Blake Edwards
44 connections found
Filmography
Breakfast at Tiffany's 1961 
Victor/Victoria 1982 
The Great Race 1965 
The Pink Panther 1963 
Days of Wine and Roses 1963 
S.O.B. 1981 
A Fine Mess 1986 
The Party 1968 
A Shot in the Dark 1964 
Darling Lili 1970 
Son of the Pink Panther 1993 
Operation Petticoat 1959 
The Pink Panther Strikes Again 1976 
10 1979 
Victor/Victoria 1996 
Blind Date 1987 
Switch 1991 View:
Connections, in both directions
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Directed by Larry Charles
influenced by The Party (1968)
Characters
Cohen is being compared to Peter Sellers, and in a way Borat is reminiscent of Sellers' Bakshi in The Party, a disruptive Other presence, but Blake Edwards' picture was bracingly inclusive (low gags and sophisticated slapstick, foreigners and natives, Hollywood classicism and hippie openness -- hey, this was '68) where Cohen's transgressive humor is pettily divisive.
With Sellers cast as an amiable, old-fashioned klutz lost among the technological gizmos and runaway decadence of the modern world, The Party is Edwards’ attempt to import Jacques Tati to Hollywood, specifically Tati’s 1958 film Mon Oncle, which sets his Monsieur Hulot loose in an automated house.
There, in a tribute to Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle, Sellers’ Bakshi fumbles his way around the producer’s modern Art Deco home, failing to properly operate the automatic doors and furniture and vainly navigating the house’s numerous pools.
Anyone who’s seen Days of Wine and Roses (1962), and countless similar dramas, knows their fairly worn-out dynamic.
What makes this different from genre classics like “The Lost Weekend,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Leaving Las Vegas” is an action-packed first act and a bravura performance by Denzel Washington.
That, seven miles up, lives depend on pilots sobriety and skill is not the films point of concentration, which appears more in line with that of such better considerations as The Lost Weekend, The Country Girl, Come Back, Little Sheba, Days of Wine and Roses, Long Days Journey into Night and Leaving Las Vegas.
Their relationship is Days of Wine and Roses stuff, a dramatic ballet of co-dependency and the inevitability of one person wising up before the other.
Cut from the same cloth of addiction-denial-recovery dramas (most recently “ Smashed ,” which plays like a “ Days of Wine and Roses ” for millennials), “Flight” hinges on the question of whether Whip will finally accept the reality of his disease or succumb to it.
Down Periscope (1996)
Directed by David S. Ward
influenced by Operation Petticoat (1959)
Themes Plot
A sort of updated cross between the movie version of "M*A*S*H" and the 1959 classic "Operation Petticoat," "Down Periscope" also sends up just about every submarine movie you can name from "Up Periscope" and "Run Silent, Run Deep" to "The Hunt for Red October" and "Crimson Tide."
And perhaps that's because Down Periscope is a submarine comedy, an extraordinary rare mixture (offhand, the only other one I can think of is 1959's Operation Petticoat ).
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Directed by Edgar Wright
influenced by Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Themes
She assumes that she will naturally fit in, that the college might be full of eccentrics like her, and that the city might be a magical place like the one she’s often dreamed about in her small room, covered in posters for films like Sweet Charity and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and images of long-dead pop stars.
An old soul, Eloise bedecks her teenage bedroom in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and Sweet Charity (1969) movie posters, and, when packing for university, stuffs her suitcase with Cilla Black and the Searchers LPs, almost forgetting to bring socks alongside all her Sixties memorabilia.
Indeed, from the vinyl to the posters of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s to the retro-looking dress Eloise has constructed out of newspaper as she dances about the house to the fact that she receives her college acceptance letter on paper, I wasn’t entirely sure exactly what decade we were in as the movie began.
Orphaned as a child and raised by her grandmother, Eloise is obsessed with the ’60s; posters of Twiggy and of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s adorn her walls, and she treasures the family’s vintage vinyl collection.
An aspiring clothes designer raised in rural Cornwall by her kindly grandmother (Rita Tushingham), she's plastered her bedroom with posters of Twiggy and Breakfast at Tiffany's and twirls blissfully to the crackling sound of her mother's old LPs.
Oh, and she’s obsessed by the ’60s, to the point that early on – given that her bedroom is bedecked in pictures of Twiggy and posters of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Sweet Charity” and that she dances around to a portable record player playing crackly vintage pop – we might think it actually is the ’60s – at least until she grabs her digital alarm clock and sticks on her Beats by Dre headphones on the train on the way to London.
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Darling Lili (1970), S.O.B. (1981)
Characters Themes
Jerry has a thing for Japanese women, but has never learned to speak their language; instead, he grunts at them in English, using a vaudeville-level Japanese accent of a sort not heard since Mickey Rooney donned fake buckteeth to play a yammering Japanese neighbor in the 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany's .
(Think Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's .)
“Licorice Pizza” is a humorous and loving look at a very particular time and place, one that is distinctly politically incorrect (Gary’s PR client, Asian restaurateur Jerry Frick (John Michael Higgins), competes with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Mickey Rooney in indulging in cringe worthy Asian stereotypes while Gary’s agent calls Alana an ‘English pit bull with sex appeal and a very Jewish nose’).
John Michael Higgins plays the owner of the Mikado restaurant, marrying a succession of Japanese wives/partners whom he tries to communicate with via seriously offensive sing-song pidgin English, like Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
Higgins and his Japanese wife listen to the proposed ad (which does everything it can to downplay the food and up the Orientalist appeal), and Higgins “translates” to his wife by adopting a grotesque caricature of a Japanese accent (think Mickey Rooney’s ghastly Breakfast at Tiffany’s performance).
In Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, there are no black characters (even though his partner is Maya Rudolph, half African American, and who has a brief cameo in the film); there are comical scenes where a character played by John Michael Higgins gives Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s a run for his money in mock Japanese stereotypes; and most evidently, the central story sees a 15 year old boy (played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son Cooper Hoffman in his acting debut) in love with a 25 year old (she might actually be 28) woman, played by popster Alana Haim.
Yet it's virtually joke-free, beyond the sort of easy cultural stereotypes that recall the live-action road-rally outings of my youth: "The Great Race" or, lower down the quality pole, "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies."
The Tourist (2010)
Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
influenced by Darling Lili (1970), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Dialogue Visuals
Here she just walks around with her nose in the air and vocally channels Julie Andrews in " Darling Lili ."
From the moment Elise (Jolie) appears on screen – in a cream gown and fur lifted from Breakfast At Tiffany’s – we are transported to a shimmering realm of 1950’s glare and colour where subtlety and originality have been obliterated.
She's Out of My League gives the mathematics of love their biggest workout since Blake Edward's 10, a romantic comedy that succeeded in spite of its unsavoury premise.
Amélie (2001)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
influenced by Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Characters Themes
In a way Amelie is like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and in fact, Toutou looks like Audrey Hepburn in the occasional shot).
She has the same natural beauty and infectious smile that carried "Roman Holiday" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" among others.
A romantic comedy that stubbornly refuses to play by the rules, "Amelie" could be this generation's "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
The Pink Panther comparisons/inspiration.
…or use more past comedic IP franchises like The Pink Panther to make a quick buck…
And in Andy Tennant's Hepburn homage (The Philadelphia Story meets Breakfast at Tiffany's), her spin as Melanie Carmichael (nee Smooter), a Deep South scruff turned Fashion Week design darling (godawful wardrobe notwithstanding), lacks both Kate's sly ambivalence and Audrey's sad grace.
It’s been a long time since films about the downward spiral of alcoholism, like Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend or Blake Edwards’ Days of Wine and Roses, provided much in the way of raw shock.
To quote Robert Preston in S.O.B., "Is Batman a transvestite?
By default, items like Blake Edwards’ extremely underrated Switch (1991), starring a phenomenal Ellen Barkin, and even 2002’s Rob Schneider comedy The Hot Chick (which features a winning Anna Faris and Rachel McAdams) both exude a formidable queerness which, despite the outspoken gay character, feels almost entirely absent from Freaky —as if, by merely presenting a gay character accepted as being on par with others the narrative breezily excuses itself from having to actually engage with him beyond the superficiality of acknowledgement.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Directed by Jon M. Chu
influenced by Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Characters Visuals
One of those, as I say in my video review (click the link above to watch), is brilliant casting work — each character an individual and not the kind of stereotype Asian performers often have found themselves trying to overcome in Hollywood confections (this is a looooong way from Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s).
She looks positively like Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” as she strides, almost floating, toward an elevator.
The scene is a party… a wild, relentless, profane, profound, heart-pumping, heart-stopping bacchanal with partiers on every level, from the guy who showed up covered in elephant shit - the most extreme cinematic embodiment of the oldest joke about show business and not giving it up - to the movie star who, like Tony Curtis in The Great Race, walks around the pie fight in a white suit without ever being touched.
The Spectacular Now (2013)
Directed by James Ponsoldt
influenced by Days of Wine and Roses (1963)
Themes
I headed into The Spectacular Now expecting to see a movie like Sixteen Candles and was stunned when I got a prequel to Days of Wine and Roses instead.
Both movies could be considered versions of Days of Wine and Roses for millennials.
Remember in " The Party " when Peter Sellers was trying to cut his Cornish game hen, and it flew off his plate and onto the hat of the society lady?
Even a running gag involving Laird's guru Gustav (Keegan-Michael Key) that's straight out of "The Pink Panther" only shows how funny Peter Sellers was.