Funny Face Centennial Collection DVD Review

Funny Face Centennial Collection

DVD Review
Paramount
Released: January 13, 2009

Paramount Home Entertainment has gone back and released Funny Face Centennial Collection on DVD, as this musical is brought to life once again for fans to enjoy.

Funny Face stars Audrey Hepburn as well as Fred Astaire in what ended up being an absolute classic.  The film revolved around fashion magazine editor Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) hiring fashion photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) to find the right girl she needs.

He ends up finding that girl, a salesgirl Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn), but has a  bit of a hard time in convincing her to join and come on-board.

In the end though, she is lured to the city to see a certain professor, Emile Flostre, but ends up enjoying herself more than she could have ever imagined.

This is a classic through and through, and was a joy to watch all over again on this new DVD release.

The video quality for the release is well-done as it is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio and is extremely clean and sharp with some amazing colors, and plenty of great detail.  Until they release this on Blu-ray, it will not look any better.

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and definitely has a great deal of impact to it.  My only complaint was that I felt that things could have been spaced a bit better.  Overall though, a great audio mix.

There are plenty of extras to be had on this two-disc set, with all of them coming on the second disc.

You start out with a mini-biography of sorts on Kay Thompson, which runs for nearly 30-minutes, and then go one from there to plenty of other features.

This is VistaVision is a look into how the film was made with its certain cinematic look, and runs for 24-minutes.

Fashion Photographers Exposed is a 15-minute feature which looks at fashion photography, just as the title says, and compares it to how it is today, to how it was then.

The features are rounded out with a look back as Audrey Hepburn and her working with Herbert de Givenchy, as well as a look back at how Paramount was back in the 1950s.

Funny Face is a classic and was a joy to watch again on the DVD format.  The nice set of extras added to the quality of this release, making it a must-buy if you do not already own it on DVD.

Film: 9.0 An absolute joy to watch all over again.

Video: 9.0 The colors and clarity are astounding.

Audio: 8.5 Things could have been spaced a bit better, but very well-done.

Extras: 8.5 An impressive set of lengthy extras!

Final Score: 8.6

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