May 2007

My Fair Lady

• Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett, Theodore Bikel, Mona Washbourne
• Director: George Cukor
• Theatrical release: 1964
• DVD release: 2004
• Video: 2.35:1 (widescreen)
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Released by: Warner Home Video

When was the heyday of the film musical? Most would cite the MGM era of the 1940s and ’50s, when producer Arthur Freed showered the public with a seemingly endless array of great farces and romances: The Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, and Silk Stockings, among more than 40 greats. Others might disagree and point to the glorious 1930s films of RKO (including the Astaire-Rogers films) or Warner Bros. (the Busby Berkeley films).

But here’s a detail I found shocking. In only one decade did musicals win more than two Oscars for Best Picture. There was The Great Ziegfeld in the 1930s, none in the 1940s, and An American in Paris and Gigi in the 1950s; and since 1969, only one musical has been named Best Picture: Chicago, in 2002.

The decade that produced the most musical Oscars was the 1960s, when musicals took home four Best Picture awards. You’d have thought that a period as cool and rock-oriented would have turned up its collective nose at the anachronistic Hollywood musical, but there they were: West Side Story, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Oliver all won Best Picture. What happened?

There is no creature in our species more risk-averse than the Hollywood producer. Given the choice between art and commerce, the producer will pick bucks every day. Even ostensible high-brow productions must be sold with updates and stars’ names (I’m just waiting to see this: "Passion. Intrigue. Murder. Sex. See Nicolle Kidman as Desdemona as she struggles against fate and cruel lies -- and Russell Crowe as her vindictive and murderous husband, Macbeth!") By the 1960s, producers were scared to death of losing viewers to television, so they decided to go Classy. Big. Widescreen. Stereo. Reserved seats. But they needed sure-fire projects.

The answer was Broadway. Original-cast records were topping the record charts, and musicals were making millions. What could be better than using an already proven commodity to make a film?

My Fair Lady was writer Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe’s adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1916 play Pygmalion (it had been filmed before, in 1938), itself an acerbic update of part of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It’s the story of two mildly misogynistic men, Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Hugh Pickering, who make a bet that in six months they can turn a guttersnipe flower girl into someone they can pass off in high society. The musical ran on Broadway for six and a half years, breaking all records and spawning a #1 original-cast album that spent 15 weeks in the #1 slot and six years on the charts. You could think of it as a sort of pre-rock Dark Side of the Moon -- but then, no other record in history has topped My Fair Lady’s stint in the Top 40: a phenomenal 292 weeks. Elvis, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey -- none had a run as long as the cast recording of My Fair Lady.

In any case, producer Jack Warner (one of the Warner Bros.) smelled a winner. But there were two problems. First, the play’s producers demanded an unheard-of $5.5 million, plus half of the profits over $20 million. Second, he didn’t think the Broadway players should have the film roles.

(A little bit of history: When adapting a play for filming, Hollywood producers seldom used the actors who had created the roles on stage. They believed that the camera created a star power completely different from the stage. The ability to display an emotion to the back bleachers was poles apart from the subtlety and natural beauty required by the camera. Thus, West Side Story’s Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence were replaced by Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood, The Sound of Music’s Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel were dumped for Julie Andrews (ironic, as we’ll see) and Christopher Plummer, and Oliver’s Bruce Prochnik and Clive Revill were swapped for Mark Lester and Ron Moody.)

Jack Warner wanted an all-new cast, and the biggest stumbling block would be the role of Eliza Doolittle. Julie Andrews had created the musical role in 1956, at age 21, in both Broadway and London, and her voice had already been heard in living rooms all over the US via the original-cast album. Plus, she was cute, vivacious, and the public loved her.

Except for Jack Warner. Not that he had anything against Andrews -- he just wanted Audrey Hepburn for the role. Hepburn had had a string of hits in the preceding ten years, beginning with Roman Holiday and continuing through Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and others. "In my business I have to know who brings people and their money to a movie theater box office," Warner said. "Audrey Hepburn had never made a financial flop." When Warner selected Hepburn, he had no idea that the backlash against her would be so strong that Andrews would win the 1964 Oscar for Best Actress, for the title role in Mary Poppins, almost as a consolation prize.

Warner wanted Cary Grant to play Professor Henry Higgins. Rex Harrison’s speak-singing style for his character should have been patented; no one could imitate it, and again, everyone knew it from the cast recording. Grant heard the offer and turned it down flat. First, he said, his natural speaking voice was much closer to Eliza Doolittle’s than to Henry Higgins’. Then he told Warner that if he put anyone in the role other than Rex Harrison, Grant would never work for Warner Bros. again. Harrison got the role, but Warner never got Grant, who retired two years later.

Jack Warner’s weirdest flight of fancy was wanting to cast Jimmy Cagney as Alfred P. Doolittle, Eliza’s ne’er-do-well dad, in the place of Stanley Holloway. For an idea of how absurd this would have been, check out the hilarious impersonation by Julian Holloway, Stanley’s son, of Cagney singing "Get Me to the Church On Time" on the DVD edition’s extras.

Warner’s choice for director was Vincente Minnelli, director of some of MGM’s greatest musicals. Minnelli wanted too much money, so Warner settled on George Cukor. That’s a pretty strong second choice. Cukor was one of Hollywood’s best directors, but the post-WWII years had been sporadic for him. He’d make a great film such as A Star Is Born, then follow it with something awful, like Bhowani Junction. After 1957 Cukor’s workload slowed dramatically, though he was still in his prime. When Warner approached him for what might be the biggest hit musical in decades, Cukor was thrilled.

He turned out to be the perfect choice. Cukor had worked on Broadway and understood plays, and had a crew of pros who knew how to make visual magic. But most important was what Cukor himself brought. As he told George Stevens, Jr., "There are lots of creative directors who can seize a script and make it part of their world -- like Lubitsch or Ford or Hitchcock. And there are others who try to become part of the script’s world. Like me."

Given the fact that the script was largely written by George Bernard Shaw, Cukor was wise to try to become part of its world. Plus, Lerner’s lyrics and Loewe’s music had become instant standards: "Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "With a Little Bit of Luck," "The Rain in Spain," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On the Street Where You Live," "Get Me to the Church On Time," "I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face." With such an embarrassment of riches, Cukor’s best choice was to get out of the way and add only a few flourishes.

Nonetheless, his coaching of Hepburn and Harrison was spellbinding. He draws them out through the slow evolution of their characters’ feelings, especially against such a prickly script. Higgins and Eliza never kiss, or even touch each other. Harrison plays Higgins as a cad, yet people still feel affection for him. Hepburn’s Eliza is spunky but scared, and no matter how much class she assumes, you can see in her eyes that she remains spunky but scared.

Perhaps the greatest miracle of all of this was Cukor’s ability to take some very cerebral dialogue -- cynical dialogue at that -- yet keep the movie moving along briskly enough that its three hours seem to fly by. Shaw’s writing is lemony, yet the feeling at the end of the film is that you’ve just had a light and lovely confection.

Cukor’s excellence is proven by the old adage: when an actor is good, it’s the actor, but when all the actors are good, it’s the director -- and in My Fair Lady, all the actors are good. Note Hepburn’s eyes and movements. When Eliza is scared, her eyes dart and she gets rigid. Such devices serve the script and enhance the character. Thank Cukor, one of the best directors ever when it came to honing an actor’s performance into his or her best work. Then pay special attention to Stanley Holloway, 72 years old at the time of filming and a force of nature onscreen. Cukor just let him chew the scenery and light up each scene he’s in. As for the two confirmed bachelors, Henry Higgins and Col. Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White), Cukor elicited subtle likability despite their despicable game.

My Fair Lady was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and took home eight, including Best Picture, Best Director (unbelievably, Cukor’s first), and Best Actor (Harrison). Holloway was robbed, and Hepburn was punished. In fact, she never recovered from her scapegoat status as the person who’d pushed sweet Julie Andrews out of her role. The following year, Julie Andrews pushed sweet Mary Martin out of the role of Maria in the film version of The Sound of Music.

Warner Home Video’s DVD offers a feast for lovers of My Fair Lady. We get a painstaking restoration of the original film negatives, done by the same team who worked such miracles with Lawrence of Arabia. Disc 1 has only the movie and a commentary track, so there’s minimal compression. The commentary is fascinating. Because almost everyone involved is dead, they settled on the art director, Gene Allen, and Marni Nixon, who sang Eliza to Hepburn’s lip-syncing. Disc 2 has a better-than-usual documentary, including interviews with Martin Scorsese and Andrew Lloyd Weber about the art and beauty of the film and the music. Seemingly everyone who worked on the set who’s still alive gets a moment to talk, and each has something fascinating to add.

Here’s the best part: I paid $8.99 for it at Costco. But even at Amazon.com’s price of $21, the DVD of My Fair Lady is a great way to spend a happy evening. This is one for the permanent collection.

Back to that first issue Jack Warner faced: the high cost of financing. Warner Bros. more than doubled its investment in the first four months of the film’s US release, and My Fair Lady has never since stopped making money. To a producer, that’s pretty loverly.

...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com

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