VTG's Blog

The End

But Axelrod’s ending called for nothing of the sort. What’s more, the scene wasn’t really that dramatic. It didn’t crescendo. It didn’t sweep you up. It just ended:

Paul stands watching the departing car. The rain has stopped now and patches of bue are beginning to show between the clouds. At the corner the imousine stops for a light. Suddenly, the door opens and Holly jumps out. She is running back toward him across the wet sidewalk. In a moment, they are in each other’s arms. Then she pulls away.

Holly: Come on, darling, we’ve got to find Cat…

Together they dash up the block and into an alley in the direction Cat had gone.

Holly: You cat! Where are you? Cat! Cat! Cat! (To Paul) We have to find him… I thought we just met by the rider one day… that we were both independent… but I was wrong… we do belong to each other. He was mine! Here Cat, Cat, Cat! Where are you?

Then they see him, sitting quietly on the top of a garbage can. She runs to him and gathers him in her arms.

Holly: (To Paul, after a moment) Oh, darling… (But there are no words for it)

Paul: That’s okay.

They walk in silence for a moment, Holly carrying the cat.

Holly: (In a small voice) Darling?

Paul: Yeah?

Holly: Do you think Sam would be a nice name for a cat? As they continue to walk up the street -

FADE OUT. THE END.

That was it. But Blake couldn’t hear the music swell, he couldn’t see Paul and Holly pushed to the brink of their passions and beliefs, and without that eleventh-hour twist, the whole mechanism would just sputter to a halt. What it needed was some kind of imperative, the feeling of high tension followed by a crucial snap. Holly’s mask ought to be ripped off her face. All right, Blake thought, this is a scene about Holly’s change of heart. She was once an independent, a free spirit, and now she wants to belong. The business of naming the cat comes to represent that transformation, sure, but this isn’t Lassie; it’s a love story between a man and a woman, so why play the climactic scene between her and an animal? Play it instead between the two of them, and that line about belonging, put it in Paul’s mouth.

Paul: You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you’re already in that cage, you built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.

Now there’s drama. Now there’s a question in the air.Will she go with him or won’t she?

The new pages were dated September 14, 1960, written six weeks after Axelrod’s final draft. In the big speech, the scene’s centerpiece, Blake recapitulated the image of the cage, which he featured in the first shot of the party sequence. He added the rain, changed the limousine to a taxi, and they shot it in December of 1960.

But they also shot the original ending - Axelrod’s ending. That way, in postproduction, Blake woud be able to see which one worked better. The final decision was his. (…) What happened to the footage of Axelrod’s ending - the ending that survives only in print - is a secret kept by Paramount vauts, if it’s kept anywhere at all. Perhaps it’s gone for good. Perhaps not. Maybe it’s mislabeled thirty feet under groun, and by some archival magic will turn up accidentally in years to come. But it’s not likely.

The kiss

Two dressing rooms were assembled for Audrey, especially for the final sequence - one for taking off her wet clothes, the other for putting on dry ones. They were labeled “Wet Hepburn” and “Dry Hepburn”. When it came time for the kiss, Blake held out for eight takes, each one straining Peppard’s neck more than the last. To give the camera the best of the leading lady, the actor had to tilt his face just so, and the awkward angle, he claimed, threatened his look of rapture. (And the cat, meanwhile - a very, very wet cat - was stinking up the joint. That didn’t make things any easier.) But they did it again (and again) with Audrey ducking into “Wet” and emerging from “Dry”, and at long last, with the warmish studio rain pouring down around him, Blake Edwards had the last shot he wanted. Paul and Holly ensorcelled in a kiss. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was now a love story. Jurrow and Shepherd - had their old-fashioned happy ending in the can. Axelrod had his high comedy, Blake his lowbrow elegance, and Audrey Hepburn, who said she couldn’t do it, had done it.

Excert from Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.