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Few musicals have ever captured the hearts of viewers as thoroughly as this lavish cinematic confection. Adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady was a hit on Broadway before becoming a movie that went on to win eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Directed by George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story), My Fair Lady is a monument to Hollywood artifice, portraying a world where the London slums are spotless, and even the poor and destitute break into song and dance at the slightest provocation. Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of the Covent Garden flower girl who is transformed into a lady ranks among the star’s most indelible performances. Famed photographer Cecil Beaton designed the costumes and sets, and Hepburn never looked more exquisite than she does here against his elegantly stylized backdrops. The unforgettable songs -- "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Rain in Spain," and "Get Me to the Church on Time" (Marni Nixon dubbed Hepburn’s singing) -- combine with Shaw’s deliciously snappy and literate dialogue to lend My Fair Lady rare sophistication. Rex Harrison (in an Oscar-winning reprisal of his stage role) is perfect as Henry Higgins, the cheerfully misogynistic speech professor who rids the winsome "guttersnipe" of her Cockney accent and ends up losing his heart to her. Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and Gladys Cooper provide delightful support. Like most period pieces, My Fair Lady is very much a product of the era in which it was made: Dressed up for her Cinderella moment at the embassy ball, Hepburn looks strikingly like the early-'60s feminine ideal, Jackie Kennedy. Audiences today may wince at the film’s ending, but this candy-coated take on the battle of the sexes and classes still charms. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097368719644
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Editions: Remastered
• Time: 2:52:00
• Sales Rank: 137

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