My Fair Lady

1/5/2020

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. Upper crust phonetics Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) agrees to a wager that he can make brash London speaking flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) presentable in high society. Lerner and Loewe's Broadway version of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" comes to the big screen and is an utter joy. A winner of 8 well deserved Oscars, pic boasts top line performances, songs that either gladden or melt the heart, gorgeous costumes (Cecil Beaton) and in director George Cukor the venture had a man who knew how to blend together the theatrical with the core basics of human interactions. Julie Andrews had played Eliza Doolittle on the stage and it was something of a sore poi

1/16/2024

**A film with a lot of quality, but also with some mistakes that are difficult to forgive.** This is one of those films that I heard a lot about before I actually decided to sit down and watch it. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest musicals of all time, and I can agree that it is really very good and deserves this award. However, it was not entirely to my liking, as I will have the chance to explain. Heavily inspired by the classic story of Pygmalion, the script takes us to the early years of the 20th century to meet a boastful linguist called Prof. Henry Higgins. He is an expert in languages and diction, and is fully convinced that the majority of British people do not know how to speak their language correctly (my question is whether there are, in any country, that

6/14/2024

A recent survey asserted that the English had the sexiest accents in the world. Perhaps not exactly the sort of recognition "Prof. Henry Higgins" (Rex Harrison) was seeking when, exasperated by the standards of his native language being spoken around London, he plucks poor "Eliza" (Audrey Hepburn") from her flower-selling and promises his equally plummy friend "Col. Pickering" (Wilfred Hyde-White) that he can train her to pass in more refined society as a Duchess. Despite her initially raucous protestations - exemplifying his very point, the two lock in a battle of wills that ultimately challenges both of their opinions of each other, and dare we even suspect - engenders perhaps some respect... or more...? Oscar, BAFTA & Golden Globe winning Harrison is superb as the jovially pompous profe