A Fair Lady, Worthy of Pygmalion

A Fair Lady, worthy of Pygmalion

By Dominique Jones

Rating: (out of 5)

Consider this possibility: a romantic comedy with no nudity, no sex, and no kissing. In fact, there aren't even any declarations of love. The closest the female character comes to admitting her feelings is saying that she could have danced all night with the man; the closest he gets is remarking that he's grown accustomed to her face. Could such a project lift off the pad in today's climate? Almost certainly not - no studio would green light the film without assurances that elements would be added to spice things up. So it's fortunate that circumstances and expectations were different in 1964, when My Fair Lady reached the screen. More than three decades later, the movie, which won the Best Picture Oscar, remains a musical favorite.

The film's origins go back to George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion", which was subsequently adapted into a Broadway musical and then later adapted into a G-rated movie by Warner Brother’s studio, to be directed by George Cukor in 1964. Rex Harrison stars as the ever bad-mannered Professor Higgins, Stanley Holloway as the drunken Mr. Doolittle and fresh-faced and charismatic Audrey Hepburn in the leading role of Eliza Doolittle. My Fair Lady is a timeless tale about a common flower girl becoming a duchess-or at least be able to speak like one.

The basic storyline progresses at a leisurely tempo, leaving room for music and songs that compliment the storyline. The focal storyline concerns Eliza, a poor Cockney from Covent Garden who is transformed into a lady under the tutelage of Higgins. When he first encounters her, an unwashed girl with a grating voice selling flowers, he forms an opinion of her and calls her, among other things, a "squashed cabbage leaf" and an "incarnate insult to the English language." His conviction has not changed when, the next morning, she shows up at his house, asking him to teach her how to speak properly and be a lady. Although at first reluctant, Higgins, intrigued by the challenge of re-making a woman, agrees. He tells her that she is stay there for six months learning to speak beautifully, like a duchess. Higgins also tells her that, “At the end of six months you will be taken to an embassy ball in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you are not a lady, you will be taken to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls!” With this warning in mind, Eliza begins her lessons and In addition to