"My Fair Lady"**** (out of ****)
My feeling towards the movie musical has always been the songs are more important than the plot. I will sit and watch and enjoy a musical with a mechanical plot just as long as the songs are thoroughly enjoyable. "My Fair Lady" (1964) takes steps a bit further. It actually has a good plot and knockout of a musical score.
First, let us dispense with the boring formalities. The movie was an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 stage play, Pygmalion, which itself was adapted into a 1938 British movie, of the same title, starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. The story was then turned into a musical, "My Fair Lady", in 1956 and hit the Broadway stage with a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The original production starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. To this day there are those that claim it was an injustice Julie Andrews wasn't given the opportunity to reprise the role on film. The story goes, Jack Warner didn't want Andrews because she lacked box-office appeal. And yes, Audrey Hepburn does not sing in the movie. Her voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon, the same woman that dubbed for Natalie Woods in "West Side Story" (1961).
Shaw's story and the 1938 movie, are something of a satire on the British class system and the concept of social mobility. The 1938 movie wasn't particularly romantic to me nor did I find it to be a great satire. To judge or compare "My Fair Lady" against the 38 version, much is the same, however there is a greater emphasis on romance here. The addition of songs are not meant to promote the social satire presented in the story but rather are romantic in nature. Take for example the tune "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" with lyrics, "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face / She Almost Makes The Day Begin / I've Grown Accustomed To The Tune / She Whistles Night And Noon".
Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) studies phonetics and has the ability, with almost pinpoint accuracy, to determine where a person was born based on their accent. This leads him to meet a lowly flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn). He has been following her, writing down everything she says, as part of his studies. During this meeting he claims to be so good at what he does that he bets a fellow phonetics scholar, Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), who has traveled from India to meet Prof. Higgins, that he could present Eliza at a ball as a duchess, after a few months of training. Dreaming of a better life for herself, Eliza takes him up on his hypothetical offer.
While this sets in motion what could be considered a routine plot. You really should know how events will end between Higgins and Eliza. The two most interesting characters then aren't Higgins and Eliza. Even though this is a love story, the two most interesting characters, and the two that really advance the social message, are Higgins and Eliza's father, Alfred (Stanley Holloway). That was true in the 1938 movie and here again. It may be a minor point but you could look at these two characters as opposite sides of the same coin. With these characters you could say the movie is about men and their feelings towards marriage. Compare and contrast two songs. Higgins sings "I'm An Ordinary Man" with lyrics "Let A Woman In Your Life / And Your Serenity Is Through / She'll Redecorate Your Home / From The Cellar To The Dome / And Then Go On To The Enthralling Fun Of Overhauling You". Later in the movie Alfred, also a bachelor, sings "Get Me To The Church On Time" the night before his wedding. Both songs explain a man's dread and fear of letting a woman in their life and their lost of freedom.
The relationship between Higgins and Eliza fits into the old Hollywood template of opposites attract. Higgins, the professor, and Eliza the uneducated woman. Higgins the man of social standing, and Eliza the flower girl. They have nothing in common. Eliza even becomes so irritated with Higgins and his teaching methods that she wishes him dead. A feeling expressed in the song, "Just You Wait". But whatever their differences we know in the end the fate that awaits them.
The difference in social standing, and in turn the effect that has on one's worldview, however is presented directly in the Higgins and Alfred character. When Alfred discovers Eliza is going through with this experiment and will be living with Higgins and Pickering, he sees an opportunity to make some money. When you are poor and in need of the material things, one must take advantage of every opportunity. Even if that means "selling" your daughter. Alfred asks Higgins for five pounds for Eliza to stay with him. Alfred has some of the best dialogue in the movie and speaks of "middle-class morality" and refers to himself as the "undeserving poor". A definite commentary on how we view the poor even today. Why can't these people get a job!? They don't want to work. All they want is a handout...ect.
The songs and their romanticism "interfere" with the social commentary and stops "My Fair Lady" from making greater social points. But, I felt the 1938 version didn't go far enough either and that didn't have songs. The music here transforms the material into a love story. It wouldn't be difficult to believe someone would only look at "My Fair Lady" as such and never acknowledge any social or economic interpretation. The songs distract us as we hum along.
This may be why Lowe and Lerner ran into obstacles trying to adapt Pygmalion into a musical in the first place. Shaw's story isn't really a love story. In movie terms there isn't even a villain, another man fighting for Eliza's affection, competing against Higgins. Yes, there is the character Freddy (Jeremy Brett), who sings "On The Street Where You Live", but, he is not presented as a threat at all. The closet thing to a villain is Zoltan Karpathy (Theodore Bikel), a former Hungarian student of Higgins, who has taken Higgins' methods, and uses them to bribe impostors of high social standing. He will be present at the ball Eliza is to attend.
Yet, despite the complications in adapting material like this into a musical, the movie succeeds on its own terms. It is an entertaining, rewarding experience. Yes, the songs are great, but so too are the performances given by Harrison, Hepburn, Holloway and Hyde-White. At times the movie has a carefree attitude which allows for a lot of humor. A great example is the Ascot Gavotte number. And listen to the banter between Higgins and Pickering.
"My Fair Lady" was directed by the great George Cukor, who won his only best director Oscar for this movie. It was his fifth and final nomination. Cukor was an incredibly distinguished filmmaker whose credits include "Dinner at Eight" (1933), "Little Women" (1933), "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) and "Adam's Rib" (1949). He was given the nickname a "woman's director" due to the fine performances actresses gave under this direction. Oddly enough, of the 12 Academy Award nominations the movie received, the category it wasn't nominated in was best actress. Even Gladys Cooper, who plays Higgins' mother, was nominated in a throwaway role (!).
Whenever I personally think of the "golden age" of Hollywood musicals, I think of movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (together and separately), Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, George Murphy and Eleanor Powell. Movies with a musical score by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, or Irving Berlin. But, I believe to the general public, some of the most beloved movie musicals include "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), "West Side Story", and any Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of the 1950s. All made after the period I regard as the golden age and yet these movies have stood the test of time too. They have songs that have become standards of the American songbook. Even I must admit some rank among my favorite musicals. And I'm a guy that considers "Top Hat" (1935) to be one of his favorite movies of all-time.
While no one can deny the popularity of the score to "My Fair Lady", I do wonder though, do audiences still acknowledge this movie a masterpiece? Has some of the shine worn off since it won eight Academy Awards in 1965, including best picture? Do you really hear people talk about it anymore? Do people watch it repeatedly? I do. I own it on DVD. But, am I a dying breed? No one, in recent memory, has brought the movie up in conversation with me. Would a movie like this win a best picture Oscar today? I don't know but wouldn't it be loverly if it did?
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