Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Lady
Review: 1964's My Fair Lady was the screen version of the popular Broadway play. The play and the film is based George Bernard Shaw's story Pygmailon and the essence of the story is that Professor Henry Higgins, who is a phonetics professors, makes a bet with his friends that he can turn a cockney flower girl into a refined lady and pass her off as a duchess. Rex Harrison reprises his role as the professor and the beautiful Audrey Hepburn is the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle. Julie Andrews was Eliza in the stage version but was passed over for the part as she had never before starred in a film (Ms. Andrews exacted some revenge as she got the part of Mary Poppins and won the Best Actress Oscar that year while Ms. Hepburn was not even nominated). Noted director George Cukor creates vivid sets and stages subtle, yet enjoyable musical numbers. While Mr. Harrison sings all his own parts, Ms. Hepburn's voice is dubbed by Marni Nixon (who also provided the singing parts for Natalie Wood in West Side Story). This is a shame as while Ms. Hepburn did not having the strongest singing voice, it was certainly adequate enough and would have provided more authenticity to role. My Fair Lady is a classic Hollywood musical and cleaned up at the 1964 Academy Awards winning eight times including, Best Picture, Mr. Cukor for Best Director and Mr. Harrison for Best Actor.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Classics
Review: Based on Shaw's play "Pygmalion", this is the story of the flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, (played flawlessly by Hepburn) who is given the chance at a better life by phonetics professor, Henry Higgins. The movie explores human relations and just what makes "high society" who they are. The ending is slightly different than in the play, but it makes for a more perfect "happily ever after". If you haven't seen this movie, you are really missing out!
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: It won just about every Oscar, Best Film, Best Actor, Best Costumes, Bet Score, Best Sets, Best Costumes and deservedly so. It is not for nothing that just about every song in this masterpiece has become deeply ingrained in the common psyche. Rex Harrison delivers a stupendous performance, ably supported by the superb Wilfred Hyde White. Audrey Hepburn's beauty fills the screen, despite the age old controversy about whether she actually sang a note! The Ascot scene is inspired, and is justly famous. Listen to Rex Harrison's diction, his 24 carat mastery of the English language is second to none. And Stanley Holloway's cockney brogue ("a philosophical genius of the first water"!) is a cheering antidote to the upper class refinement of Professor Higgins et al. Show Me is the song that says everything you need to know. Don't delay, buy this now.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Very good quality restoration.
Rating:
Summary: Pygmalion for Fun
Review: After seeing this musical many times on stage, I continue to enjoy the movie version. Favorite songs (I Could Have Danced All Night, Get Me to the Church on Time, and others) leave me humming, singing, and dancing long after the movie is over. Shaw's classical legend update, Pygmalion, may have been the seed for the story, and yet for those of us who love romance,My Fair Lady offers us the dazzling possibility of happiness.
Rating:
Summary: Jolly good, as far as it goes.
Review: I had heard the sound track, with Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison, et al, and when I heard that they didn't let Julie in the movie, I was shocked! My Fair Lady, WHITHOUT Julie Andrews?
No Way! But then I saw the movie, and was suprised. Audrey Hepburn is brilliant in the role! The singing for the role, (not by Hepburn, but dubed in) is superb. So for Eliza Doolittle, I give five stars. However-- The acting is good, the sets are good the costumes are good, the music is wonderful, the lyrics are wonderful. But, I am sorry to have to say this, the singing is ludicris. there are exeptions: Rex Harrison is wonderful! I have always known that he falls very short as a singer, but his whole personalaty is just Perfect for 'Enry 'Iggens! And whats his name, as Freddie (I forget the name) is without blemish! The Ascot scene, as a whole, is just hillarious! Perfect! However, "Colonel Pickering", played perfectly by the same actor in the Broadway cast, falls despretly short. And so on. I rcomend you get the vidio now. It is great! Don't miss it. However, get the recording of the Broadway cast, whith Julie Andrews.
Rating:
Summary: With Hepburn, Harrison and Hollaway - Errors Hardly Happen
Review: My Fair Lady stands as one of the great musicals of the post-MGM era, largely on the strength of the original play and it's cast. And it has aged well. This is the role for which Rex Harrison will always be remembered. And if he's a bit old for the part, we are still lucky to be able to see the brilliance or his "original" Henry Higgins. He's obnoxious, prejudiced, and insufferably full of himself and the importance of the English language. Yet, he is touched and changed by Eliza. Stanley Hollaway also reprises his role of Alfred Doolittle with the deft touch of the music hall veteran that he was. Audrey Hepburn, the Julia Roberts of her day, is radiant, vulnerable, and finally regal as Eliza. It is one of her best performances, and a wonderful use of her talents as an actress, dancer, and star. The only drawback to using her is that she is primarily a dancer rather than a singer - and Eliza is a singer's role. A problem that was famously (infamously?) solved by dubbing much of her singing. I disagree with those who find the dubbing obvious - all movie musicals are dubbed. The only difference is that most actors lip-synch to their own voice rather than someone else's. (If you want to be picky - Barbra Streisand has a much greater problem with syncing to a pre-recorded track in "Funny Girl" that Hepburn does here.) As for the issue of Julie vs. Audrey - I think we are all lucky to have had the enjoyment of seeing (or hearing) both actresses play the role. I really wouldn't want to be without either. Just as different actors bring their own qualities and point of view to new interpretations of "Hamlet" - Eliza is a part that demands the best of a performer. The team behind the camera makes great contributions. Harry Stradling Sr.'s cinematography is great mainstream sixties camera work. What it lacks in invention it makes up for in the beauty of the lighting and compositions. Cecil Beaton reprises his Broadway role of costume and production designer (along with Gene Allan). He designed for the previous Lerner and Lowe film "Gigi", and he set a new standard in this film - particularly with the costumes. As a matter of fact, George Cukor pretty much gives him the Ascott scene as a costume set piece. (Hepburn's dress alone is a testament to how costume builders can take a few squiggly lines from a designer and turn them into a real work of art in fabric and feathers.) It seems, however, that director George Cukor clearly does not have much of a hand for musicals - he films the action very conservatively and with few cuts and camera movements. He treats the legendary Broadway show pretty much as if he was filming Shaw's play. This gives the film a stiffness and stodginess that sometimes makes you wonder why all this is taking so long. Contrast this work with Robert Wise's "Sound of Music" which opened a year later. "Lady" is clearly the stronger source material, yet "Music" floats on the energy of its score and Ernest Lehman's script. But while Cukor's vision does not add much to the property, he gets out of the way and lets his actors and production team put on a first class rendition of the show. My Fair Lady is still a wonderful evening's entertainment. The cast, the score, the story, the design are all first rate. If it lacks a little in imagination and pace, well that's a small price to pay for a piece of theatrical legend.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT CAN I ADD?
Review: Hundreds of people said so many good words already. What can I add? I saw this movie back in 1965 or 1967 back in the Soviet Union. I was a teenager and I was in love with movies and Audrey Hepburn. I still love both of them and even more.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: This film is a classic. Possibly one of the greatest films you will ever see. The characters are beautiful and Audrey Hepburn simply shines as Eliza Doolittle. Rex Harrison plays an excellent portrayal of the gruff yet loveable Henry Higgins. The music gets in your head and you'll be singing it for hours after. One of the greatest if not the greatest musical of all time.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, but I missed Julie Andrews
Review: I thought the music was wonderful. I thought Audrey Hepburn was just adorable and so full of energy and grace and just fascinating to watch. Rex Harrison was an absolutely perfect Professor Higgins and never wavered or changed character. My problem (a minor one) is with the ending and with the dubbing. The story is brilliant of course, taken from George Bernard Shaw's acclaimed play Pygmalion, although materially altered to fit the requirements of a musical comedy. The contrast of the unschooled street urchin Liza Doolittle and the stuffy, self-possessed confirmed bachelor, a kind of nineteenth century British man of science, wonderfully accomplished in his profession, but blind to himself when it comes to relationships with other people, made for a most interesting match. And the delusive dream of a man forming his own perfect woman (which is the basis of the Pygmalion legend) works so very well with a conceited linguist tutoring a cockney girl. The entire concept is a work of genius with the drunken father and the objectifying Col. Pickering and the very right Mrs. Pierce. But there are some problems. Freddy is needed of course as another "objectifying" character to make it clear just how desirable Eliza really is and how foolish and blind Professor Higgins is in not seeing this--in theory, of course, because in practice with Audrey Hepburn or Julie Andrews as Eliza, this would seem entirely unnecessary. And indeed without Freddy we do not have the beautiful "On the Street Where You Live." But even with him Prof. Higgins does not see, and indeed even at the resolution of the story, he still does not see, as he asks for his slippers. If this were presented to current London and Broadway audiences it would never play the way it was written. Professor Higgins would need to see the light and he would have to get his own slippers! The dubbing and the need for it is curious. There is no doubt that Marni Nixon, who did the singing, has a beautiful and commanding voice, and we are the better for having heard her, but why is the dubbing so obvious? It's almost as if Miss Hepburn is saying to the audience: they said it would be better if Miss Nixon sings instead of me because her voice is stronger and so very well trained. And so Hepburn does not completely lip-sync some of the opening words of songs as though to remind us that she is not singing. And the contrast between her delicate voice and then the sudden power of Marni Nixon's is obvious. Beyond this is the question of why Julie Andrews, who has a voice to match that of Miss Nixon, and charisma and charm at least in the same ballpark as Miss Hepburn, wasn't asked to play the part that she knew so very well from her experience on the stage. Still, as another reviewer has so acutely noted, if she had been asked, we would have missed her in Mary Poppins, which was made the same year. I should also note that Hepburn was 33 or 34 years old when this was made (although she looked almost ten years younger). Nonetheless she was playing the part of "a good girl, I am," whom Pickering identifies in his call to Scotland Yard as being 21 years old. Curious. But all is forgiven because Audrey Hepburn is just so beautiful, so elegant and so delightful in the part. I especially loved her in the opening scene in her soiled clothes and hat and her sour voice. By the way, I have heard Julie Andrews sing the part, although I never saw her on the stage, and the way she "meow's" Eliza's accent, like a cat's claw on a chalk board, is really amazing. (Get the CD.) This is one of the best movie musicals ever made, a sheer delight highlighted not only by Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, but by Stanley Holloway as the Liza's lovable rascal father and Wilfrid Hyde-White as the very understanding and very properly British Col. Pickering with opulent direction by the great George Cukor. The sets and production numbers are gorgeous. But see it for Audrey Hepburn, one of the great stars of the silver screen in one of her most memorable roles.
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