My Fair Lady (1964)

Casts:

Rex Harrison - Prof Henry Higgins

Audrey Hepburn - Eliza Doolittle

Wilfred Hyde-White - Col. Hugh Pickering

Jeremy Brett - Freddy Eysnford-Hill

Theodore Bikel - Zoltan Kapathy

Stanley Holloway - Alfred Doolittle

I can't actually remember the first time I watched My Fair Lady. In college, I studied the drama 'Pygmalion' by Bernard Shaw and Hollywood made a movie based on the drama and named it My Fair Lady. It's been over five years that I suddenly remember the movie and watched it again.

How refreshing it was. Being so familiar with the storyline, I once again feel like a green and young linguist. Well, as a matter of fact, I am a linguist...I teach language in school.

My Fair Lady is a story of a young woman, Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) who sold flowers in Covent Garden, a lower-class area in London. Like everyone else there, she spoke English with horrible pronunciation. Her father, Alfred Doolittle (Stanley Holloway) was jobless and always extort money from her daughter, but refused to take more than he needs, because he believed that 'too much money will take away one's happiness'.

So this one night, as Eliza was selling flowers to a bunch of wealthy people who took shelter from the rain, came a man, Prof Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) who kept jotting down other people's speech, making other people mistook him as a police officer. Eliza was worried that Higgins would put her in jail for harrassing the upper-class gentleman and ladies there, and began to cry helplessly, attracting the attention of Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White), a retired military officer. But Higgins cleared the air by saying that he was just a linguist (or to be more specific, a phonetician - a speech expert) who was studying the speech in Covent Garden. He claimed that poor command of language was the reason why Eliza remained in lower-class society and if she learned from him, he could turn her into a duchess. It turns out that the retired Colonel was also a linguist; specialising in Indian dialects, so the two gentleman became good friends in no time and Higgins invited Pickering to stay in his house. 

Eliza was overwhelmed with the idea of turning herself into a member of upper-class society just by speaking better English, so next day, she went to Higgins bungalow and asked him to teach her. Higgins refused the request at first, claiming that Eliza couldn't afford to pay him. At this point, Pickering stepped in, throwing a challenge to Higgins that if he could turn Eliza into a duchess in six months, he could prove his prowess as a linguist, and what's more, he's willing to pay for the lessons. Higgins couldn't turn down the challenge, so he agreed and Eliza stayed in his house for the lessons.

Several months had passed and Eliza finally spoke English with better pronunciation. But communication takes a lot more than just correct pronunciation, as she screamed out loud 'Move your blooming arse' during a horse-riding competition for the upper-class society. She nevertheless attracted Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett), a penniless gentleman, who fell in love with her instantly. At the same time, Higgins and Pickering, continued refining Eliza's language and wanted to get her tested in an Embassy Ball.

At the Embassy Ball, Higgins bumped into his old student, Zoltan Karpathy (Theodore Bikel) who had become a language expert himself in Europe. Zoltan was a real expert; he spoke 32 languages and knew everyone in Europe, and no one could hid their origin, as Zoltan, with his prowess in language, can always tell where a person came from. He helped many people pretend to be who they are not and made them pay 'through the nose'. Hence, Higgins and Pickering were worried that Zoltan might exposed Eliza's identity as a lower-class girl instead of a duchess.

However, there was truly nothing to worry about. Higgins was confident of Eliza and he let Zoltan danced with her. It turned out that Zoltan couldn't tell Eliza's identity and mistook her for a princess. Higgins was extremely happy to make a fool out of Zoltan, and self-proclaimed language expert.

But the successful pretention as a duchess had finally strike into Eliza; she really was a girl from Covent Garden who had no money or anything for her to survive. All she had was good language and she couldn't go back to Covent Garden to sell flowers again. She fell in love with Higgins, but there seemed to be no way she could live with him forever. Higgins suggested that she should marry a rich gentleman and live happily ever after, but Eliza rejected the idea, as she loved Higgins. Higgins's sort of 'rejection' wounded Eliza and she left his house and took shelter in Higgins's mother's house.

When she left, Higgins realized that he couldn't be without her. He was so used into having her company and Eliza had been the one who managed all his stuff in the house, and so he wanted to have her back, much to the dismayed of Eliza. She claimed that she had offered herself as an assistant to Zoltan and would marry Freddy, making Higgins fuming with anger and left his mother's house at once. However, towards the end, Eliza returned to Higgins's house and lived with him again.

It was very much an education and matured love story. There was no smooching scenes in My Fair Lady as in most Hollywood movies these days and yet, it was so heart-warming. Love is expressed through words and eye-contact instead of lip-locking; which was amazing.

Audrey Hepburn as Eliza was good, but could be better with better control of facial expression. Her portrayal of a Covent Garden and a duchess-like lady was okay to me. Nonetheless she was good in the scene when they returned from the Embassy Ball and had an argument with Higgins.

My biggest applause goes to Rex Harrison as Prof Higgins. He was wicked, proud and at the same time, kind, witty and clever. He refused to have any relationship with a woman as he found them to be too demanding and complicated, and didn't realize his love for Eliza.

I used to be so crazy about Rex Harrison before realizing other Asian talents like Bobby Au Yeung in Hong Kong, Shahid Kapoor in India and my very own P.Ramlee. Rex Harrison for me, is the King of Light Comedies and his light-hearted performance always enlighten the atmostphere. His voice especially was so 'British' that one can easily find him to be manly.

I love My Fair Lady. It was among a few movies that I'll keep returning to for inspiration.