 | |
List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Paramount
Salesrank: 484
Released: October 6, 2009 |
| Our Price: $13.22 |
| Used Price: $18.70 |
|
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
At one time the longest-running Broadway musical, My Fair Lady was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe from the George Bernard Shaw comedy Pygmalion. Outside Covent Garden on a rainy evening in 1912, dishevelled cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) meets linguistic expert Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). After delivering a musical tirade against "verbal class distinction," Higgins tells his companion Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that, within six months, he could transform Eliza into a proper lady, simply by teaching her proper English. The next morning, face and hands freshly scrubbed, Eliza presents herself on Higgins' doorstep, offering to pay him to teach her to be a lady. "It's almost irresistable," clucks Higgins. "She's so deliciously low. So horribly dirty." He turns his mission into a sporting proposition, making a bet with Pickering that he can accomplish his six-month miracle to turn Eliza into a lady. This is one of the all-time great movie musicals, featuring classic songs and the legendary performances of Harrison, repeating his stage role after Cary Grant wisely turned down the movie job, and Stanley Holloway as Eliza's dustman father. Julie Andrews originated the role of Eliza on Broadway but producer Jack Warner felt that Andrews, at the time unknown beyond Broadway, wasn't bankable; Hepburn's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, who also dubbed Natalie Wood in West Side Story (1961). Andrews instead made Mary Poppins, for which she was given the Best Actress Oscar, beating out Hepburn. The movie, however, won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Harrison, and five other Oscars, and it remains one of the all-time best movie musicals.
My Fair Lady Reviews:
My fair lady 
2009-12-15 - We received this in a timely matter. It is a gift, so they haven't watched it yet.
Portuguese Subtitles ONLY 
2009-12-14 - great movie. the only thing that might throw you off from getting this edition is the only subtitles on the disc are in Portuguese. its pretty fun the first time through, but if you need them in any other language you might want to look for another edition.
What posesses Hollywood? 
2009-12-06 - What possesses Hollywood to palm off inferior products on an unsuspecting public? This new DVD released 10/6/09 is not a wise buy. Notice in the product description of this Paramount/CBS DVD release no mention is made of the sound. That's because it doesn't have Dolby 5.1, but instead some hokey stereo track of much inferior quality. Likewise, and contrary to the product descriptions online, the original aspect ratio of 2.20:1 has been cut to 16:9 as stated on the DVD sleeve.
If you love My Fair Lady as much as I do consider purchasing either of the Warner Home Video releases which are available new online through Amazon at moderate prices. The first Warner release was issued 12/08/98 and reputedly has the best picture. The second Warner release was a deluxe two-DVD set with expanded special features well worth watching. The quality of both picture and sound on this deluxe set is also far superior to the newly released CBS DVD version. Both Warner versions have the original aspect ratio and Dolby 5.1
Why does Hollywood issue inferior products like this? And to ad insult to injury their doing a remake of My Fair Lady to be released in 2010. I'd call that a "must miss."
MY FAIR LADY
2009-11-21 - This was my late husband's very favorite movie. My video of
My Fair Lady was lost, and I was so glad to find it now on DVD.
It provides many hours of entertainment and enjoyment.
Musical In Grand Old Style-Lerner&Loewe
2009-09-26 - At the time of this movie's release, directed by the Oscar winning George Cukor, there were a lot of bitter feelings because Audrey Hepburn got Julie Andrews's role for the film. This could only be done because in film you can have someone else dub the singing. The star does not really need to be a singer. Marni Nixon did this for both Audrey Hepburn in this film and Natalie Wood in WEST SIDE STORY. Decades later, it is obvious that the non-singing Hepburn was perfect in the role of Eliza Doolittle, the Cockney flower girl transformed into a lady by Henry Higgins (an Oscar winning Rex Harrison). Andrews never achieved Hepburn's stature as an actress although she was an incredible singer-actress. Hepburn was the best choice. There was no contention over the rest of the cast.
Higgins and Colonel Pickering have a bet over Henry's ability to transform Eliza from a Cockney flower girl to an English lady is the base of the musical. Henry will accomplish this by changing the way she speaks. They will change her wardrobe too, of course, but Henry sees that as something any idiot could do in a few days. Although, the costumes in this film are sublime. Both Henry and Freddie Hill fall in love with Eliza as her language improves. Both want to marry her. That is the plot of the musical in a nutshell.
However, an irony to this musical is that it is wholly based on stinging Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw's PYGMALION. Shaw did not write a romance. He had no intention of having Henry Higgins fall in love with Eliza. He viewed the English with their class distinctions, with the upper classes having ultra posh voices, with scorn and disdain. His was a class study and a scathing one at that. Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe dusted off Shaw's play. They set it to musical numbers and changed the ending so that yes, this was a happy ever romance between Henry and Eliza. Voila, one of the best loved musicals of the twentieth century emerged. Probably a miniscule percentage of people have ever seen PYGMALION compared to MY FAIR LADY. Of further irony, when the non-musical movie of PYGMALION was made, with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, the ending was changed for the movie too so that Henry and Eliza ended up together. If you want to see Shaw's work as written, you either have to read the play or see it on stage. It seems that relatively few do.
