Book Review: "Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M." by Sam Wasson

Title: Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman

Author: Sam Wasson

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN, PUB Date: 978-0061774157, June 22, 2010

Reviewed By: Joan Hanna for Author Exposure

In Fifth Avenue, 5 A. M.: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman, (Harper Collins Publishers) Sam Wasson offers the reader more than just an insider's look into the making of this movie. Wasson, a social historian, delves into so many worlds in this book it is sure to have something for everyone. The movie industry insider tidbits and chronology leading to the making of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is reason enough to read this book, but, Wasson gives his readers so much more than this.

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. is like a slice of cultural pie that encompasses the way women were portrayed in the 1950’s and the foreshadowing of the new “modern woman” of the 1960’s. The unlikely center of this shift into the modern woman is none other than sweet, timid Audrey Hepburn and her portrayal of Truman Capote’s Holly Golightly.

There is so much “scoop” in this book it’s impossible to even attempt to touch it here. So, here are just a few tidbits for you as a tantalizing appetizer:

“Like one of those accidents that’s not really an accident, the casting of “good” Audrey in the part of “not so good” call girl Holly Golightly rerouted the course of woman in movies, giving voice to what was then a still-unspoken shift in the 1950s gender plan.” (eBook, 138-43)

“Jurow and Shepard, the film’s producers, got the rights to Capote’s novel, getting Tiffany’s off the ground looked downright impossible ... Jurow and Shepard hadn’t the faintest idea how the hell they were going to take a novel with no second act, a nameless gay protagonist, a motiveless drama, and an unhappy ending and turn it into a Hollywood movie.” (eBook, 160-68)

“Back then, while the sexual revolution was still underground, Breakfast at Tiffany’s remained a covert insurgence, like a love letter passed around a classroom.” (eBook, 171-77)

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. looks at everything from the history of fashion, fashion in film, Capote’s writing of the book, Audrey Hepburn’s film career, and how Givenchy came to epitomize style and class all wrapped up in a little black dress. Wasson explores all of the subtle and not so subtle forces that came together to even make this film possible. There is enough name-dropping in this book to make your head spin, from Marilyn Monroe to Chanel, from Edith Head to Givenchy, and everyone in-between.

Wasson delivers a powerful profile of the 1950s social culture leading up to Breakfast at Tiffany's and its effect on how the image of the woman shifted in the 1960s. We see how women are portrayed on the screen, perceived by society, and how censorship plays a significant role in both fashion and film. At the end of the book, Wasson gives his reader a list of “End Credits, A Note on the Notes and Notes” leaving no question as to the sources for all of the history, hearsay, and opinions cited in the book.

If you are interested in fashion, film, and cultural history, or just love the movie, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. will absolutely thrill you. Wasson interweaves the stories of anyone who even remotely affected the film in such a masterful way that the reader feels as though they are a part of the inner circle. He also manages to place it all out there, as a historian would, for his audience to decide on the interactions, reactions and conclusions touched on in the book. So, break out your little black dress, dust off your tux, and settle in with this look at a film classic that changed everything.