My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady is a well-known musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. This musical was not easily created. Even the genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein II struggled and gave up on this seemingly impossible story. Finally, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe succeeded in overcoming the impossible. My Fair Lady became a Broadway play in 1956 and set a new record for the longest run of a major musical theatre production at that time. As for the major roles in the play, Professor Higgins was played by Rex Harrison, who also starred in the film version, and Eliza Doolittle was played by the newly discovered Julie Andrews. Later, the play was converted to a film starring Audrey Hepburn as Eliza rather than Julie Andrews. Although this caused much controversy, Julie Andrews was believed to be too inexperienced for film because she had only been “discovered” a short time ago. The film won eight Academy Awards: Best Picture, Directing, Best Actor (Rex Harrison), Best Cinematography, Sound, Original Music Score, Best Art Direction, and Costume Design. The plot of the story centers around a young Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle. She meets Professor Henry Higgins and begins to take lessons from him to improve her English so she can be a “lady in a flower shop”, or basically, find a better job. Soon, Professor Higgins makes a bet that he can pass her off as a lady at the Embassy Ball in six months. As Eliza learns under the professor’s strict instruction, she not only learns phonetics but proper manners as well. When the time arrives for her test, Eliza convinces everyone at the ball that she is a Hungarian princess with the help of a sneaky phonetician named Zoltan Karpathy. After the bet is won, Eliza finds she is quite independent now and no longer needs the domineering professor. Despite his previous disgust and harshness, Professor Higgins has become “accustomed to her face” and is affected by her leaving. At the very end, she returns to find him listening to a phonograph with her voice recorded on it. In spite of his obvious joy and delight at her return, he resumes his gruff attitude in one question. The movie ends and leaves the ending wide open as to what follows.
My favorite songs in this movie are “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “On The Street Where You Live”, “Show Me”, “A Hymn To Him”, and “Without You”. My favorite one-liner comes from Professor Higgins. He is astounded that Eliza has bolted and is talking about it with Mrs. Pearce and Colonel Pickering. In the conversation leading up to this line, Professor Higgins is remembering everything that happened the night before in an attempt to understand Eliza’s flight and Colonel Pickering has responded several times by saying, “I’m dashed!”

Professor Higgins: “For God’s sake, Pickering, stop being dashed and do something!”

I love watching this musical because it makes me laugh and I notice something new every time I watch it. I hope you enjoy it too. Leave me a comment and I will talk to you again next week! Thanks!