Musicals Week: My Fair Lady (1964)

My Fair Lady

Call No: PN1997.2 .M9 2004

Last week I reviewed a film called Pygmalion, based on George Bernard Shaw’s play of the same name. This week I thought it would be fair and look at the other popular musical adaptation, My Fair Lady. Incidentally, My Fair Lady and my previous reviewed film Mary Poppins both came out in 1964, and competed against each other for many of the top awards. They went on to win thirteen awards between them, with Mary Poppins getting five (including Best Actress and Best Song) while My Fair Lady received eight (including Best Picture).

The premise is the same as last time. Linguist Professor Henry Higgins makes a wager that, in six months, he can present cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle as a duchess an embassy ball. But Henry may get more than he bargained for in this musical and entertaining battle of the sexes wages. Problems arise. Potential love interests interfere. And so begins the music, laughter, hijinks and love as the two work and fight together to try and win his bet.

One of the things I like about this adaptation is that it fills in a number of the story gaps that the original film doesn’t have time to get into. You get to see where Eliza comes from and the kind of taxing life she leads. You get to witness the relationship she has with her father and the other sellers in the market. More attention is given to Freddie in this film, even so far as giving him his own song, the famous “On the Street Where you Live”. Of course, the film has more time to do this, using the play as a basis and building up from there, whereas Pygmalion is a basic adaptation of the original play.

Of course, it wouldn’t be right to have this musical reviewed without discussing the music. One of the more enjoyable facets of the film is the number of songs in the film. There are more songs in this film than one might realize, and they all enhance the film wonderfully. This doesn’t feel like a film that just sticks in songs whenever they can. It’s the timing, content and quality of the songs that make it great. The film was an adaptation of the Broadway show, where the songs and story are given equal importance in being developed. There was trouble making some of the songs fit to the trimmed story line, but it’s hard to tell. There’s a nice variety of music here, from the famous “I Could Have Danced All Night” to the entertaining “Why Can’t the English Learn to Speak?” to one of my personal favourites “Without You” (which has a very old-school-girl-power feel to it). 

Hepburn and Harrison are equally matched as Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins.

The pair of Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle are perfectly embodied in this film. Rex Harrison made the role famous on Broadway, and he plays the well-worn and familiar part perfectly in the film. Audrey Hepburn, who I enjoy quite often in other movies, is very good here. It’s hard to make Eliza a fiery character without making her whiny. Hepburn pulls it off, and usually just in the nick of time. Her voice is very grating towards the beginning of the movie, as it’s supposed to be, but it’s almost to the point of distraction sometimes. Aside from that, the two leads are strong and exceptional enough to pull off the film with an equal blend of grace and humour.

Here’s a final interesting note, one for you trivia buffs. I mentioned earlier that the film My Fair Lady was developed from the Broadway show. In the show, Eliza Doolittle was actually played by Julie Andrews with Rex Harrison playing Henry Higgins. Because the film producer Jack Warner didn’t want to invest in Julie Andrews for the film, the studio hired Audrey Hepburn. As it turns out, Audrey Hepburn couldn’t sing, so they had to have a singing voice dubbed in for her. Andrews’ Mary Poppins would later beat Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle for Best Actress at the Academy Awards the following year.