My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musicalcomedy drama film adapted from the 1956 Lerner and Loewestage musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play Pygmalion. With a screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner and directed by George Cukor, the film depicts a poor Cockney flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle who overhears a phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he casually wagers that he could teach her to speak English so well she could pass for a duchess in EdwardianLondon or better yet, from Eliza's viewpoint, secure employment in a flower shop.
In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Plot
In London, Professor Henry Higgins, a scholar of phonetics, believes that one's accent determines a person's prospects in society ("Why Can't the English?"). At the Covent Garden fruit-and-vegetable market one evening, he listens to Eliza Doolittle, a young flower seller with a strong Cockney accent, and makes notes. This causes others to suspect he is a "tec." When Eliza protests that she has done nothing wrong, she asks Colonel Hugh Pickering, himself a phonetics expert, to confirm this. Pickering and Higgins are delighted to become acquainted; in fact, Pickering had come from India just to meet Higgins. Higgins boasts he could teach even someone like Eliza to speak so well he could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. Eliza wants to work in a flower shop, but her accent makes that impossible ("Wouldn't It Be Loverly"). The following morning, Eliza shows up at Higgins's home, seeking lessons. Pickering is intrigued and offers to cover all the attendant expenses if Higgins succeeds. Higgins agrees and describes how women ruin lives ("I'm an Ordinary Man").
Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, learns of his daughter's new residence ("With a Little Bit of Luck"). He shows up at Higgins's house three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter's virtue, but in reality to extract some money from Higgins, and is bought off with £5. Higgins is impressed by the man's honesty, his natural gift for language, and especially his brazen lack of morals. Higgins recommends Alfred to a wealthy American who is interested in morality.
Eliza endures Higgins's demanding teaching methods and harsh treatment ("Just You Wait"), while the servants feel both annoyed with the noise as well as pity for Higgins ("Servants' Chorus"). She makes no progress, but just as she, Higgins, and Pickering are about to give up, Eliza finally "gets it" ("The Rain in Spain"); she instantly begins to speak with an impeccable upper-class accent, and is overjoyed at Higgins having danced with her ("I Could Have Danced All Night").
As a trial run, Higgins takes her to Ascot Racecourse ("Ascot Gavotte"), where she makes a good impression initially, only to shock everyone by a sudden lapse into vulgar Cockney while cheering on a horse. Higgins is amused. There, she meets Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a young upper-class man who becomes infatuated with her ("On the Street Where You Live").
Higgins then takes Eliza to an embassy ball, where she dances with a foreign prince. Zoltan Karpathy, a Hungarian trained by Higgins, watches and listens, and declares she is a Hungarian princess.
Afterward, Eliza's hard work is ignored, with all the praise going to Higgins ("You Did It"). This and his callous treatment of her, especially his indifference to her future, causes her to walk out on him, but not before she throws his slippers at him, leaving him mystified by her ingratitude ("Just You Wait [Reprise]"). Outside, Freddy is waiting ("On the Street Where You Live [Reprise]") and greets Eliza, who is irritated by him as all he does is talk ("Show Me"). She tries to return to her old life, but finds that she no longer fits in. She meets her father, who has been left a large fortune by the wealthy American to whom Higgins had recommended him, and is resigned to marrying Eliza's stepmother. Alfred feels that Higgins has ruined him, lamenting that he is now bound by "middle-class morality" ("Get Me to the Church On Time"). Eliza eventually visits Higgins's mother, who is outraged at her son's behavior.
The next day, Higgins finds Eliza gone and searches for her ("A Hymn to Him"), eventually finding her at his mother's house. He attempts to talk her into coming back to him. He becomes angered when she announces that she is going to marry Freddy and become Karpathy's assistant ("Without You"). He goes home, predicting that she will come crawling back. However, he comes to the realization that she has become important to him ("I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"). He turns on his gramophone and listens to her voice. When she shows up, Higgins nonchalantly asks, "Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?"
CBS head William S. Paley made an arrangement where CBS would finance the original Broadway production in exchange for the rights to the cast album (through Columbia Records). Warner Bros. then purchased the film rights from CBS in February 1962 for the then-unprecedented sum of $5.5 million (equivalent to $55million in 2023) plus 47¼% of the gross over $20 million.[9][10] Paley added a condition to the Warner contract that ownership of the film negative would revert to CBS seven years following release.[11]
In spite of her success playing Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, when Jack L. Warner acquired the film rights he replaced a then unknown to filmgoers Julie Andrews in the role with Audrey Hepburn. Alan Jay Lerner broke the news to Andrews when she had moved to his production of Camelot: "I so wanted you to do it, Julie, but they wanted a name."[12]
The entire movie was filmed at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, California, from August to December 1963. Principal filming took place on six stages of the studio, specifically 4, 7, 8, 11, 16, and 26.[13][14]
With a production budget of $17 million, My Fair Lady was the most expensive film shot in the United States up to that time.[15]
Order of musical numbers
The order of the songs in the Broadway show was followed faithfully with the exception of "With a Little Bit of Luck"; the song is listed as the third musical number in the play, but in the film it is the fourth. On stage, the song is split into two parts sung in two different scenes. Part of the song is sung by Doolittle and his cronies just after Eliza gives him part of her earnings, immediately before she goes to Higgins to ask for speech lessons. The second half of the song is sung by Doolittle just after he discovers that Eliza is now living with Higgins. In the film, the entire song is sung in one scene that takes place just after Higgins has sung "I'm an Ordinary Man." However, the song does have a dialogue scene (Doolittle's conversation with Eliza's landlady) between verses.
The instrumental "Busker Sequence", which opens the play immediately after the overture, is the only musical number from the play omitted in the film version. However, several measures from the piece may be heard when Eliza is in the rain, making her way through Covent Garden.
All of the songs in the film were performed in their entirety, except that some verses were omitted. For example, in the song "With a Little Bit of Luck", the verse "He does not have a tuppence in his pocket," which was sung with a chorus, was omitted because of its space and length; the original verse in "Show Me" was used instead.
The stanzas of "You Did It" that come after Higgins says "She is a princess" were originally written for the stage, but Harrison hated the lyrics and refused to perform the song unless the lyrics were omitted, as they were in most Broadway versions. However, when Cukor threatened to leave the production if the omitted lyrics were not restored for the film version, Harrison obliged. The omitted lyrics end with the words "Hungarian rhapsody" followed by the servants shouting "Bravo" three times, to the strains of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody", before the servants sing "Congratulations, Professor Higgins."[16]
Dubbing
Hepburn's singing was judged inadequate, and she was dubbed by Marni Nixon,[17] who sang all songs except "Just You Wait", in which Hepburn's voice was preserved during the harsh-toned chorus, with Nixon on the melodic bridge section. Hepburn sang the brief reprise of the song in tears. Some of Hepburn's original vocal performances were released in the 1990s. Less well known is the fact that Jeremy Brett's songs (as Freddy) were dubbed by Bill Shirley.[18]
Harrison declined to prerecord his musical numbers, explaining that he had never talked his way through the songs the same way twice and thus could not convincingly lip-sync to a playback recording during filming (according to Jack L. Warner, dubbing had been commonplace for years, stating, "We even dubbed Rin Tin Tin.").[19]George Groves equipped Harrison with a wireless microphone, the first such use during filming of a motion picture.[20] The sound department earned an Academy Award for its efforts.
Intermission
One of the few differences in structure between the stage version and the film is the placement of the intermission. In the stage play, the intermission occurs after the embassy ball at which Eliza dances with Karpathy. In the film, the intermission comes before the ball as Eliza, Higgins and Pickering are seen departing for the embassy.
The film had its premiere at the Criterion Theatre in New York on Wednesday, October 21, 1964, with its regular run starting the following day with a $500,000 advance.[22] It ran for 87 weeks at the theatre.[23]
Later releases
The film was re-released on January 21, 1971 at the Criterion and earned rentals of $2 million in the United States and Canada.[24][23] Prior to the re-release, Warner Bros. claimed that the film had grossed over $100 million worldwide.[23] Its gross in the United States and Canada after the re-release was an estimated $72 million.[2] The rights to the film reverted to CBS from Warner Bros. after the re-release.[25]
My Fair Lady was restored by CBS for its 30th anniversary by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz at a cost of $700,000. The restored version premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 1994. At the end of the gala premiere, Marni Nixon introduced a version of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" sung by Hepburn, reconstructed from outtakes. The restored version of the film was to be released by 20th Century Fox in five cities prior to a video/laserdisc release in October 1994.[26]
In 2019, the film was given a limited theatrical re-release through Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events on February 17 and 20 as part of TCM Big Screen Classics. In 2024, the film was given another limited theatrical re-release through Fathom Events on February 4 and 5 to celebrate its 60th anniversary.
Home media
A restored version of My Fair Lady was released on video and laserdisc by CBS/Fox Video for its 30th anniversary in October 1994.[26] It was released in Ultra HD Blu-ray on May 25, 2021, by CBS' sister company and existing rights holder, Paramount Home Entertainment.[27]
Critical reception
Contemporary
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times opened his contemporary review: "As Henry Higgins might have whooped, 'By George, they've got it!' They've made a superlative film from the musical stage show My Fair Lady—a film that enchantingly conveys the rich endowments of the famous stage production in a fresh and flowing cinematic form."[28] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times reported from the New York premiere that "when the curtains came together at the finish of just three hours, three hours of Technicolored entertainment, I heard myself all but echoing Col. Pickering's proud summation of Eliza Doolittle's performances as a duchess at the Embassy Ball, 'a total triumph.'"[29]
Robert J. Landry of Variety wrote: "It has riches of story, humor, acting and production values far beyond the average big picture. It is Hollywood at its best, Jack L. Warner's career capstone and a film that will go on without now-forseeable[sic?] limits of playoff in reserved seat policy and world rentals."[30]
The Monthly Film Bulletin of the UK declared that "with the range of talent, taste and sheer professionalism at work, from Shaw onwards, Warners could hardly have made a film which would do less than please most of the people most of the time. Their $17,000,000 investment looks as safe as houses." The review opined that Cukor directed with "great tact" but "a rather unnecessary circumspection. Scenes move at a steady, even pace, as though every word were worth its weight in gold (perhaps, in view of the price paid for the rights, it very nearly was). Especially, the decor tends to inhibit rather than release the film."[31]
Brendan Gill of The New Yorker wrote that the film "has survived very nearly intact the always risky leap from stage to screen," adding, "Miss Hepburn isn't particularly convincing as a Cockney flower girl, but, having mastered her vowels and consonants in the 'rain in Spain' scene, she comes into her own."[32]Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post also suggested that Hepburn's casting was the film's "basic flaw", describing her as "recognizably exquisite—but not 21—as the flower girl and to the later scenes she brings a real flirtatiousness quite un-Shavian." Nevertheless, Coe remarked that "there are some marvelous things which will make this a long-loved film," including Rex Harrison giving "one of the classic screen performances" that he correctly predicted was "an absolute certainty for next year's Oscars."[33]
Retrospective
Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, and, in 2006, he put it on his "Great Movies" list, praising Hepburn's performance, and calling the film "the best and most unlikely of musicals."[34]
James Berardinelli wrote in a 2018 retrospective review, "Few genres of films are as magical as musicals, and few musicals are as intelligent and lively as My Fair Lady. It's a classic not because a group of stuffy film experts have labeled it as such, but because it has been, and always will be, a pure joy to experience."[35]
Dave Whitaker of DavesMovieDatabase, a film aggregator site that combines other lists with box-office, ratings, and awards, listed My Fair Lady in 2020 as the 100th greatest movie of all time,[36] as the 9th greatest Musical of all time,[37] and as the 30th most awarded movie of all time.[38]
Retrospective analysis of My Fair Lady has been more mixed, with disagreement between reviewers about whether the movie critiques or affirms misogynistic and classist tropes.[39][40]
Today
As of 2023, My Fair Lady holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 91 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The consensus states: "George Cukor's elegant, colorful adaptation of the beloved stage play is elevated to new heights thanks to winning performances by Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison."[41] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 95 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[42]
The film was restored in 1994 by James C. Katz and Robert A. Harris, who had restored Spartacus three years earlier. The restoration was commissioned and financed by CBS, to which the film rights reverted from Warner Bros. in 1971.[1] CBS later hired Harris to lend his expertise to a new 4K restoration of the film for a 2015 Blu-ray release, working from 8K scans of the original camera negative and other surviving 65mm elements.[54]
↑ CBS gained the rights to the film in 1971. Paramount Pictures (through former parent company Viacom's acquisition of CBS in 2000) owns the overall film distribution rights.[1]
Related Research Articles
My Fair Lady is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion and on the 1938 film adaptation of the play, concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her.
Audrey Kathleen Hepburn was a British actress. Hepburn had a successful career in Hollywood and was recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Classical Hollywood cinema and was inducted into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List.
Margaret Nixon McEathron, known professionally as Marni Nixon, was an American soprano and ghost singer for featured actresses in musical films. She was the singing voice of leading actresses on the soundtracks of several musicals, including Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, although her roles were concealed from audiences when the films were released. Several of the songs she dubbed appeared on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list.
A playback singer, as they are usually known in South Asian cinema, or ghost singer in Western cinema, is a singer whose performance is pre-recorded for use in films. Playback singers record songs for soundtracks, and the performers lip-sync the songs for cameras; the actual singer does not appear on the screen.
Pygmalion is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, named after the Greek mythological figure. It premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913 and was first presented on stage in German. Its English-language premiere took place at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End in April 1914 and starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree as phonetics professor Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell as Cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle.
The King and I is a 1956 American musical film made by 20th Century-Fox, directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, which is itself based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. That novel in turn was based on memoirs written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' stories were autobiographical, although various elements of them have been called into question. The film stars Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner.
The 37th Academy Awards were held on April 5, 1965, to honor film achievements of 1964. The ceremony was produced by MGM's Joe Pasternak and hosted, for the 14th time, by Bob Hope.
Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the 1913 George Bernard Shaw play of the same name, and adapted by him for the screen. It stars Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins and Wendy Hiller as Eliza Doolittle.
William Henry Mettam "Robin" Bailey was an English actor. He was born in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.
"I Could Have Danced All Night" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music written by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1956. The song is sung by the musical's heroine, Eliza Doolittle, expressing her exhilaration and excitement after an impromptu dance with her tutor, Henry Higgins, in the small hours of the morning. In a counterpoint during the second of 3 rounds, two maids and the housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, urge Eliza to go to bed, but she ignores them.
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is a song from the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. It was originally performed by Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins who also performed it in the 1964 film version.
"The Rain in Spain" is a song from the musical My Fair Lady, with music by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1956.
"Wouldn't It Be Loverly" is a popular song by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, written for the 1956 Broadway play My Fair Lady.
"Get Me to the Church on Time" is a song composed by Frederick Loewe, with lyrics written by Alan Jay Lerner for the 1956 musical My Fair Lady, where it was introduced by Stanley Holloway.
Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) was a Belgian actress who had an extensive career in film, television, and on the stage. Considered by some to be one of the most beautiful women of all time, she was ranked as the third greatest screen legend in American cinema by the American Film Institute. Hepburn is also remembered as both a film and style icon. Her debut was as a flight stewardess in the 1948 Dutch film Dutch in Seven Lessons. Hepburn then performed on the British stage as a chorus girl in the musicals High Button Shoes (1948), and Sauce Tartare (1949). Two years later, she made her Broadway debut as the title character in the play Gigi. Hepburn's Hollywood debut as a runaway princess in William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953), opposite Gregory Peck, made her a star. For her performance, she received the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 1954, she played a chauffeur's daughter caught in a love triangle in Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Sabrina, opposite Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. In the same year, Hepburn garnered the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for portraying the titular water nymph in the play Ondine.
Eliza Doolittle is a fictional character and the protagonist in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (1913) and its 1956 musical adaptation, My Fair Lady.
"With a Little Bit of Luck" is a popular song by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, written for the 1956 Broadway play My Fair Lady.
Jill Martin was an English actress and singer who made her career in West End theatre from the 1950 to the 2000s. Born in Redruth, Cornwall, she was educated at The Lawn School at St Austell and a song teacher at the school believed her to have an opera singer's voice. Martin debuted in the theatre in 1950 and was an understudy to several actresses. She was the only actor to appear in all three runs of My Fair Lady and produced a studio cast recording in 1966. Other musicals that Martin portrayed characters in were Fiddler on the Roof,Side by Side by Sondheim, The Baker's Wife,Les Misérables and Allegro.
Julie Andrews is an actress, singer, and theatrical director who has had a lifelong career on the screen and stage. She made her film debut voice-dubbing the role of Princess Zeila in the 1949 animated film La Rosa di Bagdad. Her professional stage debut was in the musical comedy The Boy Friend where she played Polly Brown from 1954 to 1955. For this role, she won the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut in 1955. Then from 1956 to 1959, Andrews played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady which earned her a Tony Award nomination, the first of three that she received during her career. After this success, she played the title role in the 1957 television special Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. For this appearance, she received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Actress – Best Single Performance – Lead or Support. She received her second Tony nomination in 1961 when she originated the role of Queen Guinevere in Camelot. After this, she auditioned for the role of Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film adaptation of My Fair Lady, losing the role to Audrey Hepburn. Instead, Andrews was cast as the title role in the 1964 musical film Mary Poppins. For this role, she received an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award. Her next big success was portraying Maria Von Trapp in the 1965 musical film The Sound of Music. For her portrayal, she received a second Golden Globe, another Academy Award nomination and another BAFTA nomination.
The original soundtrack to the 1964 film My Fair Lady was released by Columbia.
↑ "Barbara Pepper". Turner Classic Movies. TCM Archive Materials: WarnerMedia. Archived from the original on March 21, 2019. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
↑ Kennedy, Michael; Kennedy, Joyce Bourne (August 15, 2013). The Oxford dictionary of music (Sixthed.). Oxford University Press. p.805. ISBN9780199578542. Archived from the original on May 21, 2021. Retrieved October 11, 2020. A well-known example of Sprechgesang is that of Rex Harrison ... as Prof. Higgins in My Fair Lady.
↑ Gill, Brendan (October 31, 1964). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. 134.
↑ Coe, Richard L. (October 22, 1964). "'Fair Lady' Now a Film". The Washington Post. C14.
↑ Ebert, Roger (January 1, 2006). "Great Movies: My Fair Lady". Rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2013. Retrieved February 5, 2014.
↑ Berardinelli, James. "My Fair Lady". Reelviews.net. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
↑ "Show Business - The Now & Future Queen". Time. Vol.88, no.26. December 23, 1966. p.56. Retrieved March 18, 2021. And now the hills are alive still with the sound of success. Julie's recording of the Sound of Music holds the sales record (7,000,000) for all LPs, and the album of My Fair Lady (6,000,000) is second
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