Funny Face (1957)
Jo Stockton (Hepburn) is an amateur philosopher and bookseller dressed in ill-fitting and heavy tweeds. ('I'm smart!' say her thick glasses and non-sense-less black stockings.) She gets a fabulous make-over and love in the process.
I'm not in love with Hepburn's singing voice (though Moon River was darling) and maybe it's all the Bollywood's I've been horking down lately (where just everything is dubbed) but I fail to understand the indignity of having your so-so voice overdubbed with the voice of an angel...(I'm looking at you Marni Nixon...)
But anyway, it's a cute little froth and you can pick out just which of her fabulous outfits you would snatch for yourself if you were a size 0. (For me, it's that chic Saying-goodbye-to-your-lover-at-the-train-station number when the fog billows up around her.)
Roses Have Thorns: When Sarah is looking peaky, Lady Wesley tells the Professor that she probably needs a tonic. Tonics always remind me of one of the best flim-flam men in cinema from:
Pete's Dragon (1977)
Sure it's about a kid, his dragon and a strapping lass up in the lighthouse belting out feel-good proto-feminist numbers (It's a Brazzle-Dazzle day!) but it's mostly (okay, perhaps not mostly) about that flim-flam man, played by Jim Dale (narrator to the Harry Potter audio books).
I LOVE Funny Face!.. but I'm still not sure if I truly enjoy or really hate Pete's Dragon.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that I could join in on the philisophical debate this morning.
My other movie suggestion for Roses Have Thorns was Cluny Brown - which features a young woman as a housemaid.
ReplyDeleteI haven't actually seen the movie, but I adore the book(written by Margery Sharp - who also wrote The Rescuers (which was made into an animated Disney film)...which I also adore).
Betty Debbie, I'm surprised! Cluny Brown, both movie and book, is a bit racy.
ReplyDeleteAh, Marni Nixon. I could never understand why They didn't just cast her in the leading roles instead of her covering for everyone else. (If I had aced my new sister Betty Magdalen's commenting class like Betty Barbara, I could insert a link her showing that she was quite lovely.) She's one of the nuns in The Sound of Music, and she couldn't possibly be more of a hack actress than Deborah Kerr (O pipe down, Betty Debbie--I bet you adore her AND Susan "I'm dying! I'm dying!" Hayward).
Betty JoDee - yes, I do have a bit of an earthier side...but hopefully not too much. It's been a little while since I read Cluny Brown, but I as I remember it, there were no actual trips to Brighton.
ReplyDeleteSusan Hayward doesn't do anything for me...but yeah, I mostly like Deborah Kerr...even if she did spell her name wrong. Sure, she was a bit of a hack, but I grew up watching The King and I and as a little girl I wanted one of her huge-skirted dresses in the worst way.
Thanks, Betty Debbie & Betty JoDee -- I went looking for Cluny Brown (I love Margery Sharp's children's book, but I don't know her more adult books) and that led me to the new Persephone edition of The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
ReplyDeleteI've long believed that Betty Neels had to have read Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess and The Secret Garden -- both books would fit in with The Canon quite easily. (And, if my surmise about The Great Betty's own life story is even remotely true, then she had something in common with Sara Crewe.) But The Making of a Marchioness sounds just like a Betty Neels plot: Emily is well-born but poor so she rents herself out as a period sort of "fixer" -- the type of person who want around to make everything go smoothly, but you wouldn't be embarrassed by. I haven't read it yet -- heck, I didn't know about it before this comment thread got me looking for it -- but it sounds perfect.
Here's the précis by a reviewer (Zou Zou) on Amazon:
Emily is thirty-four years old, of excellent family background with a good "woman's education". Unfortunately, Emily is penniless and has to make her own living. Fortunately, Emily is practical, intelligent and extremely good natured. She has been dealt a poor hand but cheerfully makes the best of it.
Emily survives by Being Useful to noble and upper middle class ladies for a modest remuneration. Emily locates and recruits reliable servants, performs secretarial duties and runs errands for these patrons.
As the story opens, Lady Maria Bayne has invited Emily to her country estate to help with her annual "early August party". This year, the houseparty's draw will be the wealthy, widowed Marquis of Wanderhurst who is looking for a wife.
The reader is introduced to the potential contenders to the title of Marchioness. The American heiress, Cora Brooke, who has everything money can buy, excepting a Noble title. The beautiful debutante success of the last Social Season, Lady Agatha Slade, who must marry to save her family from absolute penury. And the widowed writer, clever Mrs Ralph, ready for another success. The hunt is on and it is all very entertaining.
One of interesting sidelights into this rarefied society is how much more freedom and self-determination is available to self-employed Emily when compared with the constricted and confined lives of the heiress and the debutante.
Recommended.
I'm heading over to Amazon right now!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I've been to Amazon and I have a question. There is a Kindle edition of Emily Fox-Seton, Being the Making of a Marchioness and the Methods of Lady Walderhurst. Is this the same book? Dr. van der Stevejinck got a Kindle for his birthday last month, and if this is the right book, I'm totally buying it. Ninety-five cents is definitely in my budget.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know, three comments in a row is bad form, but I just wanted to mention that I found the book on Project Gutenberg - you can read it online for free. Which is even more in my budget.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link
No -- Emily Fox-Seton has two stories: The Making of a Marchioness and the Methods of Lady Walderhurst; the romance is The Making... and the second is just a novel, albeit with the same characters.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, you can spend $1 more and get virtually everything she ever wrote: click here. That includes the obvious books we all know & love.
Well lookee here! My favorite Betty book paired with one of my favorite kids movies. I Lurved 'Pete's Dragon'. I'm not sure why! Most likely the miraculous transformation of Helen Reddy into a a romantic figure. She had a great voice, anyway. Every light house I ever visit gets to hear me sing
ReplyDeleteCandle On The Water from it's uppermost catwalk.
"I'll be your candle on the water
'Till ev'ry wave is warm and bright
My soul is there beside you
Let this candle guide you
Soon you'll see a golden stream of light.
I remember seeing Helen Reddy in concert at the Lane County Fair sometime in the 70's. I don't remember if it was before or after Pete's Dragon, but it was after I am Woman (hear me roar).
ReplyDeleteThank you Bettys Magdalen and Debbie. I found the free copy of Emily Fox-Seton. I've read two chapters and you are right Betty Mags, this could be a Betty heroine. And Emily is written more confident, humble, and sweeter than most Aramintas, if that's possible.
ReplyDeleteI'm not enjoying reading it on the computer, however. I want to take it with me to the couch or bed and get comfortable. And having to keep a refined distance from the screen is giving me eye strain. I'm going to my old UBS tomorrow to see if a 'real' copy can be found! Love you ladies! Betty Mary
Ditto on what Betty Jo said about Marni Nixon. My older daughter was a Sound of Music Freak - we even took the Sount of Music tour of Salzberg -and I agree that Marni never got her Props! In this case, I feel there's no justice in the world
ReplyDeleteOkay, I did it. I bit the bullet, so to speak, and bought all of The Canon currently available for the Kindle. It's only 12 books (I think they're doing them one a month, which is silly and will take FOREVER, but that's Harlequin for you...) but it means that no matter where I go, I'll have a Betty to re(rere)read.
ReplyDeleteBetty Debbie -- Are you going to get any of them?
Of the 12 e-book versions of Betty, it looks like there are 3 that haven't been reviewed yet. I think I'll try out one of them on the Kindle...but at $3.44 a pop, I won't be investing in the lot yet (it all goes back to having three kids in college...).
ReplyDeleteI hear you on the price. Now, if we could get 35 of her books for the low low price of $1.99, I'd be all over it...
ReplyDelete