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Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison cover how to speak proper in My Fair Lady |
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle), Rex Harrison
(Professor Henry Higgins), Stanley Holloway (Alfred P Doolittle), Wilfrid
Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Higgins), Jeremy Brett (Freddy
Eynsford-Hill), Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy), Mona Washbourne (Mrs Pearce),
Isobel Elsom (Mrs Eynsford-Hill), Henry Daniell (British Ambassador)
My Fair Lady is
possibly one of the most popular musicals of all time. A singing-and-dancing
adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, a satire on
self-improvement and sexual politics, the original Broadway production ran for
over six years and 2,717 performances, while the original cast-recording album
was a smash hit bestseller. It was a question of when rather than if a film version
would be made. When it finally happened, the film was garlanded with Oscars
aplenty, not least Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
The musical follows the story of Eliza Doolittle (Audrey
Hepburn), a cockney flower girl in Victorian London, whose life is changed
after a chance encounter with linguistics genius Professor Henry Higgins (Rex
Harrison). Higgins has a bet with his colleague Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid
Hyde-White) – he can change Eliza’s accent and manners so much that the shrill
cockney girl will pass for a society belle. The bet will not only change their
lives, but also those of Eliza’s father, sage-like binman Alfred (Stanley
Holloway), and lovestruck romantic young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy
Brett).
From the start, producer Jack L Warner wanted to develop a
new verison of the film, fresh and different from the stage production. George
Cukor, the esteemed director from Hollywood’s Golden Years, was brought on
board as a safe pair of hands – but it was clear Warner was calling the shots. How
to put your own stamp on a massive hit musical? Well you start by getting a
fresh cast in. Julie Andrews had made the role her own in the original
production, so Hollywood was stunned when she was overlooked for the part.
Instead Audrey Hepburn was hired – while Julie Andrews got the consolation
price of being able to accept Disney’s offer of the role of Mary Poppins.
Warner knew who he wanted for Higgins – and Cary Grant was swiftly courted for
the role. But Grant refused, allegedly responding that he wouldn’t even see the film unless Rex Harrison was
retained in his signature role.
So Harrison owes him a drink or two, because the film
allowed him to leave a permanent record of a stage role he had played over 1,000
times on Broadway and in the West End. Harrison had taken a revolutionary
approach to musicals, by basically not singing. Instead he sort of spoke the
songs rhythmically – an approach that every other performer of the role has
stuck to. The film is a brilliant capture of this unique and authoritative
performance, and while Harrison is not exactly fresh he’s certainly
charismatic, delivering every scene with confidence and well-rehearsed bombast.
Harrison’s steely lack of willingness to compromise also lead
indirectly to a revolution in sound recording in the movies. Harrison refused
to obey the custom at the time to lip-sync on set to a pre-recorded soundtrack.
Harrison insisted that his performance was subtly different every time so he
could never lip-sync accurately. Instead the technicians were forced to invent
a sort of wireless microphone that could be disguised in the over-sized neck
ties Harrison wears. This also means that at least one musical number has the
bizarre situation of Harrison singing live, Hyde-White lip-syncing and Audrey
Hepburn being dubbed.
Ah yes Hepburn. If there is one thing everyone remembers
about Hepburn’s performance in this film, it is that she doesn’t sing a single
note of the final film. Her actual singing was quickly considered by Warner to
be not up to snuff, and so she is replaced by voice-double-to-the-stars Marnie
Nixon. It’s always a mark against Hepburn, whose performance is often rather
shrill, stagy and (whisper it) even a little bit irritating. In fact, she’s
pretty much miscast as the cockney flower girl, never convincing as a bit of
rough from the streets, and is so horrendously misstyled throughout that she
also jarringly looks like a 1960s fashion icon floated into a period film.
Having hired the male star of the Broadway production – not
to mention Stanley Holloway also being retained from the original cast after
James Cagney refused to be drawn out from retirement – the film quickly settles
down into being a straight Broadway musical captured as faithfully as possible
on the big-screen. My Fair Lady is a
film crushed under the pressure of its design, and watching it today it looks
unbearably studio-bound and flat. In every scene you can never forget you are
watching the action take place on enormous sets, with the camera pulled back to
try and get as much of the expensive soundstage work in frame as possible.
As a dance musical, it’s pretty flat – Holloway’s numbers in
particular are strikingly lifeless in their dancing, which makes you regret
even more that Cagney couldn’t be lured to star in it – and much of the singing
feels forced or over-performed. Even Harrison’s numbers feel pretty
by-the-numbers from Harrison’s constant repetition of them. Even the more
impressive scenes – such as the race track sequence – feel artificial and
over-designed, the money chucked at the careful period detail and over-elaborate
costumes and set (designs courtesy of Cecil Beaton, who allegedly drew the
designs and then disappeared to leave them to be interpreted by others) seeming
more and more dated as the years pass by.
But then this was a film that probably felt dated at the
time it was made – it beat Dr Strangelove
for best picture, and in five years’ time Midnight
Cowboy was lifting the Oscar – never more so than in Cukor’s direction. One
wonders at times what Cukor really did: Warner cast the film and led on the
design and staging. Harrison and Holloway had played their roles literally
thousands of times already. The camera work is as conservative and
unimaginative as you can expect, with the film dryly set up to give you the
perfect view from the stalls. Several touches – such as the staging (complete
with blurry focus edges) of Eliza’s fantasies of the domineering Higgins being
punished by firing squad – are clumsy and obvious. It’s a film made with no real
independent personality whatsoever.
Not to mention the fact that it completely fails to draw any
chemistry from the Higgins/Doolittle relationship whatsoever. It’s an odd one,
as the musical takes on a romantic ending of the two characters together – an
ending, by the way, that Shaw famously hated when a suggestion of it was added
to the original Pygmalion production.
Here, this comes from nowhere, and feels unbelievably forced and artificial as Harrison
has demonstrated no interest at all (other than irritation) for Hepburn, and
she in turn offers little back. When they come back together it’s hard to care.
But they cared back then as this was a huge box office
smash. It’s very odd to imagine it now – because this isn’t a great film, it’s a decently done one that
carries some charm but never finds an identity for itself as film away from its
musical roots and never brings anything unique and imaginative to the table.
It’s extraordinarily flat as a piece of film-making and seems increasingly more
and more dated in its performances, its atmosphere and its staging. It’s got
some charm, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough.
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