MY FAIR LADY

US/UK, 1964, 170 minutes, Colour.
Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Stanley Holloway, Wilfred Hyde- White, Gladys Cooper, Mona Washbourne.
Directed by George Cukor.

My Fair Lady is one of the greatest musical successes of all time. While the treatment will have to be updated over the years, the basic ingredients of characterisation, social comment, music and song are substantial enough for it to endure.

The strength underlying My Fair Lady is Shaw; and his Pygmalion ought to be seen or read, Shaw was a writer of comedies that tried to cut characters down to human size as well as make pertinent and witty observations on society and social conditions, My Fair Lady is successful because it incorporates much of Shaw's wit and taste into the words of the songs. Some quibble about Eliza's return to Higgins, but Alan Jay Lerner in the published edition of the text (in Penguin paperback also) defends his ending as right for the musical.

Lerner and Loewe are responsible for the songs and Lerner for the book. They have collaborated on musicals like Brigadoon, Gigi and Paint Your Wagon. They have since gone their own ways. Rex Harrison created the part and makes us wonder how anybody could do it any differently. He clinched his performance with the 1964 Oscar (as did the film itself, costumes, etc.). There was a furore over Julie Andrews (the original stage and record Eliza) not getting the part of Eliza. Audrey Hepburn's voice is dubbed. Stanley Holloway repeats his original Doolittle. Needless to say, the film was an enormous success and has been re-released a number of times.

1. Was this merely a musical? What contribution did the story, the social comment give to making it more than a musical?

2. What is the Pygmalion legend on which the story is based? How is it verified here? What is the main point behind the legend?

3. What did you think of Henry Higgins - likeable, natural, selfish, too masculine? How was his character communicated? How did the songs (and the words) contribute?

4. Eliza - what kind of a Londoner was she? Why did she want to became a lady? Why did she protest she was a good girl so often? Although her voice and manners changed, did her character change? How did her songs reveal her character?

5. How reasonable was her training? Was Professor Higgins reasonable?

6. Why was the servants' song about 'Poor Professor Higgins' ironic? How did the screen illustrate this irony?

7. Why was the Ascot race song ironic? What was the target of the irony?

8. 'You did it. ' How did this song and sequence sum up all that had gone before it? (Notice how Eliza is photographed in shadow and out of the main action.)

9. Were Freddy's character, his appearances and his song a strong enough alternative for Higgins in Eliza’s mind?

10. What was the point of the sequence of Eliza's return to the market at Covent Garden? How did it bear out her worry "what is to become of me?"? .

11. Was Alfred Doolittle merely meant to be a comic character or did he throw light on supposed workers' attitudes? The implications of both his songs are worth considering.

12. "I'll always be a lady to Colonel Picketing because he treats me like a lady. But I'll always be a flower-girl to Professor Higgins because he treats me like a flower-girl." How severe a judgment of Professor Higgins is this?

13, The story is set in the period of the suffragettes. Discuss the anti-feminine attitudes and songs of Higgins.

14. Was the ending right? In Shaw’s play 'Pygmalion', Eliza does not return. Would this have been a better ending?