Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards from a screenplay by George Axelrod and based on the 1958 novella by Truman Capote.

It stars Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney.

In the film, Holly Golightly (Hepburn), a naïve, eccentric socialite meets Paul Varjak (Peppard), a struggling writer who moves into her apartment building.

Development for the film began soon after the publication of Capote's novel, with several actors, including Marilyn Monroe, Shirley MacLaine, Kim Novak, Steve McQueen, Jack Lemmon, and Robert Wagner, considered for the lead roles prior to Hepburn and Peppard being cast.

The screenplay, which deviates from Capote's novella, was originally completed by Axelrod and director John Frankenheimer, who was replaced by Edwards well into pre-production.

Principal photography began on October 2, 1960, with filming taking place in New York City and at the Studios at Paramount in Hollywood, California.

Holly meets her new neighbor Paul Varjak as she readies to leave for her weekly visit to incarcerated mobster Sally Tomato.

That night, when Holly crawls out onto the fire escape to elude an over-eager date, she sees 2E leaving Paul money and kissing him goodbye.

Months later, Holly readies to move to Brazil and marry José but is arrested in connection to a drug ring run by Sally Tomato.

Berman pays her bail and Paul picks her up in a cab with all her things, including her pet, Cat, and a breakup letter from José.

After Paramount producers Martin Jurow and Richard Shepherd optioned the film rights to Capote's novella, they hired Sumner Locke Elliott to write its screenplay.

Axelrod, who previously made structural changes to the source material while adapting The Seven Year Itch (1955), worked with Jurow and Shepherd to deviate from Capote's novella.

Monroe declined to star in the film, opting for The Misfits (1961), after theatre director Lee Strasberg advised her that playing a "lady of the evening" would be bad for her image.

[18] According to one report, the film's on-location opening sequence outside Tiffany & Co. was extremely difficult to shoot, due to issues related to crowd control, Hepburn's dislike of pastries, and an accident that nearly resulted in the electrocution of a crew member.

[21] On the Anniversary Edition home media release featuring audio commentary by Shepherd, he stated that after the film's test preview in San Francisco, Martin Rankin, Paramount's head of production, wanted "Moon River" replaced with music sung by somebody else.

[22][23] According to Time, Mancini "sets off [the] melodies with a walking bass, extends them with choral and string variations and varies them with the brisk sounds of combo jazz.

On January 13, 2009, a remastered Centennial Collection version of the film was released, which added several new featurettes, including interviews by the cast, a documentary discussing the controversy regarding Rooney's portrayal of I.Y.

[26] The film was screened at Radio City Music Hall before its theatrical release, where Variety called it "a bright box office contender".

The website's consensus reads, "It contains some ugly anachronisms, but Blake Edwards is at his funniest in this iconic classic, and Audrey Hepburn absolutely lights up the screen.

[31] Tinee Mae of the Chicago Tribune also gave a positive review, saying, "In the wrong hands, the unconventional, disorganized, sophisticated, innocent, utterly contradictory [lead] character could be a tiresome idiot.

Audrey makes her as sweet as she is silly, as appealing as she is affected, a playgirl without scruples, a moth who doesn't quite deserve to die in a flame."

Mae also praised the "slick" and "perceptive" screenplay and the "fine" supporting cast, singling out Peppard, Ebsen, Balsam and Rooney.

[34] A.H. Weiler of The New York Times called the film a "completely unbelievable but wholly captivating flight into fancy composed of unequal dollops of comedy, romance, poignancy, funny colloquialisms and Manhattan's swankiest East Side areas captured in the loveliest of colors".

Weiler called Hepburn "a genuinely charming, elfin waif who will be believed and adored when seen" and further praised the performances of Peppard, Balsam, Rooney, Neal and Ebsen.

Capote's biographer, Gerald Clarke, characterized the film as a "valentine to free-spirited women, [not] a cautionary tale about a little girl lost in the big city".

[53][54][55][56] A second little black dress by Givenchy, which was styled with a wide-brimmed hat, influenced the comic book design for Catwoman by artist Adam Hughes and later inspired the costume for the character in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

[58] Since the 1990s, Rooney's portrayal of I. Y. Yunioshi, which featured makeup and a prosthetic mouthpiece, has been subject to controversy and labelled as a caricatured approximation of a Japanese man.

"[62] Although Axelrod expanded the role of Yunioshi in the screenplay compared to the novella, Edwards sought to use the character for comic relief and hired Rooney, his old roommate.