My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? (2024)

I tried watching this for the first time on Thursday and couldn't get through even the first third of it. Rex Harrison pompous as usual; bony Audrey Hepburn thrashing around and yowling in bad fake co*ckney.

This picture was well received when released and still admired today, so I can only conclude my judgment is off.

What do DLers think of this movie?

OP here. Sorry about the stupid poll options. I'm awful at polls. I don't know why. I usually love other polls on DL.

Thank you for posting, though. I dread starting a thread and seeing no posts. Like not being chosen for whiffleball at recess.

Lipstick Lesbian, I'm relieved you agree! I always like to know what you think about things!

[quote] I dread starting a thread and seeing no posts

Why? Not the end of the world.

[quote] Sorry about the stupid poll options. I'm awful at polls

Just file it under the 'Practice' category and move on.

No need to be self-conscious.

The movie does suck.

OP, my recommendation would be never to put up a poll for something like this if you weren't genuinely interested in other people's opinions that differed from your own. Just state your opinion and let people respond without a poll. No one likes "whimsical" polls that are meant just to reinforce the OP's own particular opinion.

It's generally understood now that the head of Warner Brothers really miscalculated by not letting Julie Andrews star in this, since she proved in the same year with "Mary Poppins" that she had box office charisma and was considered lovable by film audiences. Audrey Hepburn is lovely after the transformation, but as Pauline kael pointed out she's just completely unconvincing before then as a guttersnipe, and because Marnie Nixon's voice is so impersonal dubbed over her. And, as Kael pointed out, Harrison let almost all the surprise fall out of his performance since he had performed it too often on stage. but it's worth seeing because of the lavish period recreations, and the beautiful costumes (especially the famous black, white, and grey ones for the Ascot sequence), and because it's generally agreed MFL is one of a handful of the very greatest scores from the Golden Age of the Broadway musical

Love Audrey's gowns and the Ascot scenes. Rex was too way old to be paired with Audrey's though.

My favorite analysis of this movie was on Will and Grace.

Love the play, love the musical... watch the movie in spite of its flaws.

Such as Audrey's accent. Her co*ckney sounds passable to my American ear, but when she finally learns to talk loik a lady... she develops a faint Belgian accent!

The best thing about the entire movie is the set for Henry Higgins's London house. It is absolutely spectacular, and unlike the set for Yves Montand's office in "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," which tried to outdo it, it's believable (since Higgins is clearly established as being from a wealthy family).

I still think it's amazing that Jack Warner asked both Cary Grant and James Cagney to play Higgins. They both turned him down, and both of them supposedly told him they wouldn't even watch it unless he retained Rex Harrison from the Broadway show in the role.

I like it but the one that irks me is when, at Ascot, Higgins "absentmindedly" puts his teacup on his hat. It probably killed on stage but on film it doesn't work.

Amazing performances and costumes and that score! I would have voted for MFL for Picture but Quinn for Zorba.

I don't like it.

Audrey's yowling is too much.....and Rex is annoying in a character that should be charming and enlightening.

And Cukor's casting of all of those street boy whor*s in the ballroom scene is ridiculous. They look completely out of place in those costumes.

Costumes are good......settings are okay.....very stagebound.

And that old gas bag that played her father couldn't even get his lips to match the soundtrack. Even Annette Funicello in Beach Blanket Bingo could do that. MFL was the worst lip synching until Lena Horne in The Wiz.

[quote]I like it but the one that irks me is when, at Ascot, Higgins "absentmindedly" puts his teacup on his hat. It probably killed on stage but on film it doesn't work.

How come?

The best Higgins I've ever seen was Leslie Howard in the 1930s "Pygmalion". He was fortyish and quite handsome, and he was the only actor I've ever seen in the role who didn't ham it up and yell! He wasn't the huge character some actors try to make him, Howard's Higgins was just this bright, obnoxious, intelligent, subtly sexy man who had no filter, because he didn't see why he'd want one.

And as such, you can believe that a real human woman like Wendy Hiller's Eliza might be genuinely attracted to him!

Not so with Rex Harrison. Oh, NOT so! He's sixty or looks it, and he hams the hell out of it all.

I love MFL -- think it's one of the best musicals from Hollywood ever. Hepburn was a beautiful Eliza, and that mattered more than being a believable flower girl. She actually did do her own singing, and no one told her until much later that she was going to be dubbed. Harrison is indeed too old for the part and they had to write songs for him (in the original) that didn't require much of a voice. He doesn't have one.

Andrews would have made a more convincing flower girl but the transformation into a beautiful object of Freddy's desire -- no, she couldn't have pulled that off, she's just not a very attractive woman. A great actress and singer, yes. Beauty? No.

[quote]Beauty? No.

Patrician beauty? Yes.

Oh--

[quote] Julie Andrews

Is Lebanese. It can't be stated enough.

[quote]My favorite analysis of this movie was on Will and Grace.

You mean when Will's gay card should have been revoked because he thought the costumes were done by Edith Head?

R28 Shaw's original ending just had Higgins alone on stage (after Eliza's departure) laughing at the idea of her marrying Freddy, but many people assumed that she eventually returned to Higgins or he won her back somehow, which really irritated Shaw because he hated happy endings, so a few years later he wrote an afterword, detailing why/how Eliza married Freddy and not Higgins.

However, the 1930s film version, for which Shaw won the Best Screenplay Oscar, has Eliza return to Higgins in the end.

Seeing Jeremy Brett was a little scary for me. I’ve idolized him as the best possible Sherlock Holmes for so long I thought I might have to be embarrassed to see him doing the f*ckless Freddy.

I should’ve known better.

[quote]Julie Andrew's was always matronly looking even when she was a very young woman. That bowl cut did her no favors.

Oh, dear.

[quote]I don't know how the film won an Oscar for cinematography. It was very stagey.

Do you even know what cinematography is?

[quote] I like it but the one that irks me is when, at Ascot, Higgins "absentmindedly" puts his teacup on his hat. It probably killed on stage but on film it doesn't work.

It's not done absent-mindedly. What he's doing is signalling, "Oh, f*ck this, I thought this would work, but it's already doomed" (he doesn't realize yet that the Eynsford-Hills will think Liza is affecting what they think is "the new small talk" and that they will take her comments as witty rather than as random).

[quote]It was the costuming OP, the costuming.

Which, along with the hair and makeup, makes some of the women look very 1960s even though the movie is set in Edwardian London. It's rather like the original "Star Trek" TV series in that regard. The 23rd century apparently will see the return of mini-dresses, go-go boots and beehive hairdos.

I agree with you, OP. "Pygmalion," with Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard, is much better.

Never like Rex Harrison and his puffy eyes.

MFL's strong suit is the production values; the beautiful sets, costumes and photography -- which are larger than life but don't overwhelm the action like Hello Dolly's do. The look of the film is very stylized and stagey, but yet it doesn't feel stage bound.

Period films always have a good deal of contemporary style in the costumes and especially the hair and make-up of the female leads, since they wanted the original audience to see the stars as currently attractive. What I like about MFL is how heavily and knowingly the production design leans into this -- it's not an Edwardian piece that has 60's style around the edges by unwitting osmosis - it is very much a High 60's take on the Edwardian era; which again contributes to the film's stagey storybook-confection appeal.

Yep, r58, right up there with

[quote]My Big Fragrant puss*

It's a hit=and-miss movie for me. I love Audrey but the Marni Nixon vocals take me out of the movie. Rex Harrison is fantastic in his arrogance and I'm glad his iconic performance was captured on film. He's not supposed to be a lovable character and there isn't supposed to be more than a hint of romance between the two of them. Not even a hint really, just an "I grew accustomed to her face" thing so those who say he's too old for her, yes well, he's not her beau.

But the movie doesn't really find a dramatic climax and that's my problem with it. The climax should probably be the ball when she transforms spectacularly into a divine presence that seduces everyone. But the movie doesn't stay on her enough during the ball and the whole thing plays flatter than it should, and then we go back to Higgins' house and so on. It could have been so much better but it's still pretty damn good.

[quote]About her accent sounding slightly Belgian after her transformation, didn’t the accent expert guy at the ball deduce that she was a foreign princess?

He thought she was a foreign princess because her English was flawless, not because she sounded foreign. He figured she must have been taught by the very best,

[quote]My Fair cl*t caused me to spit the food out of my mouth and piss my pants.

Talk about easily entertained, You should hire yourself out to comedy clubs.

Someone is talking to herself:

My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? My Big Fragrant puss*

My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? My Fair cl*t

My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? R57 but it’s hilarious

My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? My Fair cl*t caused me to spit the food out of my mouth and piss my pants.

My Fair Lady (1964) (Rex Harrison & Audrey Hepburn) Why Does Anyone Like This Movie? R66 I like to laugh and find humor in stupidity you like to bitch and sit around with RBF as you turn to dust

One of my favorite films. A beauty. Magnificent production design which the actors fill with their presence. I think the Hiller Howard film is a bore They're just marking.

The climax of Eliza's transformation is when she appears at the top of the stairs in the ball gown. And I don't know if it was Moss Hart or George Cukor but when Higgin leaves to go to the ball and Eliza stands there not moving and Higgins goes back to take her arm is brilliant. A surprising and very moving end to the first half. Andre Previn 's conducting of that glorious score helps enormously. And the tea party scene in MFL is hilarious where in the original film it goes for nothing. Though I could as well do without Rex putting the teacup on his hat which I'm sure on stage got a huge roar.

[quote]Has anyone yet mentioned the crappy titles sequence with all those overripe shots of flowers? So unimaginative.

Are we still talking about "My Fair Lady" or "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever"?

"Audrey sounded like someone who had grown up internationally and didn’t have any particular accent."

Except, R61, that the whole f*cking story was about Higgins teaching her to speak like an upper-class Englishwoman!

Did anyone else dislike Audrey's white dress at the last act ball?

Of course the single worst thing about the look was the f*cking bouffant, but the dress itself didn't seem to belong in the same universe as the rest of the film's costumes, and wasn't particularly flattering to Hepburn. It really did make her look like a flat-chested, lollipop-headed stick, and she was supposed to be living in an era when curves were in fashion.

r81, Check your fashion history, doll.

By 1914, hour glass curves were on their way out and women's bodies were already being transformed into the tubes that became ubiquitous by 1920.

R76 Something is not quite right about your history because Gigi was made in 1957-58 and MFL was released in 1964. Maybe the bidding for the rights was in the 50s but they couldn’t make the film until the show had finished its run?

Anyhow, Vincente Minnelli was in the running to direct this Jack Warner production we’re talking about - he was first choice. But from what I’ve read, his wife at the time was negotiating for him and wanted a certain amount of money and it dragged on so long Warner finally hired George Cukor. Who was willing to work for less than Minnelli was asking.

When he was later asked what he would have done differently had he directed it he said something like “It would have had more color, for one thing.” I really like this comment because Cukor was not a lover of using a lot of color and would even tell cinematographers not to add color gels, saying “The sets are well painted, we don’t need more color.”

I think this movie is not very visually interesting or very colorful, particularly for a musical. There’s a lot of gray, a lot of brown, taupe, and avocado green. And just a lot of neutral color in general. So that when the black and white Ascot sequence happens, it’s not that big a change.

The one thing the MFL film doesn't need is more color. The Edwardian world was a place of soft pastels and neutrals.

Where would this strong color be employed? Higgins' flat? Covent Garden? The Embassy Ball? The Doolittle pubs? Mrs. Higgins' house is beautifully rendered in soft pastels and neutrals, as are the streets of Mayfair.

I kept waiting for her to fly off using her umbrella. She didn’t.

Sucked!!!

r83: I was mistaken iin believing that the film rights toi MY FAIR LADY were sold after the show opened on Broadway in 1956. Broadway cast albums were huge business when “My Fair Lady” opened, so CBS, through its Columbia Records division, financed the play just so they could put out the cast album. Later, when Warner Bros. Pictures co-founder Jack Warner wanted the movie rights, he paid a then record $5.5 million in 1962 plus 47 ¼% of the gross over $20 million. And all rights to the movie went back to CBS after a mere 7 years.

The budget for the film was the highest in Hollywood history - $17 million.

By that reasoning, it appears that MGM was unable to secure the rigthts after the Broadway musical opened in 1956 and made GIGI as an 'answer' to it (and just maybe an unofficial advertisem*nt to show CBS what MGM could do with a similar story and composer and lyricist)

It's overly wrong and Stanley Holloway makes me nervous for some reason, but it was the first movie musical I fell in love with a kid.

Maybe Julie Andrews would have been better, but would she have looked as good as Audrey in that black and white dress?

It IS very stagey. In that the camera keeps its distance, there are many shots of all the characters standing around together, comparatively few closeups, and hardly any close closeups. AND the actors are projecting their voices like stage actors throughout, which is offputting.

The 1939 version has none of these flaws, the actors talk in a normal everyday human tone and the camera gets in close, which makes it feel far more intimate and realistic. The 1939 version feels like a bunch of real people going through their lives, while the 1964 version feels like star actors being faaabulous! Which isn't necessarily bad, I'm up for a Star Performance on occasion, but damn that movie is stagey.

I've always liked the movie, even if I thought Audrey Hepburn was miscast. Marni Nixon had a wonderful singing voice, but it's wrong for Audrey's husky rasp of a speaking voice.

Besides, the actual story is the love story between Higgins and Pickering, two aging "confirmed bachelors" who meet cute and decide to live together immediately.

[quote] It IS very stagey. In that the camera keeps its distance, there are many shots of all the characters standing around together, comparatively few closeups, and hardly any close closeups. AND the actors are projecting their voices like stage actors throughout, which is offputting.

I think it was deliberately stagey and I'm glad it was. Everything was shot in the studio, with no exteriors, which kept it purposely close to the stage play. I wish they did this more often with musicals when they are adapted for the screen. They frequently ruin them by opening them up and letting the visuals overwhelm the story, like in Into the Woods.

There are no close-ups because they filmed it with the intention to have almost everyone see it in a theater on a giant screen in Super Panavision 70mm. In those days they didn't frame theatrical films for the small television screen which they started doing in the 70's. That's why old widescreen films use relatively few close-ups and are more epic looking.

Just for the record, Zoltan Kaparthy, the linguist at the ball, thought she was born a Hungarian princess.

"Her English is too good" he said "which clearly indicates that she foreign. Whereas others are instructed in their native language, English people aren(t).

And although she may have studied with an expert dialectician and grammarian,

I can tell that she was born Hungarian.

Not only Hungarian but of royal blood. She is a princess"

Love that reminder, r108!

Do you or does anyone remember the context of that quote?

I much prefer the source material (Pygmalion) to the Lerner & Loewe version.

The only part of the movie that I like is the Ascot scenes. The art direction there is excellent. The casting overall is very disappointing.

I enjoy Dame Julie's singing on the original cast album, but am not sure that even she could make a convincing co*ckney flower peddler.

[quote]Rex Harrison prevented Julie Andrews from playing the part of Eliza Dolittle

Eliza DOOLITTLE

Dr. DOLITTLE (as in "do little.")

[quote] Rex Harrison prevented Julie Andrews from playing the part of Eliza Dolittle- he was JEALOUS of her and her success and felt if she'd been allowed to play her she would have received ALL of the attention.

That's absurd. Julie Andrews was a nobody when the wheels were set in motion to make the movie and Rex was an established film star (Cleopatra, anyone?) With 5M invested in the rights, Jack Warner HAD to get a name for the female lead and Audrey was at the top of her game.

The irony is that Audrey Hepburn never once, even at her height, made Quigley's annual list of Top 10 Bankable Film Stars, which was "long regarded as one of the most reliable barometers of a movie star's box-office power," whereas Julie made the list several times a few years later, even topping it twice: 1965 (#4), 1966 (#1), 1967 (#1), 1968 (#3).

Furthermore, Julie was the last woman to reach #1 for over thirty years, until Julia Roberts topped the list in 1999.

Andrews's reign at the top of the box office was extremely brief. She had massive hits with "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins", and then... didn't follow them with more massive hits. And just as she was having some box-office disappointments the late sixties hit and the zeitgeist was all about hippies, revolutionaries, war, and race riots, and she seemed suddenly out of step with the times. And Hollywood didn't have much of an idea what to do with her, then as now the major female roles in most mainstream films were for pretty, sexy, compliant young women, and that just wasn't her.

Well, doing the "My Fair Lady" film would have given her more time at the top, but I don't think it would have had a huge effect on her career as a whole. For all her talent, she just wasn't a good fit for the Hollywood of the sixties and seventies.

Since My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins were both released in 1964 I don’t see how doing MFL would have given Julie more time at the top. Also I’m not sure if she had done MFL she could have done MP as well.

I remember going o see Mary Poppins (when I was 6 or 7) and standing in line under a massive poster for MFL which was playing in another theater, next door. These were the two highest grossing films of 1964.

I love Audrey in Lady. I think she's charming as hell and very very beautiful. She is brilliant in her tryout at ascot and is wonderful in her dramatic scenes in the second half. I doubt Harrison cared who played Eliza over which he had no say. He wasn't even sure he'd get the role as he was third choice. Eliza could have been Connie Stevens Warner Brothers contract player for all he cared. How many decades has Audrey been dead and yet she is still known by young people. Alone with Monroe as the only person known by young people from old Hollywood.

By the way Shaw wrote the role of Eliza for a 49 year old actress. So much for Higgins looking 60. And the original actor as Higgins in its first production through his own acting made it clear at the end he was in love Eliza and not done with her. Shaw was furious. the actor said Ha! I've made your play a hit!

[quote]Andrews's reign at the top of the box office was extremely brief. She had massive hits with "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins", and then... didn't follow them with more massive hits.

As others have stated, Julie had more than those two hits.

1964: MARY POPPINS (#1 of '64) and THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (modest hit)

1965: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (#1 of '65 and highest-grossing film of that era, surpassing GONE WITH THE WIND)

1966: TORN CURTAIN (#17 of '66) and HAWAII (#1 of '66)

1967: THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (#10 of '67)

STAR! in 1968 was a major flop, thus ending her winning streak, but what an amazing run.

I was a boy during the 60s and Andrews was a goddess. Even though Star! was a flop I think it was Darling Lili that really finished off her career. I wish she had done Chitty, Oliver or Bedknobs all of which she was offered. I got through Lili once but never again. And if they could get 1776 made why not the far preferable She Loves Me with Van Dyke which would have given her some clout again and then maybe 40 Carats.

Edwards really f*cked up her career. Why as a lesbian was she so obsessed with him?

And she could not have done all three due to timing Poppins, Lady and Music. One had to go.

But I wonder....had Jack Warner just gone with Julie as Eliza as soon as he secured the film rights, MFL could have been made earlier and allowed her to also do Mary Poppins?

Julie would have been awful casting as Nancy in Oliver, too old and too sweet. Even Shani Wallis was no Georgia Brown.

But yes, shame that She Loves Me was never made into a film with Julie! She would have been perfect as Amalia and the story would have translated beautifully to a well made Hollywood film (see The Shop Around the Corner).

[quote]Love the play, love the musical... watch the movie in spite of its flaws. Such as Audrey's accent. Her co*ckney sounds passable to my American ear, but when she finally learns to talk loik a lady... she develops a faint Belgian accent!

It's not Belgian, it's Dutch, but you have a point.

[quote]I still think it's amazing that Jack Warner asked both Cary Grant and James Cagney to play Higgins.

Not quite correct. he wanted Grant for Higgins, which is indeed amazing (and ridiculous), but he wanted Cagney for Doolittle, which might have been really good casting.

"All this comment about her ball gown and no one mentions how her hair is done up for the ball?"

I bitched about it at R81. So there!