My Fair Lady (film)

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My Fair Lady is a 1964 film directed by George Cukor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. The film is an adaptation of the stage musical, My Fair Lady, as well as the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

It won Cukor an Academy Award for Directing, and ranked #91 on the American Film Institute list of the greatest American movies of all time.

Plot

Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), an arrogant, irascible professor of phonetics, boasts to a new acquaintance, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can teach any woman to speak so "properly" that he could pass her off as a duchess - even Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a young woman selling flowers on the street, who has a decided Cockney accent. After overhearing this, Eliza finds her way to the professor's house and offers to pay him to give her elocution lessons so that she can get a better job in a shop. Pickering is intrigued and wagers that Higgins cannot make good on his claim; Higgins takes Eliza on as a challenge of his skills free of charge.

Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle (Stanley Holloway), a dustman, arrives three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter's virtue, but in reality simply to extract some money from Higgins, and is bought off with 5 pounds. Higgins is impressed by the man's genuineness, natural gift for language and especially his brazen lack of morals ("Can't afford 'em!").

Eliza goes through many forms of speech training, such as speaking with marbles in her mouth and trying to recite the sentence “In Hertford, Hereford, Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen.” without dropping the 'h'. At first, she makes no progress, but just as she thinks the idea is hopeless, she tries one more time and suddenly begins to speak with an impeccable upper class English accent.

Higgins takes her on her first public appearance to Ascot Racecourse, where she makes a good impression with her genteel manners, only to shock everyone by a sudden and vulgar lapse into Cockney. Higgins, who dislikes the pretentiousness of the upper class, partly conceals a grin behind his hand, as if to say "I wish I had said that!"

The bet is won when Eliza successfully poses as a mysterious lady of patently noble rank at the 'embassy ball', despite the unexpected presence of a Hungarian phonetics expert trained by Higgins. Higgins' callous treatment of her afterwards, especially his indifference to her future prospects, leads Eliza to walk out on him, leaving him mystified by her ingratitude. When she is gone, he comes to the horrified realization that he has "grown accustomed to her face".

The film ends when Eliza returns to Higgins, much to his satisfaction, suggesting a budding romance between them. This differs from the original play's ending (see Pygmalion (play)#Adapted endings).

Background

The lead role in the film was originally intended for Julie Andrews, who had played Eliza in the stage version. Hepburn was cast, despite lobbying from Lerner, because Warner Brothers didn't want a stage actress. The casting controversy hurt Hepburn's career, painting her in a negative light (although Elizabeth Taylor reportedly fought long and hard for the role as well). Andrews' subsequent Academy Award for Mary Poppins - and the lack of a nomination for Hepburn - was seen by many as vindication for Julie Andrews, though both actresses denied that there was ever any animosity between them.

Marni Nixon was assigned to dub Hepburn's songs. Film of some of Hepburn's original vocal performances for the film was released in the 1990s, and many fans of the actress believe that it was unnecessary for her voice to be dubbed. At the very least, she could actually sing, in contrast to Harrison, whose songs were mostly recitative.

Despite the fact that Harrison's singing voice was closer to speaking on pitch than actual singing, the actor refused to pre-record his musical numbers for the film, explaining that he had never sung the songs the same way twice and thus couldn't pre-record them and convincingly lip-sync to a playback during filming as musical stars had been doing in Hollywood since the dawn of talking pictures. In order to permit Harrison to sing his songs live during filming, the Warner Bros. Studio Sound Department, under the direction of George Groves, implanted a wireless microphone in Harrison's neckties, marking the first time in film history that a wireless mic was used to record sound during filming. Both the sound department and Harrison earned Academy Awards for their efforts.

The head of CBS put up the money for the original Broadway production in exchange for the rights to the cast album (through Columbia Records). When Warner bought the film rights for the then-unprecedented sum of $5 million, it was agreed that the rights to the film would revert to CBS seven years after its release. Warner owned the film's original copyright, but it was renewed by CBS due to the 1972 rights reversion. Ironically, Warner now owns the DVD rights to the film (under license from CBS), while CBS corporate cousin King World now owns the television rights.

In the 1990s, the original film elements had fallen into disrepair from heavy printing and there was fear of total deterioration. Film restorers Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, in conjunction with 20th Century Fox (whose home video division previously held the rights to the CBS library including My Fair Lady), were brought in to save the film. They succeeded in preserving this well-loved film for future generations. A 30th anniversary re-issue in 1994 by Fox reinforced the film's popularity.

In 1995, Fox executives gave the director of the critically acclaimed Anastasia the choice between creating an animated re-make of etheir My Fair Lady or Anastasia. Though most critics still believe a re-make of My Fair Lady would have been more successful, he chose to create a re-make of Anastasia rather than My Fair Lady. It was later seen that in face Anastasia was more successful, being the highest-grossing animated film in 1997.

External links

• [My Fair Lady] Official Fox site for the film.
• [Large collection of film stills, news photos and publicity material] (French language)

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