My Fair Lady (film)
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My Fair Lady is a 1964 musical film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical, My Fair Lady, based in turn on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.
The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.
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. The person whom he is shown thus teaching is one Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a young woman with a strong Cockney accent who is selling flowers on the street. Having overheard Higgins's boast, Eliza finds her way to the professor's house and offers to pay for speech lessons, so that she can work in a flower shop. Pickering is intrigued and wagers that Higgins cannot back up his claim; Higgins takes Eliza on free of charge as a challenge to his skills.
Eliza's father, Alfred P. 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. Higgins is impressed by the man's genuineness, his natural gift for language, and especially his brazen lack of morals (Doolittle explains, "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', and to say "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" rather than "The rine in spine sties minely in the pline". At first, she makes no progress (due to Higgins's harsh approach to teaching), but just as she, Higgins, and Pickering are exhausted and about to give up, Higgins softens his attitude and gives an eloquent speech about the beauty and history behind the English language. Eliza tries one more time and finally "gets it"; she instantly begins to speak with an impeccable upper class accent.
Higgins takes her on her first public appearance to Ascot Racecourse, where she makes a good impression with her stilted, but genteel manners, only to shock everyone by a sudden and vulgar lapse into Cockney: "C'mon Dover, move your bloomin' arse!". 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 an embassy ball, despite the unexpected presence of a Hungarian phonetics expert trained by Higgins. Higgins's callous treatment of Eliza afterwards, especially his indifference to her future prospects, leads her to walk out on him, leaving him mystified by her ingratitude. Putting aside his resentment about the intrusion on his life and toward women in general, Higgins finds Eliza the next day and attempts to talk her into coming back to him. During a testy exchange, Higgins's ego gets the better of him, and his former student rejects him.
Higgins makes his way home, stubbornly predicting that Eliza will be ruined without him and come crawling back. However, his bravado collapses and he comes to the horrified realization that he has "grown accustomed to her face". He is reduced to playing an old phonograph recording of her voice lessons. To Higgins's great delight, Eliza chooses that moment to return to him. The last words are from Higgins: "Eliza? ... Where the devil are my slippers?" This differs from the original play's resolution (see Pygmalion ending).
Production
Andrews vs. Hepburn
It was never assumed that the lead role in the film would go to Julie Andrews, who had played Eliza in the stage version to great critical acclaim. Audrey Hepburn was cast instead (despite lobbying from screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner), because Jack Warner of Warner Brothers wanted a box office star, and at the time Andrews was an untested screen presence. Elizabeth Taylor reportedly fought long and hard for the role as well. The casting controversy did little to hurt Hepburn's career. 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. Years later, when Warner Bros. offered Andrews the role of Guinevere in the film adaptation of the Lerner & Lowe musical Camelot (which she also originated to great acclaim on Broadway), Andrews asked for $7 million, and as a consequence, politely declined the offer. Vanessa Redgrave took the role, although she was quoted as saying that, had Julie Andrews wanted to play the role, she certainly would have.
Dubbing
Hepburn's singing was judged inadequate, however, and she was dubbed by Marni Nixon. Some of Hepburn's original vocal performances for the film were released 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[1].
No dubbing was done for Rex Harrison, even though he spoke most of his lyrics instead of singing them. In addition, the actor declined 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 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 one was used to record sound during filming. André Previn then conducted the final version of the music to the voice recording. The sound department earned an Academy Award for its efforts.
Copyright issues
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 in February 1962 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. Currently, Warner owns the DVD rights to the film (under license from CBS), while CBS Television Distribution owns the television rights, this makes My Fair Lady the only theatrical film whose ancillary rights are owned by CBS that is not distributed by CBS Home Entertainment.
A VHS release by Paramount Pictures in 2001 is currently out of print.
Musical numbers
Act I
"Overture"
"Why Can't the English?"
"Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"
"An Ordinary Man"
"With A Little Bit of Luck"
"Just You Wait"
"Servants Chorus"
"The Rain in Spain"
"I Could Have Danced All Night"
"Ascot Gavotte"
"Ascot Gavotte (Reprise)"
"On the Street Where You Live"
"Intermission"
[edit] Act II
"Transylvanian March"
"Embassy Waltz"
"You Did It"
"Just You Wait (Reprise)"
"On The Street Where You Live"
"Show Me"
"Get Me to The Church on Time"
"A Hymn to Him"
"Without You"
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"
"Finale"
"Exit Music"
Awards
Academy Awards - 1964
Won
Best Picture - Jack L. Warner
Best Director - George Cukor
Best Actor - Rex Harrison
Best Cinematography - Harry Stradling
Best Sound - George R. Groves, Warner Brothers Studio
Best Music Score - Andre Previn
Best Art Direction - Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton and George James Hopkins
Best Costume Design - Cecil Beaton
Nominated
Best Adapted Screenplay - Alan Jay Lerner
Best Film Editing - William Ziegler
Best Supporting Actor - Stanley Holloway
Best Supporting Actress - Gladys Cooper
My Fair Lady also won the BAFTA Best Film.
It ranks at #91 on the American Film Institute list of the greatest American movies of all time and in 2006 it ranked #8 on their list of best musicals.
Restoration
By 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 the film's image quality for future generations. A 30th anniversary re-issue in 1994 by Fox reinforced the film's popularity.
Past animated remake
In 1995 Fox executives gave animation directors/producers Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, then newly appointed as the creative heads of Fox Animation Studios, the choice between creating an animated re-make of either My Fair Lady or the 1956 Fox film Anastasia. Bluth and Goldman chose to make the animated film Anastasia, which became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film in 1997.
2009/2010 remake starring Keira Knightley
In early June 2008 it was reported that a remake in the work starring Keira Knightley[2] as Eliza Doolittle was being planned[3] for a release in either 2009 or 2010. It will be produced by Duncan Kenworthy (Love Actually) and co-developed by CBS studios. My Fair Lady (2009 film). Emma Thompson is set to write the script.[4]
References
Retrived from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady_%28film%29
