Rent My Fair Lady (1964)

My Fair Lady - My Fair Lady review by AH

Despite being more or less a translation of a Broadway musical, this is perfection despite the ending, which is the sole element of the thing that doesn't quite work.

My Faint Enthusiasm - My Fair Lady review by griggs

For years this was just Bank Holiday wallpaper for me – the film on TV when it wasn’t The Great Escape or The Sound of Music. Watching My Fair Lady properly, start to finish, mostly confirms what the cultural osmosis already told me: you know every beat long before it arrives.

There’s no denying the craft. The sets are lavish, the songs are drilled into the collective brain, and Rex Harrison glides through on pure cantankerous charm. But Audrey Hepburn never gets within shouting distance of an actual Cockney; early Eliza mostly just bawls the lines, which makes the whole “teaching her to speak properly” arc feel a bit rich.

Seen sixty years on, the film’s view of women is deeply creaky, even if it’s slightly in on the joke about Higgins being unbearable. Once upon a time you could imagine the whole family gathered round for this. Now it feels more like a curiosity than a tradition.

Musical Romance. - My Fair Lady review by Steve

Lerner and Loewe's stage sensation became the last great Hollywood musical. It's a Technicolor and Cinemascope epic which takes George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and crams it full of amazing songs. It's a hugely ambitious production full of startling fashions and set decoration, and treasured performances from its stars. When it's good, it's fabulous.

But it's far from a perfect film. It seems disinterested in of the philosophical themes of the play. It hardly acknowledges the profound misery of the poor or the entitlement of the wealthy. No one learns anything. Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) ends up the same misanthrope and misogynist he was at the start, except he is in love (sort of). It doesn't climax, it just stops.

However, the songs are immortal. My personal favourite is the Cockney-blues of Wouldn't It Be Loverly. The lyrics are witty and intelligent. By the usual standards, the dancing is no more than perfunctory. But... My Fair Lady ultimately triumphs because of the brilliant performance of Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl who becomes a phoney princess.

She gives the film its heart. Eliza is tied into a web of exploitation and cruelty, and Audrey makes that pathos come alive. Even when miming the songs. Harrison does well to make his curmudgeonly aristocrat just about tolerable. George Cukor keeps the musical romance light and entertaining over its long, long running time (plus interval).