Post by Brad Nelson on Oct 20, 2020 13:12:20 GMT -8
Pygmalion.
This is version 1.0 of My Fair Lady. The screen play and dialogue were by George Bernard Shaw. Much of it matches word-for-word with the 1964 George Cukor version.
My primary impression is that the story comes through much better in this earlier version. It’s not a musical so you don’t have those musical interruptions, no matter how grand they are in the 1964 version. Also (and please someone sit Mr. Kung into a chair and apply restraints), Wendy Hiller is better than Audrey Hepburn playing Eliza Doolittle.
But she’s not better at playing an elegant Audrey Hepburn playing-at playing Eliza Doolittle. I could watch Audrey Hepburn playing a park bench and it would still be interesting. But as someone dragged out of the gutter, Hiller is more convincing.
This earlier version is, generally speaking, not 100 megawatts of star power. Nor are the characters caricatures (interesting though they are) as they often are in My Fair Lady. As for entertainment value, both versions offer plenty.
I was predisposed to dislike Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins. And I did dislike him…very much so, but for other reasons. Unlike the brusque, arrogant, but ultimately charming, character played by Rex Harrison, Howard plays Higgins convincingly as an insufferable, insensitive, snobbish prick. And that, unfortunately, leads to the ultimate failure of this movie. We can never buy Eliza’s affinity for him (to the point that she shows it, which is barely a whisper). It makes no sense.
But that comes later. Much of the first two-thirds of the movie (up until the big scene where Eliza goes to court to see if they can pull it off) is splendid. In fact, I found it a much better story. It flowed better and made more sense. The story in My Fair Lady isn’t a story as much as it is a collection of spectacular individual scenes interspersed with some nice musical interludes.
This is version 1.0 of My Fair Lady. The screen play and dialogue were by George Bernard Shaw. Much of it matches word-for-word with the 1964 George Cukor version.
My primary impression is that the story comes through much better in this earlier version. It’s not a musical so you don’t have those musical interruptions, no matter how grand they are in the 1964 version. Also (and please someone sit Mr. Kung into a chair and apply restraints), Wendy Hiller is better than Audrey Hepburn playing Eliza Doolittle.
But she’s not better at playing an elegant Audrey Hepburn playing-at playing Eliza Doolittle. I could watch Audrey Hepburn playing a park bench and it would still be interesting. But as someone dragged out of the gutter, Hiller is more convincing.
This earlier version is, generally speaking, not 100 megawatts of star power. Nor are the characters caricatures (interesting though they are) as they often are in My Fair Lady. As for entertainment value, both versions offer plenty.
I was predisposed to dislike Leslie Howard as Professor Henry Higgins. And I did dislike him…very much so, but for other reasons. Unlike the brusque, arrogant, but ultimately charming, character played by Rex Harrison, Howard plays Higgins convincingly as an insufferable, insensitive, snobbish prick. And that, unfortunately, leads to the ultimate failure of this movie. We can never buy Eliza’s affinity for him (to the point that she shows it, which is barely a whisper). It makes no sense.
But that comes later. Much of the first two-thirds of the movie (up until the big scene where Eliza goes to court to see if they can pull it off) is splendid. In fact, I found it a much better story. It flowed better and made more sense. The story in My Fair Lady isn’t a story as much as it is a collection of spectacular individual scenes interspersed with some nice musical interludes.
Certainly Wilfrid Lawson is no match for Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Doolittle. But he holds his own in terms of carrying out the story. But it’s a real shame that Wendy Hiller’s generally stellar performance is out of place in a script that falls completely flat at the end.
Leslie Howard remains unbendably contemptuous of Eliza and somehow we’re supposed to believe that a happily-ever-after love affair comes from this. It doesn’t work, not in the least. It’s not a function of Howard’s acting. He hits all the right notes. But the tune he’s forced to play is seriously discordant.
