Last Saturday's Audrey Hepburn Day was maybe not as productive as we could have hoped, with only two movies being watched. Charles and Carla arrived at five and we began with Roman Holiday (1953), Audrey's first Hollywood film. The idea was, since I wasn't sure who all was coming, that we'd begin with a lighter film before delving into one with a heavier plot and greater length, like My Fair Lady (1964), where late-comers might find themselves missing important and early-established plot details. In the end our only other guest was Katie for Roman Holiday.

She left after that so Charles, Carla, and I contented ourselves with a musical. They thought it was too late to begin the three-hour long My Fair Lady at that point so we watched the mildly-underrated Funny Face (1957) with Audrey and Fred Astaire. A perk about Funny Face is that, where the later My Fair Lady went and redubbed Audrey's singing with the vocals of Marni Nixon, the earlier musical allowed its star to display her own vocal talents. Audrey had a nice singing voice, but the redubbing for My Fair Lady is perhaps fair. She could sing but lacked the range in a role that had been developed for Julie Andrews and, had that later film kept her vocals intact, she would have seemed woefully under-cast in comparison to her co-stars. To make a long story short, Funny Face is a fine film chock full of Gershwin tunes that you should watch sometime. But Charles and Carla left after its conclusion and so ended Audrey Hepburn night.

May 4 will be the eightieth birthday of actress Audrey Hepburn. She passed on in 1993, leaving in her memory a catalog of twenty Hollywood films in which she stared between 1953 and 1989 was well as a legacy of humanitarianism through her work with UNICEF.

Since May 4 the Monday of exam week, it simply would not do to have a celebration of her life and career on that date, so we're moving its observation up into the weekend. Saturday, May 2 will be Audrey Hepburn Movie Day.

I can offer Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), Funny Face (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Paris, When It Sizzles (1964), and My Fair Lady (1964). And hey, if you're interested in coming and have an Audrey flick that's not in that list, bring it along.