MY FAIR LADY was among my first forays into Old Hollywood. I have seen it probably four or five times since high school. I've never been a big fan, but I remembered it with a fondness that gave way to disappointment when I rewatched it again recently and found it a letdown in just about every aspect. About all this film has going for it are good songs and great dialogue from the original George Bernard Shaw play, PYGMALION. It is every bit a victim of the time of its production: in the 50s and 60s, Hollywood panicked as it lost audiences to television, so they decided to make movies larger than life and dripping with spectacle.
Unfortunately, spectacle does not suit a witty satire like this: it just pads out the runtime unnecessarily. And besides, the spectacle we get isn't even that good. For some reason, I recall thinking this was a movie graced with beautiful art direction, but watching it again, I was shocked by how drab everything looks. The predominant colors are brown and green. Combined with the fussy sets and some truly garish costumes (with the exception of Eliza's ascot dress and ball gown), the movie's aesthetic appeal is nil, foreshadowing the predominantly beige look of the botched 1967 CAMELOT. Even worse, the sound mixing and dubbing are atrocious, going beyond just the obvious gulf between the movement of Hepburn's lips and Marni Nixon's singing. The sound is tinny and so obviously separate from the action on-screen that it becomes distracting.
The only actors who leave much of an impression are Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, both resuming roles they made famous during the show's original Broadway run. Audrey Hepburn's performance was and remains divisive, but-- and as much as it pains me to say it-- I have to agree with the naysayers, she is badly miscast. I just do not buy her as the squalid flower girl at all: her crassness feels labored, more like a parody than anything and often more annoying than I think it's supposed to come across. She coasts on her charm at least. Still, it shocks me that this is considered one of her signature performances: even if I didn't think the Oscars were a joke, I wouldn't say she was snubbed at all.
And to parrot a common complaint once again: that ending is awful. I don't think the movie is misogynist as others claim-- there are small hints in Harrison's performance that he has softened and his final line is delivered in a self-mocking manner that does not suggest Eliza will be a domestic slave. However, the characters and the actors both share zero romantic chemistry, no matter how much both the script and the actors try to hint at such feelings. The original play had it right: Eliza becomes her own woman and probably marries Freddy, a man that, while much less interesting to the audience than Higgins, at least respects Eliza. Whether or not the two last hardly matters-- Eliza's emancipation is the end goal, not the question of which man she may or may not marry.
As it is, MY FAIR LADY is one of the last true Old Hollywood productions. In a few short years, New Hollywood would burst onto the scene with its violence, moral ambiguity, and cinematic boldness, eclipsing the stately mega productions the old-time moguls kept trying to foist onto audiences even after the appeal of such films cooled at the box office. In that sense, there is a poignancy to MY FAIR LADY that makes me unable to outright dislike it, despite its many shortcomings. After all, it does have some good songs and some moments of charm, even if one is left wishing it could have had more life pumped into it.
Unfortunately, spectacle does not suit a witty satire like this: it just pads out the runtime unnecessarily. And besides, the spectacle we get isn't even that good. For some reason, I recall thinking this was a movie graced with beautiful art direction, but watching it again, I was shocked by how drab everything looks. The predominant colors are brown and green. Combined with the fussy sets and some truly garish costumes (with the exception of Eliza's ascot dress and ball gown), the movie's aesthetic appeal is nil, foreshadowing the predominantly beige look of the botched 1967 CAMELOT. Even worse, the sound mixing and dubbing are atrocious, going beyond just the obvious gulf between the movement of Hepburn's lips and Marni Nixon's singing. The sound is tinny and so obviously separate from the action on-screen that it becomes distracting.
The only actors who leave much of an impression are Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, both resuming roles they made famous during the show's original Broadway run. Audrey Hepburn's performance was and remains divisive, but-- and as much as it pains me to say it-- I have to agree with the naysayers, she is badly miscast. I just do not buy her as the squalid flower girl at all: her crassness feels labored, more like a parody than anything and often more annoying than I think it's supposed to come across. She coasts on her charm at least. Still, it shocks me that this is considered one of her signature performances: even if I didn't think the Oscars were a joke, I wouldn't say she was snubbed at all.
And to parrot a common complaint once again: that ending is awful. I don't think the movie is misogynist as others claim-- there are small hints in Harrison's performance that he has softened and his final line is delivered in a self-mocking manner that does not suggest Eliza will be a domestic slave. However, the characters and the actors both share zero romantic chemistry, no matter how much both the script and the actors try to hint at such feelings. The original play had it right: Eliza becomes her own woman and probably marries Freddy, a man that, while much less interesting to the audience than Higgins, at least respects Eliza. Whether or not the two last hardly matters-- Eliza's emancipation is the end goal, not the question of which man she may or may not marry.
As it is, MY FAIR LADY is one of the last true Old Hollywood productions. In a few short years, New Hollywood would burst onto the scene with its violence, moral ambiguity, and cinematic boldness, eclipsing the stately mega productions the old-time moguls kept trying to foist onto audiences even after the appeal of such films cooled at the box office. In that sense, there is a poignancy to MY FAIR LADY that makes me unable to outright dislike it, despite its many shortcomings. After all, it does have some good songs and some moments of charm, even if one is left wishing it could have had more life pumped into it.