My Fair Lady (1964)

Director:

George Cukor

Writers:

Alan Jay Lerner (book)
George Bernard Shaw (play)

Release Date:

25 December 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Family | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

The loverliest motion picture of them all!

Plot:

A misogynistic and snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.

Plot Keywords:

Flower Girl | Professor | Wager | Linguist | High Society

Awards:

Won 8 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 10 nominations

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
John Holland	...	Butler

Runtime:

170 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) | DTS (re-release) | Dolby Digital (re-release) | Mono (16 mm prints) | Mono (35 mm optical prints) | 70 mm 6-Track (RCA Sound Recording) (70 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:Approved (PCA #20570) (original rating) | USA:G (re-rating) (1970) | South Korea:All | Brazil:Livre | Canada:PG (video rating) | New Zealand:G | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Chile:TE | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:U | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

There was considerable shock when Rex Harrison was given the Best Actor Oscar instead of Peter Sellers for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Goofs:

Continuity: Higgins arm on the back of the chair during 'Let A Woman In Your Life'.

Quotes:

Colonel Hugh Pickering: Higgins, at a time like this, it's positively indecent that you don't need a glass of port.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "Saturday Night Live: Christopher Lee/Meat Loaf (#3.15)" (1978)

Soundtrack:

I'm an Ordinary Man

My Fair and My Favorite:

I think of this musical as revolutionary, startling, glaring, and visually out of this world. One of its scenes brings me to the state that I can only describe as "esthetical orgasm" if I ever had one. It is gorgeous, intelligent, and one of the most beloved and brilliant romantic comedies. It's got music that makes you want to dance all night, and it's got an actress who possessed class, style and the kind of beauty and charm that would never be reincarnated after she was gone. "My Fair Lady" (1964) directed by George Cukor is a great musical but is perfect no matter what genre you are looking at - Comedy / Family / Musical / Romance / Drama - it's got something for everyone - for all ages, for all eras, for all countries, for all continents. I have a friend. We almost never agree upon any movie - anything I like he would usually stamp as "rubbish". There is not too much to reply to this argument but when we both watch the "Opening Ascot races" scene in "My Fair Lady" with its harmony in white-black-gray (and who knew that color gray has so many shades and nuances), and then the harmony gets slightly distorted by Henry Higgins's brown suit and then as apotheosis, Eliza appears in an incredible black/white dress with a tiny red bow which completes this harmony, this feast of colors (and there are only five of them but you would think there are myriads) and that little bow is a last stroke, the stroke of a visual genius and that is magic...Every time during this scene I see the tears on my cynic-friend's eyes and I know that we both witnessed incredible moment created by the power of the human imagination.