This blog discusses the movie Dirty Dancing, which was released in 1987 and starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The articles discuss:
* literary aspects, such as characterization, motivation, interactions;
* the music and dances;
* the production of the movie;
* critical reactions.
During 1963, Baby Houseman became increasingly appalled that Barry Goldwater might become the Republican Party's candidate in the 1964 Presidential election and that her father might vote for him. Baby's major objection to Goldwater was that he opposed using governmental power to compel Caucasian business owners to serve Negroes. Goldwater argued that the US Constitution recognized people's freedom of association. Caucasians thus had the right not to associate with Negroes -- in particular, a right to not do business with Negroes.
More generally, Baby was developing an opinion that the US Government had to take measures to improve the fairness of US society. Baby had learned about the new and influential book, The Other America: Poverty in the United States, written by socialist Michael Harrington and published in 1962. Harrington argued that about a fifth of the US population was stuck unfairly in poverty. Not everyone was enjoying the USA's era of prosperity that followed World War Two.
Although Harrington was a socialist, he proposed governmental measures -- such as more funding for education, medical services and housing -- that would help that impoverished one-fifth of the population to climb up out of their poverty.
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During 1963, Baby had become upset about three events.
1) Protesting Negroes had been attacked by police dogs in May.
2) Protesting Vietnamese monks had burned themselves to death beginning in June.
3) Three miners had been trapped in a collapsed mine for several days in August.
In Baby's mind, the three events' common feature was unfairness. Some people had to suffer and had to try to protest, while other people lived in comfort and complacency. The people in the first group were born unlucky, while the people in the second group were born lucky. These unfair differences were a world-wide tragedy -- in particular in the United States.
Baby's father tried to give Baby a more complex perspective. When she complained about such unfairness, he explained that life is difficult for almost everyone. Although he himself enjoyed financial security and comfort now as a doctor, he had struggled for many years to graduate through college, medical school and a medical internship. After all that personal struggle, he was able to help many people, every day, with his medical knowledge and skills.
He suggested that Baby too would be able to help people if she acquired a higher education.
1) She would be able to help protesting Negroes if she became a lawyer or a judge.
2) She would be able to help Vietnamese monks if she became a diplomat.
3) She would be able to help miners if she became an engineer.
Baby's father preached to her that higher education would be her key to her future contributions to improving the fairness of society. She would have to study for many years, and so she would have to develop her personal patience. The USA was making social progress steadily. There already had been much progress during his life, and there would be further progress during her life.
Baby became increasingly frustrated and angry by her father's preaching to be studious and patient. The continuing unfairness outraged her. The US Government could to much more to accelerate and spread progress, but old people like her father impeded such progress by being complacent and selfish and by voting for unfair Republican politicians like Goldwater.
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Baby complained further that too many people were limited in their abilities to obtain higher educations and to rise in professional careers. For example, Negroes and women were thus limited. Even Caucasian men who grew up in working-class families were thus limited.
Baby foresaw that she herself would be limited educationally and professionally because she was a woman. The men in the universities and in the professions inhibited and limited women. The women had to get married, give birth and raise children. Therefore her father was wrong when he preached to her that she wold be able, if she obtained a higher education, to contribute significantly to social progress during her future adult years.
Baby recognized that the USA's society was thoroughly unfair. The older generation -- including her parents and even her older sister -- were failing to recognize the new realities.
Baby Houseman graduated from high school in Brooklyn, New York, in the spring of 1963, when she was about 16 or 17 years old. During the months preceding her graduation, she was accepted to enroll in Mount Holyoke College, an all-female college in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Baby intended to attend Mount Holyoke College for four years and then join the Peace Corps for two or three years.
Baby's father Jake was hoping that Baby -- unfortunately born as the family's second daughter -- might follow in his footsteps into a professional career and perhaps even become a doctor. He did not think that attending a small college would prepare her for a prestigious medical school.
Furthermore, he felt that her two or three years in the Peace Corps might delay disastrously her medical career. Medical schools were reluctant to accept women students, who were likely to suspend their medical careers eventually in order to give birth and raise their children. Such reluctance would be even greater for a woman applicant who was two or three years older than a normal woman applicant.
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Although Baby loved and admired her father, she looked forward to getting away from him for several years. She realized that he was pushing her to be like himself -- to be like the son he had missed having.
She felt she was being a "daddy's girl" too long in her life. It was time for her to mature out of that phase of her life. She could do so only if she put a large geographical space between herself and him.
Such considerations were an important factor in her decision to attend an all-female college. She felt she was controlled too much by her father and by his male career ambitions for her.
Furthermore, she increasingly opposed her father's political opinions, which seemed elitist, harsh and uncaring. Although she tried to avoid political arguments -- or even discussions -- with him, she foresaw already that she would vote Democrat in the 1964 presidential election.
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During 1963, Republicans already were considering who should be the Republican Party's candidate in the 1964 election. The two prominent choices were Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York, and Barry Goldwater, a US Senator of Arizona. Within the party, Rockefeller was on the liberal wing, and Goldwater was on the conservative wing.
The Houseman family lived in New York and so was quite familiar with Rockefeller. Jake Houseman had supported Nelson Rockefeller over Richard Nixon in the 1960 Republican primary elections. The Houseman family were Jews, and most Jews in the USA voted Democratic. Jake Houseman, however, voted Republican because, as a doctor, he opposed government interference in medical businesses. Aside from that one key issue, he generally leaned toward liberal opinions.
Barry Goldwater, like the Houseman family, was Jewish.
Goldwater's political problem among Jews was that his political principles caused him to tolerate people discriminating against other people for racial or ethnic reasons. For example, if a Caucasian who owned a restaurant wanted to prevent Negroes from eating in the restaurant, then Goldwater argued that the Caucasian should be allowed to do so.
Goldwater's own family had become wealthy from owning department stores, and the family's stores did not refuse to serve Negroes. However, Goldwater believed that government's powers should be limited and that individuals enjoyed certain rights, such as the freedom of association. Therefore, the government should not be able to coerce Caucasians to associate with Negroes. In particular, the government should not be able to coerce Caucasian business-owners to serve Negroes.
Goldwater did not argue that Caucasians were superior to Negroes or that such discrimination was morally decent. Rather, he argued that the government's powers should be limited and that individual rights should be allowed.
Such reasoning troubled most Jews, because Jews had suffered from discrimination for many centuries and, in particular, had suffered the Holocaust in Europe during the 1940s.
Such reasoning surely troubled Jake Houseman, and so he felt ambivalent about Goldwater as the Republican Party's future candidate in the 1964 Presidential election. Keep in mind, though, that in August 1963, when the Dirty Dancing story takes place, the Republican Party's primary elections still had not begun. Goldwater still was not the Republican Party's candidate. It still was possible that Rockefeller or some other Republican politician might become the party's candidate.
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We can assume that Baby Houseman strongly rejected Goldwater's arguments that people should ever be allowed to discriminate against other people for racial or ethnic reasons. She did not respect Goldwater's reasoning at all. She was outraged that much of the Republican Party learned toward selecting Goldwater as the party's candidate for the next Presidential election.
Furthermore, Baby felt increasingly angry that her father might still vote Republican in the 1964 election if Goldwater were the Republican candidate. Baby was outraged by the unfairness of Negroes being denied service in restaurants and other businesses. She praised the Negroes who protested against such discrimination.
Compared to those Negro heroes, Baby considered Goldwater to be a villain. She rejected his arguments absolutely.
Baby's father, however, felt and even remarked that he himself might vote for Goldwater in the 1964 election, as the lesser of two evils -- the Democrat candidate being the worse evil.
Imagine that you are watching the movie Dirty Dancing for the first time. On Baby Houseman's first night at the resort hotel, she has befriended Neil Kellerman and is dancing with him in the ballroom. Then Baby is delighted by the sight of Johnny Castle dancing. You in the movie audience anticipate that the movie might tell how Baby will leave her initial friendship with Neil and move into a romantic relationship with Johnny.
A little later in the movie, Baby runs into Billy Kellerman, who is carrying some watermelons to a party in the employees' bunkhouse. Billy remarks that Baby is not allowed into the bunkhouse and remarks also that he has seen Baby dancing with Neil recently.
Billy Kostecki
No guests allowed. House rules.
Why don't you go back to the playhouse
I saw you dancing with little boss man.
Despite the house rules, Baby goes into the bunkhouse, where she sees Johnny dancing. Baby herself dances briefly with Johnny.
A little later in the movie, Baby is in the hotel's gazebo, where some older people are dancing easy ballroom dances. Baby is watching Johnny dance there. Neil comes into the gazebo, talks briefly with Johnny about Penny Johnson's absence and then says to Baby: "Come on, Doll, let's take a walk". Baby compliantly walks away from the gazebo with Neil.
So far into the movie, Neil has not done anything wrong. He is in a continuing relationship with Baby, whom he calls "Doll". He has been dancing with her in "the playhouse". When he wants to take a walk, she accompanies him obediently, as a good girlfriend should do.
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The movie audience, watching the story for the first time, is hoping that Baby will get into a romantic relationship with Johnny. However, Neil still has not done anything wrong that would make him deserve to be dumped by Baby.
Now Neil will annoy Baby and the movie audience by seeming to boast about his ability to attract other girls easily by means of his wealth.
Neil complimenting Baby's beauty and
boasting that he can get other girls.
Here is the scene's entire dialogue:
Neil Kellerman
I love to watch your hair blowing in the breeze.
Baby Houseman
Maybe my parents are looking for me. Neil Kellerman
Baby, don't worry. If they think you're with me, they'll be the happiest parents at Kellerman's. I have to say it: I'm known as the catch of the county.
Baby Houseman
I'm sure you are. Neil Kellerman
Last week I took a girl away from Jamie, the lifeguard. And he said to her, right in front of me: "What does he have that I don't have?" And she said, "Two hotels." (Lisa Houseman and Robbie Gould rush out of the woods and talk at each other.)
Lisa Houseman
Robbie, I don't hear an apology.
Robbie Gould
Go back to Mommy and Daddy and keep listening. Maybe you'll hear one in your dreams. Neil Kellerman
I'm sorry you had to see that, Baby. Sometimes in this world, you see things you don't wanna see.
You hungry? Come on.
Baby goes with Neil to the hotel's kitchen. She says nothing more about her parents looking for her.
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During that dialogue, Neil is thinking that Baby feels attracted to him but that her inexperience inhibits her from acting romantically. To encourage her, he hints to her that he likewise feels attracted to her -- he loves to watch her hair -- and that therefore their attraction is mutual. If she will act on her attraction to him, then he will reciprocate He will not dismiss her romantic action, and so she will not be embarrassed and humiliated.
When Baby remarks Maybe my parents are looking for me, Neil misinterprets her concern. Neil thinks that Baby is thinking the following thought:
Maybe my parents do not want me to be with Neil, and so they might come looking for me in order to take me away from him.
Thinking thus, Neil reassures Baby:
Baby, don't worry. If they think you're with me, they'll be the happiest parents at Kellerman's. I have to say it: I'm known as the catch of the county.
Neil is reassuring Baby in order to encourage her to act on her inhibited attraction toward him.
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Then Neil continues:
Last week I took a girl away from Jamie, the lifeguard.
And he said to her, right in front of me: "What does he have that I don't have?"
And she said, "Two hotels."
This is Neil's round-about way to explain why he is known as "the catch of the county". Neil's intended to communicate the following thought:
Do not worry, Baby, that your parents do not want you to be with me. They will not come looking for you in order to take you away from me. On the contrary, your parents know that you are with me and are happy that you are with me. They are happy because I am "the catch of the county", because I own two hotels in this county.
When Neil boasts about his wealth, he is reassuring Baby that her parents are happy about his wealth. In other words, his train of thought was this:
1) Baby's parents are happy that Baby is with Neil.
2) Therefore her parents are not looking for her, to take her away from him.
3) Her parents are happy because he is the catch of the county.
4) He is the catch of the county largely because he owns two hotels there.
This train of thought is based on the fact that Baby's parents had seen Baby walk away from the gazebo with Neil and therefore knew that she was with him. Therefore in Neil's mind, the only reason why Baby said Maybe my parents are looking for me was that she was concerned that her parents might come take her away from him.
Of course, that was not the only possible reason, but that was the only reason that Neil imagined.
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Into Neil's train of thought, however, he injects a remark about his taking a girl away from a lifeguard during the previous week. Instead of injecting that remark, Neil might have said simply:
Baby, don't worry. If they think you're with me, they'll be the happiest parents at Kellerman's. My family is wealthy. I myself own two hotels.
Ironically, Neil interjected the remark about the girl, because the girl -- not Neil himself -- is the person who used the expression "the catch of the county". Neil does not want to boast I am the catch of the county. Rather, he wants to say that I am known as the catch of the county, because that is what I am called by other people. For example, that is what I was called last week by the lifeguard's former girlfriend.
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The movie audience does not know how this dialogue between Neil and Bay might have continued. Right then, the dialogue was interrupted by the appearance of Lisa Houseman and Robbie Gould, who are arguing with each other.
After that interruption, though, Neil and Baby remain friendly with each other. She does not seem to be offended by his boast about his ability to attract other girls easily by means of his wealth.
When Neil suggests that Baby accompany him to get something to eat, she accompanies him.
The following interview of Franke Previte -- who created the songs "Hungry Eyes" and "Time of My Life" -- is superb. He tells about his entire career as a performer and creator of songs.
I was most interested by a segment, which begins at about 31:00, in which he tells how he was supposed to record his song "Hungry Eyes" for the Dirty Dancing soundtrack but then was replaced one day before his recording by Eric Carmen.
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The following video shows Previte's singing of his song "Hungry Eyes".
Carmen sing the song better.
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The following video shows Previte's singing of his song "Time of My Lfie".
Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes sang it better.
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In the above interview, Previte mentions that he uploaded his demos of the two songs onto his Facebook page, Dirty Dancing Demos. I scrolled down the page for a long way, looking for the two demos, but I gave up looking for them.
At the beginning of the Dirty Dancing story, Baby Houseman intends to study the economics of underdeveloped countries, then to serve in the Peace Corps and then to find a husband like her father. Because of various actions she takes during her three-week summer vacation, however, her entire life might have changed directions. Maybe she will study dance or other arts, and maybe she will marry someone very different from her father.
Baby suddenly faces many new decisions, choices and possibilities in her life. In particular, her new experience with romance has changed her perspectives. She can strive to live authentically by thinking existentially.
The following video was made while Dirty Dancing was being filmed.
At about 1:00 in the video, both Jennifer Grey and then Patrick Swayze mention that Johnny Castle is from South Philadelphia. That fact must have been mentioned in a dialogue bit that was not included in the final movie.
If Baby attended Mount Holyoke College and if Johnny went back home to work as a house painter, then she and he would be about 250 miles apart.
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Grey mentions that she and Patrick did a love scene together in their previous movie Red Dawn, but that the scene was not included in the final movie.
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The person who uploaded the above video has uploaded also the following video clip.
The movie Breakfast at Tiffany's was released on October 1, 1961 -- a little less than two years before the Houseman family's vacation at Kellerman's Mountain House. When the movie was released, Baby Houseman was about 15 years old and Lisa was about 17 years old.
When Lisa was 17 and saw the movie preview, she decided immediately that she absolutely had to watch the new movie.
The preview promised a movie that was full of beautiful clothes, romantic relationships, fun parties and Audrey Hepburn. Lisa Houseman wanted to be just like Audrey Hepburn and wanted a boyfriend just like George Peppard.
When Lisa had been 15 in the year 1957, she had seen Audrey Hepburn's movie, Funny Face. In that movie, Audrey had played the intellectual character Jo Stockton. Jo studied philosophy and worked in a bookstore. After the bookstore was bought by a fashion designer, however, plain but brainy Jo found herself working as a fashion model for the bookstore's new owner. Jo was selected for this modeling job because the fashion designer was developing a new clothing line with a "beautiful and intelligent" look.
When Jo learns that she will pose for such fashions in Paris, she looks forward to the opportunity to meet the famous French philosopher Emile Flostre, the founder of the Empathicalism school of philosophy. The Paris trip turns out to be full of glamorous fashion and romantic adventure for sweet and smart Jo.
Lisa was sure that Funny Face was the best movie in the history of the world. Therefore Lisa did her hair fancy, put on makeup, dressed up in a cute outfit and went to the movie theater when the movie opened there.
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Although Breakfast At Tiffany's was not half as good as Funny Face, Lisa liked it because of Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, their beautiful clothes and the cute cat.
Athough Jo in Funny Face was bright, Holly in Breakfast at Tiffany's was dopey. Despite being a ditz, though, Holly won the love of a professional writer who had lots of money, always wore a suit and tie and lived in a large apartment in Manhattan.
Lisa did not understand or even think about how Holly earned her living. Holly seemed to get some money from rich older men, who apparently adored her.
Anyway, Lisa thought that if she herself ever moved to Manhattan as a young adult, then she might be able to get a good job and have a lot of fun.
Lisa felt sure that her chances of getting a good job would be better if she assembled a good wardrobe If she dressed well for job interviews, then she would appear to be sensible, capable and professional. Then after she got a job, continuing to dress well would help her to advance in her career.
Whenever Lisa's mother suggested a shopping trip, Lisa jumped up to accompany her. These mother-daughter shopping trips always turned out to include some purchases for Lisa. When considering a clothing or beauty item, Lisa always asked her mother's opinions. Were the colors coordinated well? Would the fabric be troublesome? How might this outfit be accessorized?
Lisa's mother enjoyed these mother-daughter experiences with Lisa and generously paid for items that pleased both of them.
In contrast to Lisa, Baby was not eager to spend time with her mother window-shopping and wandering around inside stores It was a chore for Baby even to buy new school clothes before a new school year began. As a consequence, Baby accumulated much less clothing than Lisa did. Baby did not even buy and wear makeup.
(While Baby was leaning to dance at Kellerman's, she borrowed most of her dancewear from Penny Johnson.)
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Essayist Jamie Brickhouse has written an interesting article titled Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s - the Novel That Saved My Life. Although his article is written from the perspective of a gay young man, his article perhaps includes much of Lisa Houseman's perspective on the movie. Brickhouse's article includes the following passage:
.... is Breakfast at Tiffany’s a gay book?
It doesn’t have a gay love relationship, gay sex or even an overt gay character. It does have an overt gay author, Truman Capote. I’d never read a Capote book but I knew he was gay. Even folks in Tulip, Texas knew he was gay.
I came to the book through the movie. I wanted to be Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly who falls in love with the edible George Peppard. Truth be told, I wanted to be Patricia Neal aka “2-E,” George Peppard’s sugar mama who was costumed like the Evil Queen from Snow White. That’s how gay I already was.
Then I read the book. I didn’t dive into it thinking it was a gay book, just that it was the basis for my new favorite movie. There isn’t a whiff of romance between Holly and Capote’s alter ego, the struggling writer and narrator of the book. I’ll call him Tru since he is never named, as Holly’s cat is never named. Long before Will and Grace, there was Holly and Tru.
Capote doesn’t claim his alter ego’s sexual identity, but it’s clear that Tru is gay from his infatuation with Holly. She is a girl who welcomes a cavalcade of men into her bed, dresses chicly on powder room change and says things like:
Would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn’t read this sort of thing without her lipstick.
It’s tacky to wear diamonds before you’re forty; and even that’s risky.
Dykes are wonderful home-makers, they love to do all the work, you never have to bother about brooms and defrosting and sending out the laundry.
She’s also the kind of girl who reinvents herself into Holly Golightly of New York City from Lulamae Barnes of Tulip, Texas. Sure, she’s the kind of woman straight men fall for. But she’s the kind of girl gay men adore.
Holly wants Tru to find himself as a writer, and Tru wants Holly to find herself. Period. I found that sexy.
The book opened a window on life beyond the Tulip, Texas I was living in. It made the New York City I’d seen depicted in movies and TV shows suddenly possible. I saw an adult life that wasn’t about marriage and children. In one scene Holly is throwing a raucous madcap party in her brownstone walk up apartment. In another she and Tru are stealing Halloween masks from a Woolworth’s. Later in the book they’re walking across the Brooklyn Bridge after a chow-mein supper and watching the ships pass.
The book is loaded with deliciously quotable lines, but the one that stuck with me and penetrated a gay nerve the first time I read it is never quoted as far as I know. It’s on the last page of the book when Tru is telling the reader what happened after Holly disappeared.
The owner of the brownstone sold her abandoned possessions... a new tenant acquired the apartment, his name was Quaintance Smith, and he entertained as many gentlemen callers of a noisy nature as Holly ever had — though in this instance Madame Spanella did not object, indeed she doted on the young man and supplied filet mignon whenever he had a black eye.
I tingled with excitement when I read that line. I pictured Quaintance — whose real name was probably Joe Bob and he no doubt hailed from a town like Tulip — holding Madame Spanella’s raw filet mignon to his blackening left eye and cradling the phone under his right ear as he gesticulated wildly with a lit cigarette:
Darling, I have the most gruesome hangover. Penn Station at rush hour, in August, on Friday doesn’t begin to describe it.
I saw two gay men — Tru and Quaintance — living the kind of live I wanted to live.
After college I moved to New York. I didn’t become Holly Golightly, Tru or even Quaintance, but I dabbled in all three. I moved into a cute apartment on the top floor of a brownstone walk up with a man I met in Central Park. We threw raucous parties and entertained a cavalcade of men. We could have posted a sign over the door like McDonald’s: “Billions Over-Served.” When I recovered from two decades worth of gruesome hangovers I started to become a writer.
Maybe Breakfast at Tiffany’s did save my life; not in the obvious dramatic way that Holly saves Tru’s life during a runaway horse incident near the end of the book. It saved my life by planting a fertile seed. It showed me an adult life that was about parties and friends and sex and sparkling wit and messiness and creativity and longing for something outside of convention. It gave me the insatiable appetite to reach beyond my circumstances. It gave me a vista of what kind of life was possible for a homosexual like me.
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This article concludes this series about the song "Moon River".
In 1959 the movie A Summer Place was released. One significant factor in the movie's success was that the soundtrack song, Theme from a Summer Place, became quite popular. The soundtrack song was composed by Max Steiner and sounded like this:
Immediately the song was rearranged and recorded by the Percy Faith Orchestra. This rendition became a huge hit. The song remained #1 on the Billboard Top 100 list for nine consecutive weeks. Eventually Billboard ranked the recording as the #1 song for the entire year of 1960.
The Percy Faith rendition -- lusher than Steiner's soundtrack -- sounds like this:
The movie and its song reinforced each other commercially. The movie sold records, and the records sold movie tickets. I suppose that the movie's producers earned a portion of the record's royalties.
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I speculate that the 1959 movie A Summer Place inspired the producers of the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's to invest a lot of money to commission Johnny Mercer to write the lyrics and Henry Mancini to compose the music for a hit song.
The investment paid off. The song "Moon River" became a factor in the commercial success of Breakfast at Tiffany's and has helped to maintain the movie's popularity for more than half a century.
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Most people who have watched Breakfast at Tiffany's assume that the song "Moon River" portrays the romantic relationship between the movie's two leading characters -- Holly Golightly and Paul Jarvak. They are the two drifters, the huckleberry friends, who will travel together, searching for the rainbow's end:
Moon River,
Wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style
Some day.
Oh, dream-maker,
You heart-breaker,
Wherever you're going,
I'm going your way.
Two drifters,
Off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world
To see.
We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waiting round the bend --
My huckleberry friend,
Moon River, and me
That popular interpretation of the lyrics is sensible with regard to the finished movie. After all, the movie ends with Holly and Paul falling in love, with marriage in at least his mind.
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However, I doubt that Mercer wrote his lyrics about the Holly's and Paul's relationship. He wrote his lyrics based on Truman Capote's novella, which ends with the two leading characters estranged from each other and parting ways forever. Mercer probably never read the movie's screenplay, and he wrote his lyrics long before the movie was finished.
As I wrote in this series' Part 1, Holly found the cat -- which is a key symbol in the Breakfast at Tiffany's story -- along a river. I believe that Mercer began writing his lyrics with the idea that Holly was singing about a river journey with the cat.
In other words, the lyrics expressed Holly's inability to establish real and lasting relations with other people. The song is not about her friendship with some other person, but rather about her social isolation and her solitude. She will find her happiness alone, accompanied only by a cat.
As Mercer polished his lyrics, however, he eventually shoved the cat out -- just as Holly had shoved the cat out of the taxi. The cat was replaced by the river itself.
Only one relic of the cat -- the "huckleberry friend" -- remains in the lyrics. When Mercer was a child, he had picked huckleberries along Moon River near his home town. He had found huckleberries along a river, just as Holly had found the cat along a river. In Mercer's mind, therefore, Holly's cat was her "huckleberry friend".
After Mercer shoved the cat out of his lyrics, the "huckleberry friend" ultimately became Moon River itself.
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According to the biography Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer by Philip Furia, the "Moon River" lyrics were inspired by Mercer's childhood memories of picking huckleberries with his cousin along a river near his childhood home, I myself have not read this biography, but a person who has read it summarizes that part as follows.
Moon River's lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer, who grew up in Savannah, Georgia. The title and lyrics where inspired by a river that ran near his family's summer home, the Vernon River. However, Vernon is not a very lyrical name, so Johnny pulled out a map of the region and found a Moon River north of Savannah, in Bluffton, South Carolina.
Mercer wrote the lyrics based on his idyllic childhood in Savannah, summering on the coast and picking huckleberries with his cousin on the banks of the Vernon River ("my huckleberry friend"). He dreamed of his future life and how he would leave his home and river ("old dream maker, you heart breaker"), but regardless of how far he goes, he has the same goal as that river ("Wherever you're going, I'm goin' your way" and "We're after the same Rainbow's end").
He left that sweet, simple life for a life in show biz, living in New York and Hollywood - his cousin also left to pursue a career ("two drifters"). Upon his return to Savannah after his success, he drove across the bridge in his brand new Buick ("crossing you in style someday"), fulfilling his dream.
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Many people understand Mercer's expression "huckleberry friend" as alluding to Huckleberry Finn, the main character of Mark Twain's novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There, Huckleberry Finn escapes from his home and befriends an escaped Negro slave named Jim, and they travel together on a raft down the Mississippi River. They often travel at night, their path illuminated only by the moon shining down on the river.
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However, I still argue that Mercer began writing his lyrics while thinking of Holly finding the cat along the river and that he finished writing his lyrics with the idea that the "huckleberry friend" was Moon River -- the physical river -- itself. In other words, the "huckleberry friend" is neither Mercer's cousin nor Huckleberry friend.
Mercer addresses his song to Moon River. Whenever Mercer says or implies the word "you", he is addressing the physical river.
I'm crossing you in style ...
you dream-maker
you heart-breaker
wherever you're going
I'm going your way
When Mercer uses the word "we", he likewise is addressing the physical river.
We're after the same rainbow's end
Mercer even states explicitly that his huckleberry friend is Moon River.
My huckleberry friend,
Moon River, and me.
The above two lines comprise a list of two entities:
1) my huckleberry friend, also known as Moon River
2) me
The last two lines could be punctuated thus:
My huckleberry friend
(Moon River) and me.
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Now I explain the entire song as follows:
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Moon River,
Wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style
Some day.
Holly is standing on the river bank and looking across the river. She is young and poor now, but she intends to succeed in life and then will return here triumphantly. She will own an expensive boat or car and will be able to cross the river in style.
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Oh, dream-maker,
You heart-breaker,
Wherever you're going,
I'm going your way.
The flowing river inspires young Holly to travel away in order to find her success. Although her journey will lead to the fulfillment of her dreams, it also will involve much frustration and pain.
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Two drifters
Off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world
To see.
The two drifters are Holly and the river.
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We're after the same rainbow's end --
Waiting 'round the bend,
My huckleberry friend
(Moon River) and me.
On her journey, rain sometimes will fall on Holly and the river. The rainstorms are times of frustration and pain. However, each rainstorm will be followed by a period of happiness and hope -- by a rainbow ahead. Thus Holly will continue her journey and ultimately will find a pot of gold.
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Holly calls the river by its proper name -- Moon River -- and also by a nickname -- "my huckleberry friend".
The song is not a song about friendship or romance. Rather, it is a song about solitude and independent endeavor.
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Mercer was a scoundrel. He was an alcoholic and a womanizer. For example, he seduced Judy Garland when she was 19 years old and engaged to be married. Although he settled in Hollywood, he always had the personality of someone who might break up with his current romantic partner and leave town without notice to search for happiness elsewhere. He was a happy-go-lucky guy.
Many of his songs describe the pleasure of traveling alone from home after breaking up with a lover.
For example, here is an excerpt from his song "Blues In the Night (My Mama Done Tol' Me)":
Now the rain's a-fallin',
Hear the train's a-callin,
My mama done tol' me:
"Hear dat lonesome whistle
Blowin' 'cross the trestle."
My mama done tol' me:
"Ol' clickety-clack's a-echoin' back
Th' blues in the night"
The evenin' breeze'll start the trees to cryin'
And the moon'll hide its light
When you get the blues in
The night.
From Natchez to Mobile,
From Memphis to St. Joe,
Wherever the four winds blow
I been in some big towns
An' heard me some big talk,
But there is one thing I know:
A woman's a two-face,
A worrisome thing
Who'll leave ya to sing
The blues in the night
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Here is an excerpt from his song "Trav'lin' Light"
I'm trav'lin' light,
Because my man has gone,
And from now on
I'm trav'lin' light.
He said goodbye,
And took my heart away.
So from today
I'm trav'lin' light.
No one to see.
I'm free as the breeze.
No one but me
And my memories.
Some lucky night
He may come back again.
But until then
I'm trav'lin' light.
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Here is an excerpt from his song "I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande", which is about his joy while driving a car.
I'm an old cowhand from the Rio Grande,
And I learned to ride 'fore I learned to stand.
I'm a riding fool who is up-to-date.
I know every trail in the Lone Star state,
'Cause I ride the range in a Ford V-8.
Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay!
And I come to town just to hear the band.
I know all the songs that the cowboys know.
'Bout the big corral where the doggies go,
'Cause I learned them all on the radio.
Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay!
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Here are excerpts from his song "On The Atchison Topeka And Santa Fe", about the excitement of riding on a train.
What a lovely trip!
I'm feeling so fresh and alive,
And I'm so glad to arrive!
It's all so grand!
Back in Ohio, where I come from,
I've done a lot of dreaming, and I've travelled some,
But I never thought I'd see the day
When I ever took a ride on the Santa Fe.
I would lean across my window sill
And hear the whistle echoin' across the hill.
Then I'd watch the lights till they fade away,
On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.
I can't believe that anything could go so fast.
Then you pull that throttle, whistle blows
A-huffin' and a-puffin', and away she goes.
All aboard for California,
On The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.
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My favorite Mercer song is "That Old Black Magic".
That old black magic has me in its spell --
That old black magic that you weave so well.
Icy fingers up and down my spine --
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine.
The same old tingle that I feel inside,
When that elevator starts its ride --
Down and down I go, round and round I go --
Like a leaf that's caught in the tide.
I should stay away, but what can I do?
I hear your name, and I'm aflame --
Aflame with such a burning desire
That only your kiss can put out the fire.
You are the lover that I've waited for,
The mate that fate had me created for.
And every time your lips meet mine,
Baby, down and down I go,
All around I go, in a spin --
Loving the spin that I'm in --
Under that old black magic
Called love.
The character Holiday (Holly) Golightly in the Breakfast at Tiffany's novella has several similarities to the character Penny Johnson in the Dirty Dancing movie. If a prequel Dirty Dancing movie were made, then the novella could serve as a partial inspiration for the story of Penny. Like Holly, Penny ran away from her home in Texas to New York when she was a teenager.
Holly ran away from Texas when she was about 15 years old -- first to California and then to New York, where she arrived at about the age of 17.
An important difference between Holly and Penny, however, is that Holly was a lazy courtesan whereas Penny was an energetic dancer.
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The novella is about a couple of teenagers -- Holly and her writer-neighbor (his name is not mentioned in the novella) -- who are estranged from their families and are struggling to live by their wits in Manhattan during World War Two.
In the 1961 movie, the two main characters are played by Audrey Hepburn (born in 1929), who was about 32 years old, and by George Peppard (born in 1928), who was about 33 years old. Each character lives alone in a rather large apartment.
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Truman Capote, the novella's author, was born in New Orleans in 1924. When he was four years old, his father left the family, and then his mother turned Truman over to be raised by four elderly, spinster female relatives in a small, Alabama town, Monroeville.
In 1931 Truman’s mother – it will be relevant to mention that her birth name was Lillie Mae – moved to New York City, changed her name to Nina. She married a wealthy Cuban immigrant Joe Capote, who eventually adopted Truman, who joined his mother and new step-father in New York City in 1933, when he was nine years old.
In the following years, Truman maintained contact with and often visited his relatives in Monroeville. One of his childhood friends there was Harper Lee, who later became famous as the author of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird (some people believe that Capote helped Lee write it).
In 1941, at the age of 17, Truman dropped out of high school began working in the art department of The New Yorker magazine. In his free time, he began to write short stories, hoping to become a professional writer. At about the time of his 19th birthday, at about the beginning of October 1943, he moved out of his parent’s luxurious home and moved into a small, third-story apartment in the area of the East 70s in Manhattan.
These were the circumstances of Truman Capote’s life that were depicted in his novella. The story's main events take place from October 1943 to October 1944 – essentially the year between his 19th and 20th birthdays.
Toward the end of that year, Capote was fired from his job at The New Yorker because he insulted the famous poet Robert Frost by walking out of the room during the middle of one of his poetry readings. The novella mentions this firing but does not provide any details.
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Capote seems to have based his novella's character Holly Golightly primarily on his own mother -- and on himself. The Wikipedia article about the novella includes the following passage.
Capote’s biographer Gerald Clarke wrote "half the women he knew ... claimed to be the model for his wacky heroine." Clarke also wrote of the similarities between the author himself and the character.
There are also similarities between the lives of Holly and Capote's mother, Nina Capote; among other shared attributes:
* both women were born in the rural south with similar "hick" birth names that they changed (Holly Golightly was born Lula Mae Barnes in Texas, Nina Capote was born Lillie Mae Faulk in Alabama),
* both left the husbands they married as teenagers and abandoned relatives they loved and were responsible for, instead going to New York,
In his novella, Capote imagined himself as a teenager living as a neighbor of his own teenager mother. His mother's personality was similar to Holly's personality.
Capte was a flamboyant homosexual, and his own personality was likewise similar to Holly's personality.
To some extent, Capote's novella Breakfast at Tiffany's was a self-examination of his relationship with his mother, who had left him when he was four but then taken him back when he was nine. His continuing problems with his mother caused him to move out of her luxurious home when he was 19.
To some extent, he did not consider his mother to be his real mother. He had been raised by his Monroeville female relatives until he was nine -- the age when he consciously came into his mother's life.
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Penny Johnson too had a troubled relationship with her own mother. This was part of Penny's reason for leaving Texas at the age of 17 and moving to New York.
Penny does not mention her father during Dirty Dancing.
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Holly Golightly suffered chronically from anxiety, which she masked from other people by means of an apparently merry personality. Because of her anxiety, she characterized herself as Traveling and she moved from place to place -- and from relationship to relationship -- erratically.
In the novella, Holly sang about her traveling characteristic in her song:
Don't wanna sleep,
Don't wanna die --
Just wanna go a-travelin'
Through the pastures of the sky.
In the movie, this song was adapted into the song "Moon River".
======
My interpretation of the story is that Holly suffered from anxiety because her life had been sexualized by older men when she was too young. After both her parents had died from tuberculosis, she was taken in by a widower, Dr. Golightly, who soon married her when she was 14 years old. In this young marriage, she had to take care of the Dr. Golightly's children from his previous marriage.
Soon Holly ran away to California. There a movie producer arranged for her to audition for a movie role, but she flew away to New York in order to avoid the audition. I suppose that Holly flew away because she perceived that she was being groomed to serve as a sexual toy for older men in the Hollywood movie industry.
Although her birth name was Lula Mae, she adopted the name Holiday (Holly) while she was involved in Hollywood. Her new first name perhaps originated from her experiences as a young sexual toy in Hollywood.
Holly was about 17 years old when she arrived in Manhattan and was approaching her 18th birthday when the Breakfast at Tiffany's story began.
In New York, Holly made her living mostly as a sexual dominatrix for an extremely rich man, named Rusty Trawler. He was a sexual pervert. He liked to dress up as a little girl. Then Holly would discipline and spank him. He liked that he denied sexual pleasure to him but appeared to have sexual relations with other men.
In fact, though, Holly did not really have sexual relations promiscuously with other men. She was not an ordinary prostitute. Rather, she was a young dominatrix, beginning a career of catering thus to much older, very rich men. When she flirted with older, rich men, she was to some extent putting on a show for Rusty's cuckold fantasies and she was to some extent trolling for new clients like Rusty.
Holly's sexual business is not spelled out in the novella, but it was understood in 1958 by sophisticated readers who knew how to read between the lines. The novella's scattered hints of sexual perversion were a major reason for its commercial success.
The novella does not hint about the sexuality of Holly's writer-neighbor. Although he is Capote himself -- who was a flamboyant homosexual -- he in the novella is merely a neighbor and friend. In much of the novella's second half he is not even a friend, because he is unfriended by Holly. The writer-neighbor is too busy writing to spend any time on romantic or sexual activities.
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Capote himself -- when he was in his late teens -- used his homosexuality to help advance his literary career. He sexually served older successful writers who might serve as his mentors and promoters in the writing business. In that regard, young Capote himself was similar to young dominatrix Holly Golightly.
The novella takes place during 1943-1944, when the USA was fighting in World War Two. Although Capote was 19-20 years old, he did not serve in the military. He perhaps was deferred from conscription because of his flamboyant homosexuality or perhaps avoided conscription because he himself recognized that his flamboyant homosexuality would make him unfit for military service.
The novella does refer occasionally to the war.
* When the writer-neighbor is fired from his job, he is doubly upset by having to look for another job because he fears that he might be conscripted into the military anyway.
* Holly and her temporary roommate both have boyfriends who are characterized as German sympathizers.
* Holly’s brother is serving in the military, and she wants to mail him some peanut butter. Because sales of peanut butter are limited by wartime rationing, she and her writer-neighbor spend a day going from store to store to buy a lot of small portions of peanut butter.
* After Holly’s brother is killed in combat in Europe, she suffers a nervous breakdown. (In the movie, her brother is killed in a car accident in peacetime Kansas.)
I suppose that Capote felt ashamed about not serving in the military during the war. He was considered by many of his contemporaries to be a slacker.
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If you want to try to read between the lines about Holly's relationship with Rusty, then study the following passage (pages 8-10) from the novella. Holly's writer-neighbor is at a party in Holly's apartment. I have bolded some of the words to help you read between the lines.
Presently one of these [friends of Holly] became prominent. He was a middle-aged child that had never shed its baby fat, though some gifted tailor had almost succeeded in
camouflaging his plump and spankable bottom.
There wasn't a suspicion of bone in his body; his face, a zero filled in with pretty miniature features, had an unused, a virginal quality: it was as if he'd been born, then expanded, his skin remaining unlined as a blown-up balloon, and his mouth, though ready for squalls and tantrums, a spoiled sweet puckering.
But it was not appearance that singled him out; preserved infants aren't all that rare. It was, rather, his conduct; for he was behaving as though the party were his: like an energetic octopus, he was shaking martinis, making introductions, manipulating the phonograph.
In fairness, most of his activities were dictated by the hostess herself: Rusty, would you mind; Rusty, would you please. If he was in love with her, then clearly he had his jealousy in check. A jealous man might have lost control, watching her as she skimmed around the room, carrying her cat in one hand but leaving the other free to straighten a tie or remove lapel lint; the Air Force colonel wore a medal that came in for quite a polish.
The man's name was Rutherfurd ("Rusty") Trawler. In 1908 he'd lost both his parents, his father the victim of an anarchist and his mother of shock, which double misfortune had made Rusty an orphan, a millionaire, and a celebrity, all at the age of five. He'd been a stand-by of the Sunday supplements ever since, a consequence that had gathered hurricane momentum when, still a schoolboy, he had caused his godfather-custodian to be arrested on charges of sodomy.
After that, marriage and
divorce sustained his place in the tabloid-sun. His first wife had taken herself, and her alimony, to a rival of Father Divine's. The second wife seems unaccounted for, but the
third had sued him in New York State with a full satchel of the kind of testimony that entails. He himself divorced the last Mrs. Trawler, his principal complaint stating that
she'd started a mutiny aboard his yacht, said mutiny resulting in his being deposited on the Dry Tortugas.
Though he'd been a bachelor since, apparently before the war he'd proposed to Unity Mitford [a British woman who sympathized with Nazi Germany], at least he was supposed to have sent her a cable offering to marry her if Hitler didn't. This was said to be the reason [newspaper columnist] Winchell always referred to him as a Nazi; that, and the fact that he attended rallies in Yorkville.
I was not told these things. I read them in The Baseball Guide, another selection off Holly's shelf which she seemed to use for a scrapbook. Tucked between the pages
were Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip columns. Rusty Trawler and Holly Golightly two-on-the-aisle at "One Touch of Venus" preem. Holly
came up from behind, and caught me reading: Miss Holiday Golightly, of the Boston Golightlys, making every day a holiday for the 24-karat Rusty Trawler ....
Rusty Trawler came carrying a martini; he handed it over without looking at me. "I'm hungry," he announced, and his voice, retarded as the rest of him, produced an
unnerving brat-whine that seemed to blame Holly. "It's seven-thirty, and I'm hungry.
You know what the doctor said."
"Yes, Rusty. I know what the doctor said."
"Well, then break it up. Let's go."
"I want you to behave, Rusty." She spoke softly, but there was a governess threat of punishment in her tone that caused an odd flush of pleasure, of gratitude, to pink his
face.
"You don't love me," he complained, as though they were alone.
"Nobody loves naughtiness."
Obviously she'd said what he wanted to hear; it appeared to both excite and relax him. Still he continued, as though it were a ritual: "Do you love me?"
She patted him. "Tend to your chores, Rusty. And when I'm ready, we'll go eat wherever you want."
"Chinatown?"
"But that doesn't mean sweet and sour spareribs. You know what the doctor said."
As he returned to his duties with a satisfied waddle, I couldn't resist reminding her that she hadn't answered his question. "Do you love him?"
"I told you: you can make yourself love anybody. Besides, he had a stinking childhood."
"If it was so stinking, why does he cling to it?"
"Use your head. Can't you see it's just that Rusty feels safer in diapers than he would in a skirt? Which is really the choice, only he's awfully touchy about it. He tried to
stab me with a butter knife because I told him to grow up and face the issue, settle down and play house with a nice fatherly truck driver. Meantime, I've got him on my
hands; which is okay, he's harmless, he thinks girls are dolls, literally."
"Thank God."
"Well, if it were true of most men, I'd hardly be thanking God."
"I meant thank God you're not going to marry Mr. Trawler."
She lifted an eyebrow. "By the way, I'm not pretending I don't know he's rich. Even land in Mexico costs something. ...
The song "Moon River" was introduced to the public in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. The song is sung by the character Holly Golightly, played by the actress Audrey Hepburn. Holly lives in an apartment below the apartment of a writer, the character Paul Varjak, played by the actor George Peppard.
In one scene, Paul is writing a story titled My Friend, which begins with the two sentences:
There was once a very lonely, very frightened girl. She lived alone except for a nameless cat.
Paul hears Holly singing outside, on the fire escape along the apartment building's outside wall. Paul opens his window and listens to Holly sing the song "Moon River", the lyrics of which mention Holly's "huckleberry friend".
The song's lyrics:
Moon River,
Wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style
Some day.
Oh, dream-maker,
You heart-breaker,
Wherever you're going,
I'm going your way.
Two drifters,
Off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world
To see.
We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waiting round the bend --
My huckleberry friend,
Moon River, and me
The song "Moon River" became a huge hit. The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
The song became closely associated with the singer Andy Williams, because the song began every episode of his weekly television show, which was broadcast from 1962 to 1971.
This kind of song and music was hugely popular in the year 1963, when the movie Dirty Dancing takes place. Whenever the song was played in the Kellerman's ballroom, most of the hotel guests would get up and dance to it. When Jake and Marge Houseman were standing in the gazebo and waiting for a slow waltz, they were waiting for "Moon River" or for a similar song.
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The 1961 movie was based on the 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, written by Truman Capote.
The cover of an early edition
of the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's
The novella -- in which the story takes place in the year 1943 -- describes (page 4) Holly sitting on the fire escape and singing.
Also, she had a cat and she played the guitar. On days when the sun was strong, she would wash her hair, and together with the cat, a red tiger-striped tom, sit out on
the fire escape thumbing a guitar while her hair dried.
Whenever I heard the music, I would go stand quietly by my window. She played very well, and sometimes sang too. Sang in the hoarse, breaking tones of a boy's adolescent voice. She knew all the show hits, Cole Porter and Kurt Weill; especially she liked the songs from Oklahoma!, which were new that summer [1943] and everywhere.
But there were moments when she played songs that made you wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked of pineywoods or prairie. One went:
Don't wanna sleep,
Don't wanna die --
Just wanna go a-travelin'
Through the pastures of the sky.
and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for often she continued it long after her hair had dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk.
The movie's producers commissioned lyricist Johnny Mercer and musician Henry Mancini to compose a song for Holly to sing in the corresponding scene in the movie. Although Mercer did not use the novella's lyrics, he did write lyrics that portrayed -- like the novella's lyrics -- an endless, soul-satisfying journey. Instead of a sky journey, however, Mercer's lyrics portrayed a river journey.
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Mercer surely read the novel for ideas about the song he was commissioned to write. Later in the novella, Mercer then read the below passage (page 9). The scene is that Holly and Paul are talking with each other during a party in her apartment. She is holding her cat and telling him that a movie agent, O.J. Berman, had arranged for her to audition for a movie role in Hollywood but that, without telling Berman, she had flown away to New York City in order to avoid the audition. Now Berman is at her party in New York, and he has just told Paul that Holly had flown away from the movie audition he had arranged for her in Hollywood.
(I have bolded a few parts of this passage and will discuss those parts afterwards.)
"He [Berman] is still harping?" she said, and cast across the room an affectionate look at Berman.
"But he's got a point, I should feel guilty. Not because they would have given
me the part or because I would have been good: they wouldn't and I wouldn't. If I do feel guilty, I guess it's because I let him go on dreaming when I wasn't dreaming a bit.
"I was just vamping for time to make a few self-improvements: I knew damn well I'd never be a movie star. It's too hard; and if you're intelligent, it's too embarrassing. My
complexes aren't inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand; actually, it's essential not to have any ego at all.
"I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's." ....
She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right
to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody.
"We [Holly and the cat] just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like."
She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. "Not that I give a hoot about jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskay. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait. But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's. Listen. You know those days when you've got the mean reds?"
"Same as the blues?"
"No," she said slowly. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is. You've had that feeling?"
"Quite often. Some people call it angst."
"All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?"
"Well, a drink helps."
"I've tried that. I've tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle.
What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."
Mercer surely recognized that this is a key passage in the novella. The passage explains why the novella is titled Breakfast at Tiffany's and explains Holly's personality in her own words.
The passage also features Holly's cat, which appears frequently in the novella and also in the movie. Although the novella and movie end differently, in both cases Holly shoves the cat out of a taxi in another neighborhood but then regrets her action and runs back to try to find the cat, unsuccessfully.
Here is how the movie ends:
While thinking about the lyrics he would write for the movie's singing scene, Mercer pondered the above two passages of the novella. In the novella, Holly sang her self-written song:
Don't wanna sleep,
Don't wanna die --
Just wanna go a-travelin'
Through the pastures of the sky.
Holly considers herself to be a traveler, a nomad. Very early in the novella (pages 2-3), Paul had told the readers how he had learned his downstairs neighbor's name.
I'd been living in the house about a week when I noticed that the mailbox belonging to Apt. 2 had a name-slot fitted with a curious card. Printed, rather Cartier-formal, it
read: Miss Holiday Golightly; and, underneath, in the corner, Traveling. It nagged me
like a tune: Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling.
Mercer decided that he would write his movie-song lyrics about Holly traveling. Holly would sing that she was "off to see the world" because "there's such a lot of world to see.
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Holly traveled nomadically because she suffered chronically from anxiety. Paul suggested that she use the German word Angst. Holly herself called her anxiety the mean reds.
Because of her anxiety, Holly suffered from a sleep disorder. She declared in her song that she did not want to sleep. While talking with Paul at the party, she indicated that she did not dream a bit. The novella and the movie show her staying awake far into the night -- even until dawn.
Because of her anxiety, Holly also suffered from an inferiority complex. She feels that she has no ego and that she does not even want to have an ego. She wants to own and wants to belong, but she is not ready for either.
Holly usually wears big sunglasses in order to hide her face. She shoplifts and wears a mask. In the movie the stolen mask is a cat mask.
Holly wearing a cat mask and Paul wearing a dog mask
in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's
Holly Golightly's cat mask
in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's
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The cat symbolizes the lack of belonging in her life. Although the cat lives with her, the cat does not belong to her. Because the cat does not belong to her, she does not give the cat a name.
The Shmoop study guide of the novella interprets the cat symbolism as follows:
Holly's cat is a constant reminder of the lack of connection she feels to those around her. For much of the story, he represents her unwillingness (or maybe her inability) to feel tied down to anyone or anything, and the fact that she won't name him further emphasizes this: "We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I". Holly won't claim the cat as her own because that would signify that she's putting down roots, and this is something she's clearly adverse to doing.
Near the end of the story, the cat comes to represent something slightly different. Holly sets him free on her way to the airport, but she does so by leaving him in an unfamiliar and unfriendly-looking neighborhood. When she realizes the horrible mistake she has made and tries desperately to find him, the cat symbolizes Holly's realization that she's scared about never belonging anywhere or to anyone. All of her fears come to rest in the symbol of the cat, and the fact that she doesn't find him might tell us something about her eventual fate.
Because Holly herself does not belong to anyone, she never tells anyone her real name, which is not Holly (Holiday), but rather Lula Mae.
In the novella, Holly never calls her writer neighbor by his real name. (The novella's readers never learn his real name.) Rather, she calls him "Fred". In the movie, the writer neighbor's real name is Paul Varjak, but Holly calls him only "Fred".
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I speculate that as Mercer read the novella, he too recognized the cat's symbolism in relation to Holly. She explained her relationship to the cat in these words:
We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together.
This passage in the novella prompted Mercer to begin writing his lyrics about "two drifters, off to see the world". The two drifters were Holly herself and her "huckleberry friend" -- the nameless cat. They had taken up with each other by the river one day, and they would travel along the river, endlessly looking for a rainbow around the river's next bend.
