AFED #4: Paris When It Sizzles (US,1964); Dir. Richard Quine
Never mind that she's been dead for 18 years, somewhere in the world they'll be somebody who's just fallen in love in Audrey Hepburn. It's unlikely to be a amorous attraction; Hepburn's allure was always curiously asexual, borne of timeless natural beauty and poise. We're inclined to think of her as the antithesis of the overt eroticism of other fifties icons like Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield and the tendency to pair her with much older leading men (Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina , Fred Astaire in Funny Face ) often felt less of a romantic coupling and more that of girl-woman needing a surrogate father to protect her. Even with her role as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's , as a woman (and mother) now in her thirties, Hepburn couldn't entirely relinquish the persona of the ingenue. As the sixties progressed Hepburn was savvy enough to realise she had to evolve. Charade and My Fair Lady both marked progression and maintained her box office...