My Fair Lady (1964)

Director:

George Cukor

Writers:

Alan Jay Lerner (book)
George Bernard Shaw (play)

Release Date:

25 December 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Family | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

The loverliest motion picture of them all!

Plot:

A misogynistic and snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.

Plot Keywords:

Flower Girl | Professor | Wager | Linguist | Bet

Awards:

Won 8 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 10 nominations

Cast

Audrey Hepburn	...	Eliza Doolittle
Rex Harrison	...	Professor Henry Higgins
Stanley Holloway	...	Alfred P. Doolittle
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	Colonel Hugh Pickering
Gladys Cooper	...	Mrs. Higgins
Jeremy Brett	...	Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Theodore Bikel	...	Zoltan Karpathy
Mona Washbourne	...	Mrs. Pearce
Isobel Elsom	...	Mrs. Eynsford-Hill
John Holland	...	Butler

Runtime:

170 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) | DTS (re-release) | Dolby Digital (re-release) | Mono (16 mm prints) | Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (RCA Sound Recording) (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:Approved (PCA #20570) (original rating) | USA:G (re-rating) (1970) | South Korea:All | Brazil:Livre | Canada:PG (video rating) | New Zealand:G | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Chile:TE | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:U | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

"My Fair Lady" is the only Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe stage musical to have been filmed totally complete, with no omission of any songs from the stage version (or dialogue, for that matter). There are even some added lyrics to the song "You Did It", in which Higgins goes more into detail about the speech "expert" Zoltan Karpathy's evaluation of Eliza at the ball, that were not in the stage version. "My Fair Lady", "West Side Story", and the 1958 "South Pacific" may be the most complete film adaptations of a Broadway musical ever made.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During "The Rain in Spain", you can hear Audrey Hepburn's voice mixed with Marni Nixon's voice. It's especially obvious the first time she properly sings, "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain," after Higgins' line, "I think she's got it, I think she's got it."

Quotes:

Cockney: We've got a bloomin' heiress in our midst. Will you be needing a butler, Eliza?
Eliza Doolittle: Well you won't do.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Bride of the Monster (#5.23)" (1993)

Soundtrack:

I'm an Ordinary Man

A musical with a brain as well as a heart

There's a lot of negative things been said about Audrey Hepburn's interpretation of the role of Eliza. Perhaps she's not ideal in the earliest scenes of the movie - her "dirtiness" is never quite believable - but it has to be said that despite this smallish drawback she still glows, and makes an amazing Eliza overall.

The reason for this is simple; Audrey Hepburn brings her "own spark of divine fire", (to quote Higgins) to the role and her vulnerability, mixed with her sweet, naive charm and even her wonderfully juvenile pettishness shown in "Just You Wait" all prove what a talented actress she really is. For an example of this, just watch Eliza's facial expression at Ascot, when she realises her opportunity to demonstrate her new-found mastery of the English tongue - sweetly hilarious.

MFL has been criticized as being too romanticized, too overblown. I disagree; musicals are suposed to be lavish affairs, and none pull it off quite so well as "My Fair Lady" does. It's a momentous film but it has its subtle points: watch the way in which Eliza's eyes are centred on Higgins when she enters at the ball, and the way in which the two of them stare at each other for a few seconds at the top of the stairs a few moments later.

It musn't be overlooked that, thanks to its being based on a Bernard Shaw play, "My Fair Lady" has what the great majority of musicals lack: a deeper meaning and something really quite profound to say.

The actor in the role of Colonel Pickering is a little weak, but it must be said that Rex Harrison IS Henry Higgins. In a lot of ways (in fact, in most ways) Higgins has an objectionable personality: rude, snobbish, impatient and even misogynistic, but somehow Rex Harrison pulls it all off and makes us like Higgins without betraying the character. As to romance, his song "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is an ode to the kind of love which sneaks up on you. Overall, this movie is romantic, but not too sentimental. It has just enough romance to be dramatically fulfilling, but it never becomes soppy or mawkish. The word "love" is never mentioned at all and the two leads never even kiss. The famous end sequence is perfect and does the movie justice; after all, a big happy bow tied around a perfect romance at the end would simply not fit with everything we have learned about the two protagonists.