Cinema
My Fair Lady
George Cukor · 1964
Synopsis
London, 1912. One evening, at Covent Garden market, Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, takes down the speech of Eliza Doolittle, a flower seller with a suburban accent; the onlookers take him for a policeman. He meets Colonel Pickering, a specialist in dialects who has come from India to meet him, and boasts that in six months he could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. The next morning, Eliza, who would like to work in a flower shop, turns up at his house to take lessons; Pickering offers to pay the costs of the experiment.
Context
Warner bought the rights from CBS in 1962 for 5.5 million dollars, an unprecedented sum for an adapted work. The studio passed over Julie Andrews, who had created the role on Broadway and had never made a film, in favour of Audrey Hepburn, whose songs were almost all sung by Marni Nixon. Hepburn was not nominated for the Oscar, and Andrews received the one for best actress the same year for another film. Filming took place from August to December 1963.
Who it is for
A musical comedy two hours and fifty minutes long, in Technicolor and Super Panavision 70, originally shown with an intermission.
Prizes and reception
Eight Oscars in 1965, including best picture and best director, the only Oscar its director ever received.
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