Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn

"A celebratory documentary," says the tagline on the front of the DVD box and that sums up the soft-soap approach of Timothy Knight's documentary.

The 39-minute doc rushes through the early days of Audrey Hepburn's career - bit parts in films such as Laughter in Paradise and The Lavender Hill Mob that paid her way as a trainee ballerina, her breakthrough role on stage in Gigi - in just a few moments. The same brevity is applied to the end of her filmmaking days, too, with Bloodline, They All Laughed and Always breezed over all too quickly.

At least that leaves plenty of time for the good stuff. The DVD allows you to play the entire documentary in one sitting or select the relevant parts by movie. There's an over-reliance on trailer footage but watching chunks of films such as William Wyler's Roman Holiday, Sabrina and Funny Face makes you yearn for the golden days of Hollywood.

Snippets of chat link these videos, although insights are few and far between. We learn that War and Peace was the first time Hepburn shot out of sync and that it was a particularly emotional production because she had suffered a miscarriage months earlier. There's also mention of the serious injuries she suffered on John Ford's Unforgiven.

One for a rainy afternoon, this documentary will have you reaching for your Audrey Hepburn back catalogue.

VERDICT: 6/10

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