Here‘s a well-phrased appreciation from N.Y. Times DVD columnist Dave Kehr of Paramount Home Video’s 50th anniversary DVD of Stanley Donen‘s Funny Face (’57). I’m not sure I would have watched this without Kehr’s recommendation, but now…maybe. “In a version that returns to the original VistaVision negative for an uncommonly crisp and vibrant transfer,” he writes, “Funny Face is a movie that bridges two generations — that of the traditional, studio-bound musical and that of the new, on-location epic.”

Wasn’t On The Town (’49) was the first on-location musical? Shot mostly on sound stages, used a lot of Manhattan location footage.

Whenever I think of something-face in a movie, I think primarily of Cary Grant calling Joan Fontaine “monkey-face” in Suspicion. Then, I suppose, I think of Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Funny Face. Then Robert DeNiro using the term “fuck-face” in Mean Streets. Then Sex in the City‘s Sara Jessica Parker and that unkind term sometimes applied — “horse-face.” Finally I think of Michael Madsen calling Parole Office Seymour Scagnetti as “ass-head” in Reservoir Dogs. Always the downward spiral…