My Fair Lady (1964)
Comedy | Drama | Family | Musical | Romance

By George, they've got it! Newly transferred from elements painstakingly restored in 1994, the film version of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady is lavish, loverly and the acclaimed recipient of eight 1964 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director (Cukor).

Best Actor Oscar winner Rex Harrison reprises his signature stage role of Henry Higgins, the supremely assured phoneticist who wagers that under his tutelage, Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In one of her best-loved roles, Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza. If ever there was a face the professor could grow accustomed to, it's hers. In Hartford, Heresford and Hampshire (and elsewhere) no one's fairer than My Fair Lady, one of the most irresistible musicals ever.

Storyline: Gloriously witty adaptation of the Broadway musical about Professor Henry Higgins, who takes a bet from Colonel Pickering that he can transform unrefined, dirty Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady, and fool everyone into thinking she really is one, too! He does, and thus young aristocrat Freddy Eynsford-Hill falls madly in love with her. But when Higgins takes all the credit and forgets to acknowledge her efforts, Eliza angrily leaves him for Freddy, and suddenly Higgins realizes he's grown accustomed to her face and can't really live without it. Written by Tommy Peter

User Comment: Robert Reynolds (minniemato@hotmail.com) from Tucson AZ, 28 December 2003 • I have read in a great many places (including the IMDb) that Henry Higgins is a misogynist. It has also been said that the film is a misogynist's fairy tale. Anyone saying this has clearly not watched this film too closely.

First, Higgins is not a misogynist. A misogynist hates women. What Higgins is, in reality, is a misanthrope. A misanthrope basically dislikes and distrusts everyone! Watch the film and you'll notice that Higgins treats everyone with the same disregard-Col. Pickering, Eliza's father, his own mother-everyone receives his rather cynical disdain. Some of the minor characters come off being treated worse than the principals do. It's simply more noticeable with Eliza because it's more frequent, it's newer with Eliza because the other principal characters have known Higgins longer and thus take it in stride. The myth that Higgins is a misogynist is perpetuated by the song, "Why Can't A Woman Be More Like a Man?".

Second, it can hardly be called a misogynist's fairy tale. If that were the case, I doubt Alfred Doolittle would have cause to sing, "Get Me To the Church On Time", as he'd hardly be getting married. His life is just as "ruined" as Eliza's by his encounters with Higgins, just as altered as her life has been.

This is a great musical, a good movie and it was even better as the original play by Shaw. Well worth seeing. Recommended.

Summary: The character of Henry Higgins is greatly misunderstood by many and so is the film.

--- JOYA ---

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