My Fair Lady (1964)

My Fair Lady
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Alan Jay Lerner from a play by George Bernard Shaw
1964/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Eliza Doolittle: Come on, Dover! Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ arse![/box]

Beautiful music, great acting, gorgeous production values.  Who could ask for anything more?

Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is a cantankerous confirmed bachelor and phoneticist.  When he meets Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), he boasts he could pass her off as a duchess in six months using his methods to change her speech.  Friend Col. Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) takes him up on his bet.  Higgins works Eliza mercilessly.

She proves to be an apt pupil.  But Higgins takes all the credit for her transformation. Higgins’ own mother (Gladys Cooper) takes Eliza’s side in the ensuing falling out.  With the marvelous Stanley Hollaway as Eliza’s boozy dustman father.

I can never resist a good Cinderella story.  While Audrey Hepburn seems more comfortable as a princess, than as a gutter snipe this remains one of the great ones.  I’ve loved this since its original release and I’m not going to change my mind at this late date.

My Fair Lady won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; Best Sound; and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Holloway); Best Supporting Actress (Cooper); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; and Best Film Editing.