![]() ![]() It looks absolutely gorgeous throughout, especially during the superbly staged musical numbers.Ī film which is undeniably of the highest quality, like Gone With the Wind before it My Fair Lady transcends its more questionable moments, managing to be enjoyable nonetheless. The most expensive film ever made at the time, it’s easy to see where the money went. The standout feature of the film is its stunning sets and costumes – constantly providing visual treats. Luckily it’s buoyed by the excellent lead performances and all-round quality of the production. Who cares how she talks? Maybe they should do a remake where Higgins sees the error of his ways and learns to love her just the way she is. But since attitudes about class and speech have moved on since the film was made, it mostly feels fairly low stakes. Hepburn is superb in the lead role, in both the loud cockney accent she has at the start and the refined upper class purr she adopts later on. It’s made worse by the relationship between the two, and the way the film ends, which I won’t disclose in case, like me, you’ve somehow avoided this film for the last 54 years. He’s a deeply unlikable character thanks to his narrow views and obnoxious worldview, and his attitudes must surely have even curled a few toes when the film was released in 1964. He shows less empathy towards her, indeed, than the deeply flawed Dr Treves shows to John Merrick in The Elephant Man. ![]() Proudly misogynistic (to the point of singing several songs about it), he treats Eliza as little more than a curiosity, approaching her speech lessons like teaching a chimp table manners. Set in the Edwardian era, he remains resolutely Victorian in his outlook. ![]() A scene unfolds, and someone notices that a gentleman nearby is writing down every word Eliza says. Higgins exemplifies everything that is bad about a certain kind of English intellectual at that time (and too often since). Eliza Doolittle is a young Cockney woman who is selling flowers in Covent Garden when a wealthy man named Freddy Eynsford-Hill crashes into her, causing her to drop and ruin her flowers, and is ushered off by his mother without paying. Think of it as Ladette to Lady the movie. She’s plucked from her meagre existence by Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), an arrogant phonetician who make a bet with his friend, à la Lord Daftwager, that he can pass her off as a lady at the ambassador’s ball. With Frederick Loewe as composer, he turned out an elegant stage show and one of the most successful musicals of all time in “My Fair Lady.Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) is a working class flower vendor on the streets of London. The hanging baskets of flowers in the lobby of the theatre and the floral decorations surrounding the cast and credits on the screen are symbols of the little flower-girl, Eliza Doolittle, that George Bernard Shaw wrote so bitingly and engagingly about in his play “Pygmalion.” It was the Shaw dream that gave Alan Lerner the idea of making a musical production of the story. Now youve made a lady of me, Im not fit to sell anything else. Gloriously witty adaptation of the Broadway musical about Professor Henry Higgins (Sir Rex Harrison), who takes a bet from Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilford Hyde-White) that he can transform unrefined, dirty Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) into a lady, and fool everyone into thinking she really is one, too. Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, stars of the production, saw it for the first time last night. Eliza Doolittle : Im a good girl, I am Eliza Doolittle : I sold flowers I didnt sell myself. The picture opened at the Criterion Theatre last night before a house full of celebrities and socialites that came for sweet charity’s sake and stayed to cheer the performers and the makers of the film. The picture sparkles with witty dialogue, titilates with droll situations, stirs the heart with its story of the metamorphosis of a London guttersnipe in a fine lady, and its romantic intervals glow with warmth and charm that fascinates the audience. Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California, never turned out a more brilliant, stunning film than Lerner-Loewe stage production of “My Fair Lady,” that was presented by Herman Levin on Broadway. Audrey Hepburn, as Eliza Doolittle, selling flowers at Covent Garden in London in a scene from the film version of My Fair Lady directed by George Cukor, 1964. (Originally published by the Daily News on Oct. ![]()
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