(10, Blind Date, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Curse of the Pink Panther, Micki and Maude, The Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The Return of the Pink Panther, The Revenge of the Pink Panther, A Shot in the Dark,
Son of the Pink Panther, Switch, The Trail of the Pink Panther, Victor/Victoria)
Producers:
Martin Jurow and Richard Shepherd
Screenplay:
George Axelrod (from the novel by Truman Capote)
Music:
Henry Mancini
Cast:
Holly Golightly: Audrey Hepburn
Paul Varjak: George Peppard
2-E: Patricia Neal
Doc Golightly: Buddy Ebsen
Mr Yunioshi: Mickey Rooney
Moon River is wider than a smile..
That's all I ever learned from this film, a romantic comedy where its two
leads have an obsession with spending the first part of the day window-shopping
at a local jewellers, hence the title, Breakfast at Tiffany's, which
is one of those romantic comedies your Mum likes.
Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is an independent woman and probably
the only one in the sixties who's not off her head on experimental drugs and
shagging till dawn. She's due to marry Brazilian millionaire, but instead
falls for her neighbour Paul Varjak (George Peppard, best known to
me as Hannibal in The A-Team) .
Mickey Rooney also has a supporting role as the stereotyped Chinese
neighbour. All his "l"s are "r"s and vice versa and he bumbles about more
than Closeau, which is of course exactly the way all Chinese people behave (!)
The picture is terrible at best. Grainy as hell all the way through, what were
Paramount thinking of allowing this past Quality Control? Bright scenes
occasionally get away with it to a degree, but darker and indoor scenes suffer
greatly. The only saving grace is that it's in 16:9 widescreen and anamorphic.
The average bitrate is a surprisingly high 7.87Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s,
although I can't think why.
The remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, in English only, doesn't make a
great deal of difference. Dialogue is clear, but fans of action SFX should
seek elsewhere.
Extras :
Just a two-and-a-half-minute Theatrical Trailer on which, unlike a lot
of recent Paramount DVDs, is in anamorphic widescreen like the film and here,
dare I say it, it often looks better than the film it's advertising!
Just 14 chapters split up the 110 minutes which is not enough, although our
DVD is dual layer, unlike the Region 1's single layer.
English dialogue is in Dolby Digital 5.1, with French, German, Italian and
Spanish being in surround only. Subtitles are available in English (and hard
of hearing), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian,
Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
Despite being revered by the older generation, the film didn't do it for me
and the presentation is generally quite appalling. Someday, someone may
release a special edition. Well, they can't leave this release on the shelves
too long as it doesn't do the content much justice.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
