, actually my favorite mystery writer, He had 3 of his novels made into movies. One was Burglar, which starred Whoopi Goldberg.

Brad Shreve [00:25:20]:
It's a travesty.

Tony Maietta [00:25:21]:
I remember that.

Brad Shreve [00:25:23]:
The others were 8,000,000 Ways to Die and A Walk Among the Tombstones. All 3 of them did not do very well. And what I like about Lawrence Bloch is he said, I don't know why they made the changes they did to my novels, but I am an author. I am not a screenwriter. I'm paraphrasing. Mhmm. But that is what he said. He he basically said, I sold them the Tony, and it's them to make it a movie.

Brad Shreve [00:25:45]:
I don't make movies.

Tony Maietta [00:25:46]:
Well, that's what Capote said too. Oh. Capote's like, I'm not involved in the movie.

Brad Shreve [00:25:49]:
Okay. Good.

Tony Maietta [00:25:50]:
You know? I mean, that's the way he was about it. He's like, no. Because people would say that to him when it was being filmed, like, Audrey Hepburn, what do you and he's like, no. It's not mine. You know? He's he's working on it in cold blood. He's like, I sold them. That's their thing. So you really can't come back years later and bitch about it even though he did, but, you know, he's Tramacapodie, so that's what they're gonna do.

Tony Maietta [00:26:08]:
But you're absolutely right. They're 2 different things. They're 2 different, I love this word, entities. I use it all the time. They're 2 different entities, film, TV. Now, if I if a book I wrote was ever going to be optioned for, you know, someone to buy it, I think the smart thing to do would be to sell it and keep your hands off it. Because otherwise you're gonna go crazy because being a screenwriter is a totally different art and very few, and I might be wrong about this, you might be the exception, Brad. Very few people who write fiction, nonfiction books are able to transition to screenwriting.

Tony Maietta [00:26:47]:
Now did John Grisham write any of his movies?

Brad Shreve [00:26:50]:
I don't know.

Tony Maietta [00:26:51]:
I wonder. I

Brad Shreve [00:26:51]:
don't know. I would be surprised if he did.

Tony Maietta [00:26:53]:
Because it's just crazy making.

Brad Shreve [00:26:55]:
Because you have to be very lean when you write a movie. Yeah. And leave it to the director to fill in, you know, other than the dialogue.

Tony Maietta [00:27:02]:
You need to be very lean.

Brad Shreve [00:27:03]:
And that's not Grisham to me.

Tony Maietta [00:27:05]:
It's a totally different discipline. It's a totally different genre. You can't do that, so I mean to his credit Capote said that when they were making it. The changes in Breakfast with Tiffany are so drastic, that it really, it's you kinda look at it as a separate thing. You know, I love the novella and I love the movie.

Brad Shreve [00:27:22]:
I love both too.

Tony Maietta [00:27:23]:
I don't consider them the same thing.

Brad Shreve [00:27:25]:
No. No. And let let me touch on why I think the romance was necessary, and I think making Paul straight was necessary. And here's the reason why. The novella was basically a memoir of Holly's life.

Tony Maietta [00:27:38]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:27:38]:
And it really just kinda ended.

Tony Maietta [00:27:40]:
Mhmm. You

Brad Shreve [00:27:40]:
know, here's what Holly did, and she moved away, and that was the end. You can't do that in a movie. Right. You have to tie things up in a nice little bow. So they either made it a romance or they changed it in some other way, and people love romance.

Tony Maietta [00:27:53]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:27:53]:
So it doesn't surprise me that they made it into a romance and made Paul straight.

Tony Maietta [00:27:58]:
Well, and he couldn't he couldn't be gay. You know? The the production code was

Brad Shreve [00:28:01]:
Well, that's true.

Tony Maietta [00:28:02]:
Still very much enforced. So there's no way he could be gay. Even if he even if there wasn't a romantic comedy, he wouldn't have been gay. Yeah. You know? But then what you know? What I don't know how you'd make that, though. So I can understand what they were doing because the production code would never would have allowed that unless he died in the end. So But

Brad Shreve [00:28:16]:
I think even without that, there needed there had to be some kind of change.

Tony Maietta [00:28:19]:
Yeah. There had to be. I mean, because the novella is kinda it's it's plotless.

Brad Shreve [00:28:23]:
Yeah. It really is.

Tony Maietta [00:28:24]:
You need to have some kind of through line. I mean, you know, the the Sally Tomatoes in the novella, and mister Yuniyoshi is a minor character in the novella.

Brad Shreve [00:28:34]:
Though he's the first character.

Tony Maietta [00:28:35]:
Yes. But he's not you know what I mean? He's not, like, a driving force. He's not the one who calls the cops.

Brad Shreve [00:28:40]:
Right.

Tony Maietta [00:28:41]:
I think when when they when they get arrested. It's interesting. You know what you know what it also reminds me of too? We were talking about how the film is, like, a template for Sex and the City. The novella, I really think is kind of when I'm re when I was rereading it, is kind of a template for will and grace. Because you have a gay man in a friendship, a purely platonic friendship with a heterosexual woman. Now, I'm not saying that Holly Golightly is like Grace was, Grace. You don't often see that relationship, between a gay man and a straight woman Shreve though in life, it's very prevalent. And I think that's what's really interesting about the novella is that the he's an observer, but they're also friends.

Tony Maietta [00:29:21]:
The friendship is very important in the novella. And you have this mythic character, this Holly Golightly, who goes off into is he going to Brazil?

Brad Shreve [00:29:29]:
Yeah. Brazil.

Tony Maietta [00:29:30]:
She goes to Brazil in the end. Right? And disappears, and she only comes back in his mind because somebody somebody saw a mask that

Brad Shreve [00:29:37]:
looked like her, and there's

Tony Maietta [00:29:38]:
this I it's a statue. Yeah. That somebody that carved in some deep village, and it's just it's it's wonderful how mythic she is in the, in the novella. And I don't know that you could have done that. You know what I mean? It would've been Tony this for a movie. But like you said, there is no real story line.

Brad Shreve [00:29:53]:
It's just here's here's who Holly is, and that's really all you're reading about. Yeah. And she's fascinating enough that you wanna continue reading it, but it wouldn't carry over to a movie.

Tony Maietta [00:30:02]:
Not at all. Not at all. It wouldn't do that for so many reasons. That's why they considered it another reason they considered it unfilmable. It wasn't just that this stuff would never get past the censors or past the production code. It's that there was no plot, so they had to develop a and so George Axelrod here's another thing interesting too. So George Axelrod wanted to write this once they decided they were gonna do this film, he wanted to write this He

Brad Shreve [00:30:23]:
was a screenwriter.

Tony Maietta [00:30:24]:
He was a screenwriter. He wrote 7 Year Edge. He was he also wrote Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? So he was a big late fifties playwright. Interesting thing about George Axelrod is he wanted to write Breakfast at Tiffany's like nobody's business because he had gotten typecast in this kind of, like, hokey, screenwriter type, dreck type thing, even though I love 70 Rich. I don't think it's drag. I think it's I think it's a charming film. So he wanted they didn't want it because they wanted someone classy, but nobody could crack this riddle. But he did.

Tony Maietta [00:30:57]:
He cracked it, and so he wrote the screenplay. Now what's interesting about George Axelrod is George Axelrod wrote The 7 Year Itch, which is which is a the play, which is a comedy about adultery made into a film in which no one has sex. So he made a sec he wrote a sex comedy without sex for the film. He wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's about a prostitute in which no one considers her a prostitute. So he's he's always getting these things past production code that somehow magically work. So he created this this romantic comedy with plot, and he put in these, remind me, is it, do they have the shoplifting scene in in the novella? I can't remember.

Brad Shreve [00:31:35]:
No. None of that. The whole scene where they say, let's do a day where we each do something we've never done before, that doesn't exist.

Tony Maietta [00:31:42]:
Okay. So no. They don't.

Brad Shreve [00:31:43]:
That's the whole traditional movie point in the window and and giggle thing they always do.

Tony Maietta [00:31:48]:
Isn't that one of the most charming scenes in the film? And that music Oh,

Brad Shreve [00:31:51]:
I love it.

Tony Maietta [00:31:51]:
The music is one of the reason. It's Henry Mancini pre Pink Panther, but you can hear the beginnings of the Pink Panther theme when they're kind of going through Woolworths or the 5 and 10 Shreve they are, and they're kind of looking at things. And she puts her hat fabulous hat. She has and she puts it over the fishbowl.

Brad Shreve [00:32:07]:
It is specifically Woolworths because it really surprised me. They named Woolworths. She's like, I've never you've never shoplifted before. We need to go to Woolworths.

Tony Maietta [00:32:14]:
Oh, there you go. See?

Brad Shreve [00:32:15]:
Like, oh, okay. I'm sure Woolworths love that.

Tony Maietta [00:32:18]:
They love that. Well, as much as Tiffany's did. I mean, Tiffany's who were originally resistant to anything to do with this. I mean, Tiffany's has lived off of Breakfast at Tiffany's for over almost 60 years now. I mean, still to this day.

Brad Shreve [00:32:34]:
Here's an insight I learned as I'm just kinda it's one of those things that popped out as I was going along. Tiffany's doesn't open on Sundays, and they opened specifically for that movie on Sunday.

Tony Maietta [00:32:42]:
To film?

Brad Shreve [00:32:43]:
Yeah. To film.

Tony Maietta [00:32:44]:
Well, but but a lot of that was but they recreated a lot of it too in the studio.

Brad Shreve [00:32:48]:
Oh, did they?

Tony Maietta [00:32:49]:
Yeah. They had to because they couldn't bring in those they couldn't gotten the sound. So there were parts that were, but but, like, the scene with John MacGyver, the salesman at Tiffany's.

Brad Shreve [00:32:58]:
Yes. Character actor who's played the same character all the time, and he's still wonderful at it.

Tony Maietta [00:33:02]:
Extraordinary extraordinary guy, was film actually filmed at was filmed at Paramount because they couldn't have gotten can you imagine trying to film in Tiffany's? I mean, that's just yeah. But they did they also filmed the opening scene at 5 AM on a Sunday morning when she's coming up in the cab, because, of course, that's the only time you can even hope to get an empty street on Fifth Avenue and 57th Shreve, and they did miraculously. And I also read too that she had 3 different dresses.

Brad Shreve [00:33:30]:
Yes.

Tony Maietta [00:33:31]:
The famous the black dress, you know, which is iconic that she wears. There were 3 of them. 1 was for walking, 1 was for standing, and one was for getting out of the cab. Isn't that amazing?

Brad Shreve [00:33:43]:
3. It is amazing. And that is also one of the differences between the movie and the novella. In the novella, Holly dressed I mean, she she was frumpy because she didn't have a lot of money.

Tony Maietta [00:33:53]:
Yeah. Exactly. Oh, exactly.

Brad Shreve [00:33:55]:
Even though she was getting all this money from guys, she didn't have a whole lot of money. In fact, the scene where Audrey is on the fire Shreve singing is more what I picture the Holly in the novella looking like. Yeah. She had jeans on and a big, I think, sweatshirt, and her hair was tied in a in a kerchief. That is really more the Holly that was in the novel. The Holly that's wearing all these jewels with the the dress No. Never would have been in the novel. Well She didn't have that much money.

Tony Maietta [00:34:21]:
When, you know, when you have Givenchy on speed dial, I mean, you're gonna, you know and, you know, Edith Head was the quote, unquote official comp costume designer at Paramount, and she was not pleased, but she also knew that with Audrey Hepburn came Givenchy. So and thank god. You know? I mean and, again, there's that Sex and the City thing. I mean, a single girl with no visible means of income having a fabulous wardrobe Yeah. Running around Manhattan. I mean, it's just it's it's magical. It's the same reason why we respond to Sex and the City. So for people who don't understand what Breakfast at Tiffany's is, all you gotta talk to them is about Sex and the City and watch their eyes light up.

Brad Shreve [00:34:59]:
That movie poster with Audrey actually, it's not a movie poster, but a a poster that was popular at the time with Audrey looking in the wind you were in Breakfast at Tiffany's looking out at her. The jewels are there, and she's standing there eating her croissant. Mhmm. Beautiful picture. That was hanging up in every college girl's dorm room

Tony Maietta [00:35:18]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:35:18]:
Throughout the country. And it's gorgeous.

Tony Maietta [00:35:20]:
Oh, yeah. And a few guys too. A few college dorm rooms for guys too. I'm sure.

Brad Shreve [00:35:27]:
Well, I wanna let you know, 20 years ago, the Givenchy sold for $807,000. One of them, at least.

Tony Maietta [00:35:35]:
But didn't Marilyn Monroe's dress sold more for more? Isn't that funny? 70 year itch dress sold.

Brad Shreve [00:35:40]:
That doesn't surprise. Well, actually, no. They you would think they they're both iconic.

Tony Maietta [00:35:44]:
Little black dress. Yes. Yeah. I know. I know what you mean.

Brad Shreve [00:35:47]:
That money went to this shows how Audrey was so involved in charities. The money that they made off that dress went to the City of Hope, which, helps India's poor.

Tony Maietta [00:35:55]:
Oh, god. An angel. Yeah. An angel on earth. Yep. That's why she died so young because God wanted her back. Just that's just the way I feel about it.

Brad Shreve [00:36:07]:
There's 2 things you said that I wanna touch on.

Tony Maietta [00:36:09]:
Okay.

Brad Shreve [00:36:09]:
And the first one is the will and grace thing.

Tony Maietta [00:36:11]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:36:11]:
Because you weren't the first one to say that.

Tony Maietta [00:36:13]:
Oh, how about that?

Brad Shreve [00:36:14]:
This comes from Sam Wossison

Tony Maietta [00:36:16]:
Sam Wossison.

Brad Shreve [00:36:17]:
Book. It's called 5th Avenue 5 AM, Audrey Hepburn, breakfast at Tiffany's and the Dawn of the Modern Woman hardcover.

Tony Maietta [00:36:24]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:36:24]:
He says this about Audrey and Paul's relationship. He said they share an intimacy that isn't tethered to their erotic and financial needs. We're talking about the novella.

Tony Maietta [00:36:33]:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:36:34]:
In other words, they can love each other freely the way no too married people can. And taking on that, Jeffrey Davis with the Huffington Post said, that makes that movie a precursor to Will and Grace.

Tony Maietta [00:36:47]:
And I did not get that from Sam Lawson's book, believe it or not. I mean, it's all my own.

Brad Shreve [00:36:52]:
I believe you got it on your own because once it's mentioned, you're like, duh. You're right.

Tony Maietta [00:36:56]:
Yeah. I know. It makes no sense. Does he say the Sex and the City thing? I can't remember.

Brad Shreve [00:37:00]:
I never heard the Sex and the City thing.

Tony Maietta [00:37:02]:
Sam Lawson. Then that's mine, Sam. Back off.

Brad Shreve [00:37:05]:
You can own that one. You can own that one.

Tony Maietta [00:37:07]:
Step back, Sam.

Brad Shreve [00:37:08]:
We all know you stole the other one from him, but you can own that one.

Tony Maietta [00:37:12]:
He's a nice guy, but step back.

Brad Shreve [00:37:14]:
And this is so funny to me because people talk about the controversies of this film.

Tony Maietta [00:37:18]:
Yes.

Brad Shreve [00:37:19]:
And I found a Glamour magazine article that said, 3 problems with breakfast Breakfast at Tiffany's that no one talks about. Okay? And I'm gonna list off the 3. 1, Holly Golightly is actually a criminal and a call girl. 2, Paul Varjak is no angel either. And 3, this movie is racist, folks. And I'm like, duh, who is not talking about those things?

Tony Maietta [00:37:44]:
Who's not that's all they talk about.

Brad Shreve [00:37:45]:
That's all they talk about.

Tony Maietta [00:37:46]:
That's all they talk about. Whenever anybody criticizes this film other than yeah. It's always about that character. And you know what? They and to their credit, Blake Edwards later in his life, Shepard, the producer later in his life. You know, actually during the filming, I think, Shepard was like, this is not good. This is not good. I we but the the story is is that Blake Edwards was close with Mickey Rooney. You know, they were roommates in the forties, which I don't understand.

Tony Maietta [00:38:11]:
Mickey Rooney was, like, the number one box office star in the early forties. Why did he have a roommate? My son's but, anyway, he was close with Mickey he was close with Mickey Rooney. And he, you know, Mickey Rooney, at that time, needed the work, first of all. And they really thought it was Blake thought it was a funny thing and we're talking about Blake Edwards here. I mean he's not exactly the arbiter of great taste, you know. I mean I love VictorVictoria, but I mean some of the other stuff you're just like, You know, there's a lot of things. So you kinda see why Blake Edwards would have thought that was funny.

Brad Shreve [00:38:43]:
And he said it was necessary to to sell this film, to have Mickey Rooney's name on it and to have this humor in it.

Tony Maietta [00:38:49]:
I don't know how that was necessary when you had Audrey Hepburn.

Brad Shreve [00:38:52]:
I agree with you a 100%. And and for those that haven't seen this movie and are hearing us talk about Mickey Rooney being this racist Asian guy, here's the thing. Mickey Rooney, Yankee Doodle Dandy, played

Tony Maietta [00:39:04]:
Well, that was actually that was actually James Cagney, but go ahead.

Brad Shreve [00:39:07]:
Oh, I'm sorry. Very similar, though.

Tony Maietta [00:39:10]:
He was strike up the band. Let's put on a show. He was about as yeah. It was God's Country Mickey Rooney. Yes.

Brad Shreve [00:39:15]:
Mickey Rooney was the one with Judy Garland and others that were saying, hey, gang. Let's make money and have a have a show in the barn.

Tony Maietta [00:39:21]:
Let's put a show on in the barn. Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:39:22]:
Yeah. He was the one always doing that.

Tony Maietta [00:39:23]:
He was Andy Hart he was Andy Hardy. You're thinking of Andy Hardy, but still very American as you can get.

Brad Shreve [00:39:29]:
Okay. So they they put buck teeth on this guy. They put thick glasses on him, and he talked with this

Tony Maietta [00:39:36]:
It's so offensive.

Brad Shreve [00:39:37]:
Offensive accent that was just and it was all for laughs. He was, clumsy. Every stereotype you'd ever pictured that they would do during World War 2 about what what the Japanese were like.

Tony Maietta [00:39:49]:
Yeah. It was very yeah. It very much was that whole throwback to how they used to denigrate Japanese during World War 2. It was like but World War 2 was, you know, 15 years ago, so we need to move forward. They all, like, swore about, you know, if I could take that out, I would. Later, of course.

Brad Shreve [00:40:06]:
Well, I gotta touch on what Mickey Rooney said.

Tony Maietta [00:40:08]:
It's a Mickey maybe. Maybe Mick maybe the Mick didn't.

Brad Shreve [00:40:11]:
Well, he did in his kind of, to me, right wing kind of way. Mhmm. Blake Edwards did express regret. Hands down, he said he he hated it. He wished he could do it all over with you know, that sort of thing.

Tony Maietta [00:40:22]:
Right.

Brad Shreve [00:40:23]:
Mickey Rooney, when Pacific Asian Pacific Islanders group went to

Tony Maietta [00:40:27]:
I really

Brad Shreve [00:40:28]:
I think the city of Sacramento and talked about how offensive this movie was and its derogatory and that sort of thing. Mhmm. Here was Mickey Rooney's response. He was 88 years old at the time. He said, it breaks my heart. Blake Edwards, who directed the picture, wanted me to do it because he was a comedy direct. They hired me to do this overboard, and we had fun doing it. Never in all the more than 40 years after we made it, not one complaint.

Brad Shreve [00:40:53]:
Every place I've gone in the world, people say, you were so funny. Asians and Chinese come up to me and say, Mickey, you are of this world. I have to throw Mickey's wife in there. His wife was named Jan.

Tony Maietta [00:41:05]:
Mhmm.

Brad Shreve [00:41:06]:
She had to point out that when they were married in Hong they were married in Hong Kong and they loved Japanese art and Japanese food and Japanese culture, and the role was meant to be fun. And she said, it's terribly sad, and I feel bad for the people taking offense. So first of all, if you're white and you're complaining about minority complaining about being offense, you have no right to do so. Right. Second of all, she added and this is like, you know, some of my best friends are gay. She said Mhmm. Some of our best friends are Asian or something of that nature. So

Tony Maietta [00:41:38]:
Crazy.

Brad Shreve [00:41:38]:
Mickey's final words on this were, had I known it would have offended people, I wouldn't have done it. Those who didn't like it, I forgive them, and god bless America. God bless the universe. God bless the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians, and all of them. Let's have peace.

Tony Maietta [00:41:54]:
Let's just Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:41:55]:
He didn't get it. He didn't get it.

Tony Maietta [00:41:58]:
No. But, I mean, but at this point, please, Mickey Rooney didn't get a lot in last years. I mean, the poor guy. I mean, he was, you know, he was a I remember seeing him at the the TCM Film Festival in 20 was that when 2012, 2013, you know, and he it was funny. I'll tell a little story. Cabaret was the film being honored that night, and I was in this the section with Liza, and Mickey was there. And Liza turned to my friend that I was there with and said, do not let him next to me, please. Now missus Judy Garland's daughter saying, do not let Mickey Rooney next to me, but I thought that was fine.

Tony Maietta [00:42:37]:
I only tell that because Mickey Rooney in the end of his life was, you know, he wasn't all he wasn't all there, but he lived a very long time, so god bless him. But the thing about this is that I think is unfortunate. Why didn't Blake Edwards maybe he just didn't occur to him. He's like, who cares? It was, you know, 45, 50 years ago before he died. Why didn't Blake Edwards go there and do a director's cut and just excise Mickey Rooney out? Because you know what? Because watching it, the only time that character is really pivotal is that he calls the cops. So there could have been a way or he doesn't call the cops. He's there when the cops come to pick her up after Sally Tomato has been arrested, and he's there. There could have been a way to get around that.

Tony Maietta [00:43:19]:
He could have fudged that somehow. But every other thing, they're all he's not in the scene with anybody.

Brad Shreve [00:43:24]:
Her never having her key

Tony Maietta [00:43:26]:
They could have cut him out surgically.

Brad Shreve [00:43:28]:
And always calling him to let her in the building is in the

Tony Maietta [00:43:30]:
novella quite a bit, and that

Brad Shreve [00:43:30]:
is critical to her character, her whole careless, devil may care,

Tony Maietta [00:43:37]:
Japanese actor to say the lines, and you cut out Mickey Rooney, and you loop him in. I mean, I don't think this would have occurred to Blake Edwards. It probably doesn't occur to anybody but Barbra Streisand who's constantly redoing her movies. You know? She just redid the way we were.

Brad Shreve [00:43:49]:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:43:49]:
You know, even though she wasn't the director. She's Barbra Streisand. She wants to redo it. So I just think it would be really interesting, And maybe this can still happen

Brad Shreve [00:43:57]:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:43:57]:
If somebody just goes in there and just surgically removes the Mickey Rooney scenes, hires Japanese American actor to record the lines when they're necessary, the miss miss Colitis, I protest, and bye bye, you know, mister Yunioshi.

Brad Shreve [00:44:14]:
He says that a 100 I must protest.

Tony Maietta [00:44:17]:
Yeah. It's terrible. It's all it's horrible. So hire an actor to do it who's actually that's authentic. That when you're not doing yellow face. And that's fine. And the movie is not affected No. At all No.

Tony Maietta [00:44:26]:
If they did that. So that's my challenge to a filmmaker. I'll help you out with it. Let me tell you.

Brad Shreve [00:44:33]:
And like I said, I I think it helped establish her character, but was it critical to establish her character? No. But it, I think, did help.

Tony Maietta [00:44:40]:
No. It didn't. It just established that she for but Yeah. And but you could have voice over doing it.

Brad Shreve [00:44:43]:
You could have.

Tony Maietta [00:44:43]:
All all of his pratfalls, walking into his lights, and all. You don't need that. That I was realizing, and I'm, like, he's not the only scene he's in with anybody else is that scene with the cops. So you have to fudge that somehow, but you can. I mean, my god, they can do whatever they want to in Hollywood these days. You don't

Brad Shreve [00:44:59]:
even have to have somebody call the cops. They'd hear the sirens, and they

Tony Maietta [00:45:01]:
Well, yeah. Or do AI. I mean, my god. Anything can happen these days.

Brad Shreve [00:45:05]:
And as far as the you know, him yelling down to her, you could just have her looking up with a voice over. Like you said, you don't even have to show an actor's face.

Tony Maietta [00:45:12]:
Exactly. So I that's my challenge to Paramount and to anybody who cares. Cut them out. You know? That's I I think that'd be a great idea. Nobody listens to me. So

Brad Shreve [00:45:24]:
Before we wrap up, I've gotta bring up the Holly being a prostitute thing. Because first of all, I wanna talk about sexuality. Okay. Patricia Neal, 2 e. Who was Paul Voorjek, George Peppard.

Tony Maietta [00:45:35]:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:45:35]:
He was the kept man of Patricia Neal. I can't think of what their characters are.

Tony Maietta [00:45:38]:
Her name was 2 e. She was wonderful. The apartment.

Brad Shreve [00:45:41]:
2 e. 2 e?

Tony Maietta [00:45:42]:
That's her that's the character's name. 2 e.

Brad Shreve [00:45:44]:
Oh, is that how she's

Tony Maietta [00:45:45]:
That's the apartment. He calls her 2 e. And I'm like, is he saying 2 e? And then I realized, no. It's Tui. That's her character. But I

Brad Shreve [00:45:54]:
wanna talk about Holly being a prostitute because Capote said she is not.

Tony Maietta [00:45:59]:
What did Capote say she?

Brad Shreve [00:46:00]:
This is what Capote said. This is I found this because I've heard this, and I had to look for the interview. This is from 1968 Playboy interview, and here's what Capote said. Holly Golightly is not precisely a call girl. She had no job but accompanied expense account men to the best restaurants and nightclubs with the understanding that her escort was obligated to give her some sort of gift, perhaps jewelry or a check. If she felt like it, she might take her escort home for the night. So these girls are the authentic American geishas, and they're much more prevalent now than in 1943 and 1944

Tony Maietta [00:46:40]:
Interesting.

Brad Shreve [00:46:40]:
Which was Holly's era, which I'm gonna say the book takes place 20 years before the movie.

Tony Maietta [00:46:44]:
Right. The book plays basically after World War 2.

Brad Shreve [00:46:46]:
Yeah. Right. It's actually during World War 2, 1943.

Tony Maietta [00:46:48]:
Is it during World War 2?

Brad Shreve [00:46:49]:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta [00:46:49]:
Oh, wow. Okay.

Brad Shreve [00:46:50]:
There's a part where Paul mentions he's where he's gonna be drafted.

Tony Maietta [00:46:53]:
Oh, that's right. Okay. Okay. You're right. Interesting. So she was an escort in every sense of the word. So escort's a more more appropriate term for her.

Brad Shreve [00:47:05]:
Yes. Escort is more appropriate. Though it is pointed out, and this is in the movie and the book, the drunk guy banging on the door

Tony Maietta [00:47:11]:
It's funny.

Brad Shreve [00:47:12]:
And wants to get in her apartment. She says, if I don't know the words, but basically, if you wanna come in, you shouldn't have given me $2 to go to the powder room.

Tony Maietta [00:47:21]:
Right. Right. Right. $20. For the

Brad Shreve [00:47:23]:
month of you could've came in if you gave me more money.

Tony Maietta [00:47:28]:
I love that. I love that. That's so funny. You know, that was true. You know, I not to bring up Lucy, but, you know, Lucy tell told a story, when she was first in Hollywood where she made money maybe it was New York. I think it was New York. When she was in New York, she was a model in New York. She would make extra money by basically escorting businessmen to dinners.

Tony Maietta [00:47:49]:
The a bunch of girls did this. And they would get to their table to sit down, and they would lift up their plates, and there would be however much they made. They put in the purse and basically, they wore escorts. It wasn't prostitution. She didn't go home with these guys that we know of. It was escorts. So that's kind of what Holly's doing here. Holly is an escort in the truest sense of the word.

Tony Maietta [00:48:08]:
Yeah. That's really interesting. I'm I'm glad you brought that up.

Brad Shreve [00:48:11]:
Yep. She was manipulative. She probably made every one of them think that she was gonna have sex with them.

Tony Maietta [00:48:16]:
Right. Of course. Of course. But he but when he what did she say? I love that line. I love the some the lines when she says, but he starts laughing up at the Vino and, Kelbeast. Is that what she's saying? I see. I think that's one reason why I love Audrey in this is because Audrey, those lines in Audrey's cadence are just beautiful, but, oh, Cal Beast. I mean, I just just I love it.

Tony Maietta [00:48:37]:
I can't imagine I don't think I can imagine Marilyn saying that. You know? Those little flights of French that work into her language.

Brad Shreve [00:48:45]:
No. No. I agree with you.

Tony Maietta [00:48:46]:
I don't think I could imagine Marilyn doing it. So there's another reason why Audrey is wonderful because the language, Audrey's cadences, and all the darlings, I think, are really they're wonderful with Audrey in Audrey's voice and Audrey's cadences.

Brad Shreve [00:48:58]:
And that line is also in the novella.

Tony Maietta [00:48:59]:
Yes.

Brad Shreve [00:49:00]:
Because I was really surprised. Listen, I lit I read the novella last week because I wanted to prepare for this. Mhmm. I kept hearing how the the novella was so different. And when I actually when I'm reading them, like, it's almost verbatim. And then it, like, maybe halfway through, it starts staring in a different direction.

Tony Maietta [00:49:15]:
There there's a lot of particulars which are which are very similar. It's just the main, the big plot points. You know what I mean? Which are kind of like, oh, okay. He's he's gay, and he doesn't have a name. And, yeah, it's that thing.

Brad Shreve [00:49:28]:
The other thing we people always talk about unnamed narrator in the the novella. People don't talk about Holly's sexuality. It's hinted quite often that she is bisexual. Oh, yes. Fluid. Yeah. At one point, she says, consider herself a bit of a dyke.

Tony Maietta [00:49:41]:
Yes. Doesn't she say that about Madge Wildwood too?

Brad Shreve [00:49:44]:
Holly in the in the novella didn't have as much money. She and Madge Wildwood, who really did have a small role in the movie, much bigger role in the book, They were roommates for a while because Holly needed a roommate. And she mentioned that she would prefer a dyke as a roommate. This is before Madge moved in because they would keep the place clean.

Tony Maietta [00:50:05]:
That's so great. I don't remember that. That's so great. Speaking of Madge Wildwood, props to that actress. I hear she was terrified, which doing a full front fall frontal fall like that Yeah. When she gets to a frightening thing. Even though your mattress is there, and I guess she did it, like, 2 or 3 times and because that's a frightening thing to do.

Brad Shreve [00:50:24]:
She may have done that 2 or 3 times. As I understand, that whole scene, they were just told do it.

Tony Maietta [00:50:29]:
Yes. He actually threw a party.

Brad Shreve [00:50:31]:
There was no script. Just do it.

Tony Maietta [00:50:32]:
Blake Edwards threw a party, and people were really drinking. And they would come up with these bits, that great bit with the 2 actors, and the guy's got the eye patch, and they're arguing. Yes. And he flips it up, and he continues. It's a genius bit. I love that. Yeah. I love the woman crying in front laughing in front of the mirror then crying in front of the mirror.

Tony Maietta [00:50:49]:
The whole thing with the cigarette lighting that woman's hair on fire and then Holly putting it out by, you know, turning that guy's wrist to look at the time. Totally oblivious to the fire. I mean, it's a great scene. It's a great scene.

Brad Shreve [00:51:02]:
And what I love about that scene, Martin Balsam's character, we really haven't touched on. And his big line in the movie is, is she a phony? Is she phony? In that party, you tell everybody is a phony.

Tony Maietta [00:51:12]:
Isn't that it's in the novella too, isn't it?

Brad Shreve [00:51:15]:
It is in the in the novella. Yes. Yes. He kinda elaborates a little more what he means, but Mhmm. For the most part, yeah. Is she a phony? Well, she is a phony, but she believes what she's saying. So she's a real phony. Yeah.

Brad Shreve [00:51:25]:
But everybody in that party is a phony. Yeah. You know, like the guy with the eye patch flipped up. No.

Tony Maietta [00:51:30]:
It's great. All devised on the fly. Yeah. Not scripted. You're absolutely right. And I think that's, you know, say what you will about Blake Edwards. There are times when he's right on, and I think that party scene is he's right on. He's right on the money with that.

Brad Shreve [00:51:43]:
It's a great scene. There all these people, I I guess, haven't Holly didn't know.

Tony Maietta [00:51:47]:
And She didn't. She said work gets around. Right?

Brad Shreve [00:51:49]:
Yeah. And it's a it's this teeny tiny studio packed full of all these different economic levels, and it's just it's a great scene. Great scene.

Tony Maietta [00:51:57]:
But I would take that apartment in a New York minute if that was it's a little apartment, but great apartment. I'm glad that we, chose to, revisit this in our very first episode of this podcast. I think that it needed to be talked about, and I'm glad we talked about it. And my offer stands if anybody wants me to to I'll help cut out, mister Yuniyoshi in a minute. Paramount, just let me know.

Brad Shreve [00:52:26]:
Do you enjoy going to Hollywood? Well, of course, you do. And Tony and I would like you to do something for us and more important for other podcast listeners out there. Go to Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and rate and review this show. A 5 star would be especially nice. That way, when others are looking for a new show, they'll see ours and see those reviews, and they will stop and listen. And, boy, that will make their day. It will be much appreciated. Thank you for being with us.