My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady (1964)Pages: (1) (2) (3)

Background

 My Fair Lady (1964) was

experienced director GeorgeCukor's film musical adaptationof George Bernard Shaw's 1912play Pygmalion that had playedsuccessfully on Broadway fromMarch 15, 1956 to 1962. Shaw'splot was derived from Latinpoet Ovid's story (inthe Metamorphoses) about acharacter named Pygmalion whofell in love with a beautifulivory statue of a woman. Inlater Greek tradition, hisprayers to Venus that thebeloved statue - Galatea -would come to life came true so that they could marry.

The non-musical version of the play, from Shaw's own screenplay, was first filmed in Britain in 1938 by co-directors Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard (who also co-starred with Dame Wendy Hiller). The tale is about a'guttersnipe' Cockney flower girl heroine (Hepburn), who is trained by a misogynistic, bachelor linguistics expert (Higgins) to speak properly within six months - the result of a daring challenge and bet. During her elocution lessons, her unrepentant, calculating drunk father (Holloway) appears for handouts, and she makes an embarrassing first appearance at the opening day Ascot Races, but she catches the eye of high-born but poor Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Although she experiences personal triumph within high society at the Embassy

Ball, and wins her teacher's love, she storms off afterbeing transformed - only to return by film's end.

Warner Bros.' musical romantic comedy was expensive-to-produce (at $17 million) - their most expensive film todate, partially due to the fact that the studio had to pay $5.5 million for film rights to the popular Broadway hit. It turned out to be one of the top five most successful films in 1964 - a combination of cleverlyrics and singable tunes, with a great lead and supporting cast, and lavishly-designed theatrical sets and costumes. Alan Jay Lerner, who was responsible for the screenplay, co-wrote the music and lyrics with Frederick (Fritz) Loewe. Producer Jack Warner's will prevailed and the Cockney flower vendor character played by little-known Julie Andrews on Broadway was replaced by well-known, non-singing 'Cinderella' actress Audrey Hepburn (whose voice was dubbed by Marnie Nixon although Hepburn sang her own tracks) - toguarantee greater box-office business.

Ironically, Julie Andrews was awarded a Best Actress Academy Award for her role in Disney's competing film Mary Poppins, and Hepburn failed to receive a nomination for her part. [During her acceptance speech,Andrews thanked Jack Warner "for making this possible."] Rex Harrison reprised his legendary stage performance on celluloid as the linguistics professor with a unique 'non-singing' vocal style. Lerner and Loewe's score for the musical includes some of the bestknown songs and lyrics ever: "The Rain in Spain," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On the Street Where You Live," "I'm Getting Married in the Morning," "With a Little Bit of Luck," and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face."

George Cukor, a veteran 'women's director,' made a sumptuous, glamorous, brilliant Technicolor film with well-loved tunes - it was honored with twelve Academy

Award nominations and eight wins, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Rex Harrison), Best Director (Cukor's only Best Director award in his career), Best Color Cinematography (in widescreen 70 mm), Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Score (Andre Previn), and Best Color Costume Design (Cecil Beaton). The four losing categories were Best Supporting Actor and Actress (Stanley Holloway and Gladys Cooper), Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and Best Film Editing. In the decade ofthe 60s, My Fair Lady joined two other highly praised, bigbox-office films when it won the Academy Award for BestPicture (as did West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965)).

The Story

The title credits and musical overture from the film are accompanied by colorful, dazzling close-ups of spring flowers - which happen to line the stairway of the Covent Garden Opera house. Elegantly-dressed, high-society opera-goers are leaving after a performance andheading for horse-drawn cabs and motorized vehicles. They begin bustling about to find shelter when rain begins to fall. Street vendors cover their wares in themarketplace. Young Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett) collides with Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a disheveled Cockney flower vendor, while looking for a cab for his mother Mrs. Eynsford-Hill (Isobel Elsom). Eliza accuses both of them of ruining her "full day's wages" of scattered violets that are now trod in the mud: "Well, if you'd done your duty by him as a mother should, you wouldn't let him spoil a poor girl's flowers and then run away without payin'."

When Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) gives Elizasome coins, but isn't given flowers in return, Eliza iscautioned by a bystander that a suspicious character

behind a pillar, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), is "takin' down ev'ry blessed word you're sayin'." She immediately assumes that she is in troublefor selling flowers illegally - she defends herself as a "respectable girl," arguing to bystanders that she did nothing wrong: "Well, I'm makin' an honest livin'."Higgins appears and calms her down by showing her his notebook with strange shorthand symbols, and he reads back to her from his notes what she said with the exactsame exaggerated pronounciation: "I say, capt'n; n' bawya flahr orf a pore gel."

Eliza is even more startled when Higgins identifies herbirthplace in "Lisson Grove" - she bursts into tears:

I'm a good girl, I am!

After thoughtfully predicting that Pickering is from "Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and er - India," Higgins explains his perennial search for British dialects and his talent for knowing speech patterns andtheir corresponding locations - he is a phonetics expert: "Simple phonetics. The science of speech. That's my profession, also my hobby. Anyone can spot anIrishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue, but I can place a man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets." Andhe brutally criticizes Eliza's ugly "detestable boo-hooing" and crude pronunciations:

A woman who utters such disgusting and depressing noisehas no right to be anywhere, no right to live. Rememberthat you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech, that your native language isthe language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible. Don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

While she indignantly belly-aches at his insults with loud, grating utterances such as "Ah-ah-aw-aw-oo-oo!",

he delivers a well-aimed tirade at the deterioration ofthe English language. To the snobby, intolerant Higgins, ignorance, inarticulateness, dialects and unrefined language produce a "verbal class distinction," much the same way as money ensures advantages and a higher class of living, in "Why Can't the English Learn to Speak":

Look at her, a prisoner of the guttersCondemned by every syllable she uttersBy right she should be taken out and hung,For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue...This is what the British populationCalls an elementary education...It's 'ow' and 'garn' that keep her in her place,Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?This verbal class distinction, by now, should be antique.[To Pickering] If you spoke as she does, sir, instead of the way you do,Why you might be selling flowers too...

Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?Norwegians learn Norwegian, the Greeks are taught theirGreekIn France every Frenchman knows his language from 'A' to 'Zed' -The French don't care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.The Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening.Use proper English, you're regarded as a freak.

Oh, why can't the English -Why can't the English learn to speak?

So the Professor makes an initial challenge toward Pickering which becomes the cornerstone of the film's plot. He wagers with the Colonel that within six months, he can teach Eliza Doolittle to speak articulately so that she will be transformed into a pure-speaking lady, so that no one will suspect her Cockney origins when she is passed off as a duchess at an Embassy Ball. She will become a proper, aristocraticlady just by being taught proper English:

You see this creature with her curbstone English. The English that will keep her in the gutter till the end of her days. Well, sir, in six months, I could pass heroff as a duchess at an Embassy Ball. I could even get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English...[To Eliza] Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf. You disgrace to the noble architecture ofthese columns! You incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as, ah, the Queen of Sheba.

The Colonel ("the author of Spoken Sanscrit"), as it turns out, has journeyed from India to meet "Henry Higgins, author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet." Now acquainted with each other after their chance meeting, Higgins invites Pickering to his home at 27A Wimpole Street and they wander off speaking about the 147 "distinct languages" or Indian dialects. Among the other street vendors, Eliza has had her interest piqued in becoming a lady. With her untutored manner, she sings and dances with them about her dreams in "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?":

All I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air.With one enormous chair; Oh wouldn't it be loverly?Lots of choc'late for me to eat; Lots of coal makin'

lots of heat.Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet, Oh wouldn't it be loverly?Oh, so loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still! I would never budge 'til Spring crept over my window sill.Someone's head restin' on my knee; Warm and tender as he can be,Who takes good care of me; Oh wouldn't it be loverly?Loverly, loverly, loverly, loverly.

Early the next morning, Eliza's hard-drinking, disreputable, scruffy-looking father Alfred (Stanley Holloway) is looking for his daughter in the Covent Garden market area - boasting to his friends Jamie (John Alderson) and Harry (John McLiam) that he deserves a paternal handout:

I give her everythin'; I give her the greatest gift that a human being can give to another: life. I introduced her to this 'ere planet I did, with all its wonders and marvels. The sun that shines, the moon thatglows, Hyde Park to walk through on a fine spring night. The whole ruddy city o' London to roam around in, sellin 'er bloomin' flowers. I give 'er all that, then I disappears and leaves 'er on 'er own to enjoy it. Now, if that ain't worth half-a-crown now and again, I'll take my belt off and give 'er what for!

Although at first, Eliza resists giving her father any of her hard-earned money: "Y'ain't gonna take me hard-earned wages and pass 'em on to a bloody pub-keeper," she relents. Because of her "bit o' luck" the previous night when Higgins generously threw coins into her flower basket, she gives her father a half-crown. AfterEliza hears the church bells peal, she is reminded of Higgins' appraisal that she is condemned by every syllable she speaks, and his equally promising words

about how he could transform her speech differences under his tutelage.

In Higgins' study at his residence on Wimpole Street, the professor and his houseguest are studying vowel sounds produced from a vibrating tuning fork taken froma rack full of tuning forks. They also listen to a phonograph playing recorded phonetic sounds when Eliza appears at the Higgins front door. The maid Mrs. Pearce(Mona Washbourne) admits her into the study, thinking she is one of Higgins' subjects of "business" study: "Well, she's quite a common girl, sir. Very common indeed. I should have sent her away only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machine." But when Eliza makes her entrance, Higgins brusquely dismisses her: "Oh, no, no, no. This is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use. I've got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo. I'm not gonnawaste another cylinder on that. Now be off with you, I don't want you."

Eliza begs to be taught to speak well enough to work ata flower shop. She announces that she has decided to hire Higgins to give her elocution lessons, but Higginsis very uninterested:

Higgins: Pickering? Shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we just throw her out of the window?Eliza: Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo! I won't be called a baggage, not when I've offered to pay like any lady.Pickering: What do you want, my girl?Eliza: I want to be a lady in a flower shop 'stead of sellin' at the corner o' Tottenham Court Road. But theywon't take me unless I can talk more genteel. (gesturing toward Higgins) He said he could teach me. Well, here I am ready to pay. I'm not asking any favor - and he treats me as if I was dirt. (Turning toward Higgins) I know what lessons cost as well as you do, and I'm ready to pay.

Pickering convinces Higgins that it would make an interesting challenge to actually teach Eliza how to speak - to change her from a drab 'guttersnipe' into a beautiful woman through language education:

Pickering: What about your boast that you could pass her off as a duchess at the Embassy Ball, eh? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you make that good. I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment that you can't do it. I'll even pay for the lessons.Eliza: Oh, you're real good. Thank you, capt'n.Higgins: You know, it's almost irresistible. She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty.Eliza: (protesting) I ain't dirty. I washed my face andhands before I come, I did.Higgins: I'll take it. I'll make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe.Eliza: Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo!Higgins: We'll start today, now, this moment! Take her away, Mrs. Pearce, and clean her. Sandpaper, if it won't come off any other way. Is there a good fire in the kitchen?Mrs. Pearce: Yes, but -Higgins: Take all her clothes off and burn them and ring up and order some new ones. Just wrap her in brownpaper till they come.Eliza: You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of suchthings. I'm a good girl, I am. And I know what the likes of you are, I do.Higgins: We want none of your slum prudery here, young woman. You've got to learn to behave like a duchess. Now take her away, Mrs. Pearce, and if she gives you any trouble, wallop her.

And Higgins optimistically predicts that she will become an attractive lady to the men in town: "By george, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before

I've done with you." When she resists his cold insults and stomps out, he tempts her back with chocolates: "Think of it, Eliza. Think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds!" And then to answer Pickering'squestions about the six month "experiment in teaching" while she is in his hands, Higgins describes what will happen - tongue in cheek:

Eliza, you are to stay here for the next six months learning how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florist shop. If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots toeat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. But if you are naughty and idle, you shall sleep in the back kitchen amongst the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months, you shall be taken to Buckingham Palace in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the King finds out that you're not a lady, the police will take you tothe Tower of London, where your head will be cut off asa warning to other presumptuous flower girls. But if you are not found out, you shall have a present of, uh,seven-and-six to start life with a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer, you will be the most ungrateful,wicked girl, and the angels will weep for you. Now, areyou satisfied, Pickering?

As Eliza is dragged upstairs to the bathroom to her uncertain fate by Mrs. Pearce, screaming: "If I'd knownwhat I would've let myself in for I wouldn't have come here. I've always been a good girl, I have, and I won'tbe put upon," Higgins reiterates his confidence in the wager: "In six months, in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue, I'll take her anywhere and I'll pass her off as anything. I'll make a queen of that barbarous wretch."

The unwashed Cockney girl is led into a fancy new bedroom, while a maid runs water into a bathtub in the

adjoining bathroom. Mrs. Pearce admonishes: "You know, you can't be a nice girl inside if you're dirty outside." Eliza is overwhelmed and in awe of the fancy room: "It's too good for the likes of me. I shall be afraid to touch anything. I ain't a duchess yet, you know." Two serving girls and Higgin's housekeeper enterthe bathroom, shut the door behind them, and wrestle Eliza to take her clothes off and plunge her into the steaming bathtub. Her screams of protest resound throughout the residence: "Get your hands off me! No! Iwon't! Let go of me!"

While the two maids carry off Eliza's clothes, Higgins is asked by the morally-responsible Pickering if he will take advantage of Eliza under the circumstances: "I hope it's clearly understood that no advantage is tobe taken of her position...This is no trifling matter. Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?" The confirmed, aloof, hyper-logical bachelor/professor expresses his feelings about women in words and song: "I find the moment that a woman makes friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. And I find the moment that I make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so." The snobbish professor contemptuously sings-talks that he is a "quiet living man" without the need for a woman in "An Ordinary Man":

I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than justan ordinary chance,to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants.An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, Who likes tolive his life, free of strifeDoing whatever he thinks is best for him, Well, just anordinary man

But, let a woman in your life and your serenity is throughShe'll redecorate your home, from the cellar to the domeThen go to the enthralling fun of overhauling youLet a woman in your life, and you're up against a wall,Make a plan and you will find, she has something else in mind,And so rather than do either you do something else thatneither likes at all.

You want to talk of Keats or Milton, she only wants to talk of loveYou go to see a play or ballet, and spend it searching for her gloveLet a woman in your life and you invite eternal strife,Let them buy their wedding bands for those anxious little handsI'd be equally as willing for a dentist to be drilling,than to ever let a woman in my life...

In another line, he confirms his incorrigible bachelorhood and his impatience and distaste for creatures of the female sex: "Let a woman in your life and you're plunging in a knife. Let the others of my sex tie the knot around their necks, I'd prefer a new edition of the Spanish Inquisition than to ever let a woman in my life."

In Covent Garden after being thrown out of a pub, a besotted, lazy Doolittle and his friends ponder how to escape work. Eliza's father, a dustman and scoundrel, answers the question by singing: "With A Little Bit O' Luck", explaining in part, how he lives a life of unwedded bliss:

The Lord above gave man an arm of iron, so he could do his job and never shirkThe Lord above gave man an arm of iron but, with a

little bit o' luck,With a little bit o' luck, Someone else'll do the blinkin' work!

The Lord above made liquor for temptation, to see if man could turn away from sin.The Lord above made liquor for temptation but, with a little bit o' luck,With a little bit o' luck, When temptation comes, you'll give right in!..

Oh you can walk the straight and narrow, but with a little bit o' luck you'll run amuck.The gentle sex was made for man to marry, to share his nest and see his food is cooked.The gentle sex was made for man to marry but, with a little bit o' luck,With a little bit o' luck, You can have it all and not get hooked!

An old Cockney woman calls out to Alfred from a basement-level window where Eliza used to reside (threedays earlier) that he is a lucky man because his daughter is being 'kept' by a wealthy man:

You can buy your own things now, Alfie Doolittle, fallen into a tub of butter, you have...Your daughter Eliza...Moved in with a swell, Eliza has...this morning, I gets a message from her. She wants her things sent over to 27A Wimpole Street, care of Professor Higgins. And what things does she want?...Herbirdcage, and a Chinese fan. But she says, 'Never mind about sending any clothes.'

Alfred celebrates his luck by finishing up his song: "Aman was made to help support his children, which is theright and proper thing to do. A man was made to help support his children but, with a little bit o' luck,

with a little bit o' luck, they'll go out and start supporting you!"

My Fair Lady is a 1964 American musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical of thesame name based on the1938 film adaptation of the original 1913 stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. With a screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner and directedby George Cukor, the film depicts a poor Cockney flowerseller Eliza Doolittle who overhears an arrogant phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he casually wagers that he could teach her to speak "proper" English, thereby making her presentable in the high society of Edwardian London.The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.[2]

Contents  [hide] 

1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Musical numbers 4 Production 5 Film rights

o 5.1 Order of musical numberso 5.2 Dubbingo 5.3 Intermissiono 5.4 Art direction

6 Soundtrack 7 Reception 8 Awards and honors

o 8.1 Academy Awards: 1964o 8.2 Golden Globe Awardso 8.3 BAFTA Awardso 8.4 Other accolades

9 Restoration

10 Planned remake 11 References 12 External links

§Plot[edit]In Edwardian London, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), an arrogant, irascible, misogynistic teacherof elocution, believes that the accent and tone of one's voice determines a person's prospects in society.He boasts to a new acquaintance, Colonel Hugh Pickering(Wilfrid Hyde-White), himself an expert in phonetics, that he could teach any woman to speak so "properly" that he could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. Higgins selects as an example a young flower seller from the slums, Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), who has a strong Cockney accent. Eliza's ambition is to work in a flower shop, but her thick accent makes her unsuitable. Pickering offers to pay for her elocution lessons.Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway),a dustman, shows up three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter's virtue, but in reality simply toextract 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 Doolittle to a wealthy American who is interested in morality. Eliza goes through many forms of speech training, such as speaking with marbles in her mouth, enduring Higgins' harsh approach to teaching and his treatment of her personally. She makes little progress, but just as she,Higgins, and Pickering are about to give up, Eliza finally "gets it"; she instantly begins to speak with an impeccable upper class accent.As a test, Higgins takes her to Ascot Racecourse, whereshe makes a good impression with her stilted, but genteel manners, only to shock everyone by a sudden and

vulgar lapse into Cockney while encouraging a horse to win a race. Higgins, who dislikes the pretentiousness of the upper class, partly conceals a grin behind his hand. Eliza poses as a mysterious lady at an embassy ball and even dances with a foreign prince. At the ballis Zoltan Karpathy (Theodore Bikel), a Hungarian phonetics expert trained by Higgins. After a brief conversation with Eliza, he certifies that she is not only Hungarian, but of royal blood.After all the effort she has put in however, Eliza is given hardly any credit; all the praise going to Higgins. This, and his callous treatment towards her afterwards, especially his indifference to her future, causes her to walk out on him, leaving him mystified byher ingratitude. Accompanied by Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett), a young man she met at Ascot and who ischarmed by her, Eliza returns to her old life, but finds that she no longer fits in as she is a polite lady now. She meets her father, who has been left a large fortune by the wealthy American Higgins had sent him to and is resigned to marrying Eliza's stepmother. Alfred feels that Higgins has ruined him, since he is now bound by morals and responsibility. Eventually, Eliza ends up visiting Higgins' mother, who is incensedat her son's behavior.Higgins finds Eliza the next day and attempts to talk her into coming back to him. During a testy exchange, Higgins is angered when Eliza announces that she is going to marry Freddy and become Karpathy's assistant. Higgins explodes and Eliza is satisfied that she has had her "own back." Higgins has to admit that rather than being "a millstone around my neck... now you're a tower of strength, a consort battleship. I like you this way." Eliza leaves, saying they will never meet again. After an argument with his mother—in which he asserts that he does not need Eliza or anyone else—Higgins makes his way home, stubbornly predicting that

Eliza will come crawling back. However, he comes to therealization that he has "grown accustomed to her face."Then, to his surprise, Eliza reappears in Higgins' study: she knows now that he deeply cares for her afterall. Although George Bernard Shaw, the author of the original play, Pygmalion, had always despised the idea of Higgins and Eliza ending up together, in the film itremains an open question whether they fall in love witheach other or not.

§Cast[edit]

Audrey Hepburn  as Eliza Doolittle Marni Nixon  as Eliza's singing voice

Rex Harrison  as Professor Henry Higgins Stanley Holloway  as Alfred P. Doolittle Wilfrid Hyde-White  as Colonel Hugh Pickering Gladys Cooper  as Mrs. Higgins Jeremy Brett  as Freddy Eynsford-Hill

Bill Shirley  as Freddy's singing voice Theodore Bikel  as Zoltan Karpathy Mona Washbourne  as Mrs. Pearce, Higgins' housekeeper Isobel Elsom  as Mrs. Eynsford-Hill John Holland as the Butler Henry Daniell  as the British Ambassador (uncredited) He

shot his short scene and died from a heart attack that very evening on the set of My Fair Lady, so that this was his last film. After his death, the role wasshortened.

Queenie Leonard  (uncredited) as Cockney bystander Moyna MacGill  ("uncredited") as Lady Boxington

§Musical numbers[edit]

1."Overture" – Played by Orchestra.2."Why Can't the English Learn to Speak?" – Performed

by Rex Harrison, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Audrey Hepburn.

3."Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" – Performed by Audrey Hepburn (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Chorus.

4."An Ordinary Man" – Performed by Rex Harrison.5."With a Little Bit of Luck" – Performed by Stanley

Holloway, John Alderson, John McLiam and Chorus.6."Just You Wait" – Sung by Audrey Hepburn (partially

dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Charles Fredericks.7."Servants Chorus" – Sung by Mona Washbourne and

Chorus.8."The Rain in Spain" – Performed by Rex Harrison,

Wilfrid Hyde-White and Audrey Hepburn (partially dubbed by Marni Nixon).

9."I Could Have Danced All Night" – Performed by Audrey Hepburn (dubbed by Marni Nixon), Mona Washbourne and Chorus.

10. "Ascot Gavotte" – Sung by Chorus.11. "Ascot Gavotte (Reprise)" – Sung by Chorus.12. "On the Street Where You Live" – Sung by Jeremy

Brett (dubbed by Bill Shirley).13. "Intermission" – Played by Orchestra.14. "Transylvanian March" – Played by Orchestra.15. "Embassy Waltz" – Played by Orchestra.16. "You Did It" – Performed by Rex Harrison,

Wilfrid Hyde-White and Chorus.17. "Just You Wait (Reprise)" – Sung by Audrey

Hepburn.18. "On the Street Where You Live" (reprise) – Sung

by Jeremy Brett (dubbed by Bill Shirley).19. "Show Me" – Sung by Audrey Hepburn (dubbed by

Marni Nixon) and Jeremy Brett (dubbed by Bill Shirley).

20. "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" (reprise) – Sung by Audrey Hepburn (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Chorus.

21. "Get Me to the Church on Time" – Performed by Stanley Holloway, John Alderson, John McLiam and Chorus.

22. "A Hymn to Him (Why Can't A Woman Be More Like a Man?)" – Performed by Rex Harrison and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

23. "Without You" – Sung by Audrey Hepburn (dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Rex Harrison.

24. "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" – Performedby Rex Harrison.

25. "Finale" – Played by Orchestra.

§Production[edit]

This section isempty. You can help by adding to it. (February 2014)

§Film rights[edit]The head of CBS, William S. Paley, put up the money forthe original Broadway production in exchange for the rights to the cast album (through Columbia Records). When Warner bought the film rights in February 1962 forthe then-unprecedented sum of $5 million, it was agreedthat the rights to the film would revert to CBS seven years following release.[3]

§Order of musical numbers[edit]The order of the songs in the show was followed faithfully, except for "With a Little Bit of Luck". Thesong is listed as being the third musical number in theplay; in the film it is the fourth. Onstage, 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 makes the decision to go to Higgins's house 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, there are several measures from this piece that can be heard as we see Eliza in the rain, making her way through the cars and carriages in CoventGarden.All of the songs in the film were performed near complete; however, there were some verse omissions, as there sometimes are in film versions of Broadway musicals. For example, in the song "With a Little Bit of Luck", the verse "He does not have a Tuppence in hispocket", which was sung with a chorus, was omitted, dueto space and its length. The original verse in "Show Me" was used instead.The stanzas of "You Did It" that came after Higgins says "she is a Princess" were originally written for the Broadway version, but Harrison hated the lyrics andrefused to perform them, unless and until those lyrics were omitted, which they were in most Broadway versions. However, Cukor insisted that the omitted lyrics be restored for the film version or he would notdirect at all, causing Harrison to oblige. The omitted lyrics end with the words "Hungarian Rhapsody" followedby the servants shouting "BRAVO" three times, to the strains of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" before the servants sing "Congratulations, Professor Higgins". (Source: "On the Street where I Live" by Alan Jay Lerner, published in 1978.)§Dubbing[edit]

Hepburn's singing was judged inadequate, and she was dubbed by Marni Nixon,[4] who sang all songs except "Just You Wait", where Hepburn's voice was left undubbed during the harsh-toned chorus of the song and Nixon sang the melodic bridge section. Some of Hepburn's original vocal performances for the film werereleased in the 1990s, affording audiences an opportunity to judge whether the dubbing was necessary.Less well known is the dubbing of Jeremy Brett's songs (as Freddy) by Bill Shirley.[5]

Harrison declined to pre-record his musical numbers forthe film, explaining that he had never talked his way through the songs the same way twice and thus could notconvincingly lip-sync to a playback during filming (as musical stars had, according to Jack Warner, been doingfor years. "We even dubbed Rin-Tin-Tin"[6]). George Grovesdecided to use a wireless microphone, the first such use during filming of a motion picture.[7] The sound department earned an Academy Award for its efforts.§Intermission[edit]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 comesafter the scene at the Embassy Ball where Eliza is seendancing with Karpathy. In the film, the intermission comes before the ball, as Eliza, Higgins and Pickering are seen departing for the embassy.§Art direction[edit]Cecil Beaton won an Academy Award for his art directionof the film. His inspiration for the library in Higgins' home, where much of the action takes place, was a room at theChâteau de Groussay, Montfort-l'Amaury, in France, which had been decorated opulentlyby its owner Carlos de Beistegui.[citation needed]

§Soundtrack[edit]Original LP

All tracks played by The Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra conducted by André Previn. Between brackets the singers.

1."Overture"2."Why Can't the English Learn to Speak?" (Rex

Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Wilfrid Hyde-White)3."Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" (Marni Nixon (for

Hepburn))4."I'm an Ordinary Man" (Harrison)5."With a Little Bit of Luck" (Stanley Holloway)6."Just You Wait" (Hepburn, Nixon)7."The Rain in Spain" (Harrison, Hepburn, Nixon,

Wilfrid Hyde-White)8."I Could Have Danced All Night" (Nixon)9."Ascot Gavotte"10. "On the Street Where You Live" (Bill

Shirley (for Jeremy Brett))11. "You Did It" (Harrison, Hyde-White) (without

the choir "Congratulations")12. "Show Me" (Nixon, Shirley)13. "Get Me to the Church on Time" (Holloway)14. "A Hymn to Him (Why Can't a Woman Be More Like

a Man?)" (Harrison, Hyde-White)15. "Without You" (Nixon, Harrison)16. "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" (Harrison)Previously unreleased on LP, included on the CD

1."The Flower Market"2."Servants' Chorus"3."Ascot Gavotte (Reprise)"4."Intermission"5."The Transylvanian March"6."The Embassy Waltz"

7."You Did It" (Harrison, Hyde-White) (with the servant's final choir "Congratulations")

8."Just You Wait (Reprise)" (Hepburn and/or Nixon (for Audrey Hepburn))

9."On the Street Where You Live (Reprise)" (Shirley)

10. "The Flowermarket" (containing the reprise of "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?") (Nixon)

11. "End Titles"12. "Exit Music"

§Reception[edit]The film was re-released in 1971 and earned North American rentals of $2 million. It was re-released again in 1994 after a thorough restoration.[8] My Fair Lady currently holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the general consensus states: "Fans of the play may miss Julie Andrews in the starring role—particularly when Marni Nixon's singing comes out of Audrey Hepburn's mouth—but thefilm's charm is undeniable."[9] 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."[10]

§Awards and honors[edit]

Academy Awards record

1. Best Actor, Rex Harrison

2. Best Art Direction, Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton, George James Hopkins

3. Best Cinematography, Harry

Stradling Sr.

4. Best Costume Design, Cecil Beaton

5. Best Director, George Cukor

6. Best Original Score, André Previn

7. Best Picture, Jack Warner

8. Best Sound, George Groves

Golden Globe Awards record

1. Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

2. Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, Rex Harrison

3. Best Director, George Cukor

BAFTA Awards record

1. Best Film from any Source, George Cukor

§Academy Awards: 1964[edit]My Fair Lady won eight Oscars:[2][11]

Academy Award for Best Picture  – Jack Warner Academy Award for Directing  – George Cukor Academy Award for Best Actor  – Rex Harrison Academy Award for Best Cinematography  – Harry

Stradling Academy Award for Sound  – George R. Groves,

Warner Brothers Studio

Academy Award for Original Music Score  – André Previn

Academy Award for Best Art Direction  – Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton and George James Hopkins

Academy Award for Costume Design  – Cecil BeatonFour nominations

Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay – Alan Jay Lerner

Academy Award for Film Editing  – William Ziegler Academy Award for Best Supporting

Actor – Stanley Holloway Academy Award for Best Supporting

Actress – Gladys Cooper§Golden Globe Awards[edit]My Fair Lady won three Golden Globes:

Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture – George Cukor

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy – Rex Harrison

§BAFTA Awards[edit]

My Fair Lady won the BAFTA Award for Best Film fromany source

§Other accolades[edit]American Film Institute recognition

1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies – #91 2000 AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated 2002 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions – #12 2004 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:

"I Could Have Danced All Night" – #17 "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" – Nominated "The Rain in Spain" – Nominated

2006 AFI's 100 Years of Musicals – #8 2007 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th

Anniversary Edition) – Nominated

§Restoration[edit]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 andfinanced by CBS, to which the film rights reverted from Warner Bros. in 1971.[12] CBS would later hire Harris to lend his expertise to a new 4K restoration of the film for a 2014 Blu-ray release,working from 8K scans of the original camera negative and other surviving 65mm elements.

Directed by George Cukor

Drama, MusicalRated G171 minutes  |  Roger EbertJanuary 1, 2006   |    1 Print Page

"My Fair Lady" is the best and most unlikely of musicals, during which I cannot decide if I am happier when the characters are talking or when they are singing. The songs are literate and beloved; some romantic, some comic, some nonsense, some surprisingly philosophical, every single one wonderful. The dialogueby Alan Jay Lerner wisely retains a great deal of "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw, himself inspired byOvid's Metamorphosis.This fusion functions at such an elevation of sophistication and wit that when poor smitten Freddy sings "On the Street Where You Live," a song that woulddistinguish any other musical, this one drops Freddy

entirely rather than risk another such simplistic outburst. His sincerity seems childlike compared with the emotional fencing match between the guarded Higginsand the wary Eliza. It is characteristic that in a musical that has love as its buried theme, no one ever kisses, or seems about to.The story involves a meeting of two egos, one belongingto the linguist Henry Higgins, the other, no less titanic, to the flower girl Eliza Doolittle. It is often mistakenly said that they collaborate because Higgins (Rex Harrison) decides to improve Eliza's Cockney accent. In fact it is Eliza (Audrey Hepburn) who takes the initiative, presenting herself at Henry'sbachelor quarters to sign up for lessons: "I know what lessons cost as well as you do, and I'm ready to pay."Even in this early scene, it is Eliza's will that drives the plot; Higgins might have tinkered forever with his phonetic alphabet and his recording devices ifEliza hadn't insisted on action. She took seriously hisboast the night before, in Covent Garden: "You see thiscreature with her curbstone English? The English that will keep her in the gutter till the end of her days? Well, sir, in six months, I could pass her off as a duchess at an Embassy Ball. I could even get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English." The final twist, typical Shavian paradox, is what Eliza hears, and it supplies her inspiration: "I want to be a lady in a flower shop instead of sellin' at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. But they won't take me unless I can talk more genteel."It is her ambition, not Henry's, that sets the plot in motion, including the professor's bet with his fellow linguist Pickering, who says he'll pay for the lessons if Higgins can transform her speech. Higgins' response will thrum below the action for most of the play: "You know, it's almost irresistible. She's so deliciously

low. So horribly dirty." If Henry will teach Eliza to improve her speech, she will try to teach him decency and awaken his better nature.It is unnecessary to summarize the plot or list the songs; if you are not familiar with both, you are culturally illiterate, although in six months I could pass you off as a critic at Cannes, or even a clerk in a good video store, which requires better taste.It is difficult to discuss George Cukor's 1964 film as it actually exists because, even now, an impenetrable thicket of legend and gossip obscures its greatness. Many viewers would rather discuss the film that wasn't made, the one that would have starred Julie Andrews, who made the role of Eliza her own on the stage. Casting Audrey Hepburn was seen as a snub of Andrews, and so it was; producer and studio head Jack L. Warner chose Hepburn for her greater box-office appeal,and was prepared to offer the role to Elizabeth Taylor if Hepburn turned it down.One of the best-known items in the history of movie trivia is that Hepburn did not sing her own songs, but was dubbed by the gifted Marni Nixon. So notorious became this dubbing, so egregious was it made to appear, that although "My Fair Lady" was nominated for 12 Oscars and won eight (including best picture, actor,director and cinematography), Hepburn was not even nominated for best actress; Julie Andrews was, the sameyear, for "Mary Poppins," and she won.At this remove, can we step back and take a fresh look at the controversy? True, Hepburn did not sing her own songs (although she performed some of the intros and outros), and there was endless comment on moments when the lip-syncing was not perfect. But the dubbing of singing voices was commonplace at the time, and Nixon herself also dubbed Deborah Kerr ("The King and I") andNatalie Wood ("West Side Story"). Even actors who did their own singing were lip-syncing to their own

pre-recorded dubs (and an occasional uncredited assist). I learn from Robert Harris, who restored "My Fair Lady" in 1993, that this was apparently the first musical to use any form of live recording of the music,although "only of Mr. Harrison, who refused to mouth toplaybacks. His early model wireless microphone can be seen as a rather inflated tie during his musical numbers." Harrison's lips are therefore always in perfect sync, as opposed to everyone else in this film and all previous musicals.That Hepburn did not do her own singing obscures her triumph, which is that she did her own acting. "My FairLady," with its dialogue drawn from Shaw, was trickier and more challenging than most other stage musicals; the dialogue not only incorporated Shavian theory, wit and ideology, but required Eliza to master a transitionfrom Cockney to the Queen's English. All of this Hepburn does flawlessly and with heedless confidence, in a performance that contains great passion. Consider the scenes where she finally explodes at Higgins' misogynist disregard, returns to the streets of Covent Garden, and finds she fits in nowhere. "I sold flowers," she tells Henry late in their crisis. "I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of me, I'm not fit to sell anything else."It is typical of Shaw, admirable of Lerner and Loewe, and remarkable of Hollywood, that the film stays true to the original material, and Higgins doesn't cave in during a soppy rewritten "happy ending." Astonished that the ungrateful Eliza has stalked out of his home, Higgins asks in a song, "Why can't a woman be more likea man?" He tracks her to her mother's house, where the aristocratic Mrs. Higgins (Gladys Cooper) orders him tobehave himself. "What?" he asks his mother. "Do you mean to say that I'm to put on my Sunday manners for this thing that I created out of the squashed cabbage leaves of Covent Garden?" Yes, she does. Higgins

realizes he loves Eliza, but even in the play's famous last line he perseveres as a defiant bachelor: "Eliza? Where the devil are my slippers?" It remains an open question for me, at the final curtain, whether Eliza stays to listen to what he says next.Apart from the wonders of its words and music, "My FairLady" is a visual triumph. Cukor made use above all of Cecil Beaton, a photographer and costume designer, who had been production designer on only one previous film ("Gigi," 1958). He and cinematographer Harry Stradling,who both won Oscars, bring the film a combination of sumptuousness and detail, from the stylization of the famous Ascot scene to the countless intriguing devices in Higgins' book-lined study.The supporting performances include Wilfred Hyde-White as the decent Pickering, speaking up for Eliza; and Stanley Holloway as her father, Alfred P. Doolittle, according to Higgins "the most original moral philosopher in England." Doolittle was originallyto have been played in the movie by Jimmy Cagney; he might have been good, but might have been a distraction, and Holloway with his ravaged demeanor is perfect.What distinguishes "My Fair Lady" above all is that it actually says something. It says it in a film of pointed words, unforgettable music and glorious images,but it says it. Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" was a socialist attack on the British class system, and on the truth (as true when the film was made as when Shaw wrote his play) that an Englishman's destiny was largely determined by his accent. It allowed others to place him, and to keep him in his place.Eliza's escape from the "lower classes," engineered by Higgins, is a revolutionary act, dramatizing how "superiority" was inherited, not earned. It is a lessonthat resonates for all societies, and the genius of "MyFair Lady" is that it is both a great entertainment and

a great polemic. It is still not sufficiently appreciated what influence it had on the creation of feminism and class-consciousness in the years bridging 1914 when "Pygmalion" premiered, 1956 when the musical premiered, and 1964 when the film premiered. It was actually about something. As Eliza assures the serenelysuperior Henry Higgins, who stood for a class, a time and an attitude:They can still rule with land without you. Windsor Castle will stand without you. And without much ado we can all muddle through without you.