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My Fair
Lady (1964)
In George Cukor's Best Picture-winning screen musical
(from the Lerner & Loewe Broadway play of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion):
- the character of arrogant linguistic professor Henry
Higgins (Oscar-winning Rex Harrison) with tremendous style and
wit as he both talked and sang his lines, especially in his first
song: "Why Can't the English Learn to Speak"
- Cockney flower vendor Eliza Doolittle's (Audrey Hepburn)
initial reaction to Higgins' statement that her birthplace was in "Lisson
Grove":
"I'm a good girl, I am!"
- Professor Higgins' wager with Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid
Hyde-White): "Well, sir, in six months, I could pass her off
as a duchess at an Embassy Ball" - he bet that he could transform
Eliza from a disheveled flower seller to a well-dressed and refined
lady with proper diction in only six months
- with her interest piqued in becoming a lady and leaving
behind her untutored manners, Eliza sang and danced about her dreams
in "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"
- the screams of protest when Eliza was dragged upstairs
to the bathroom by Higgins' maid Mrs. Pearce (Mona Washbourne) and
forced to take a steaming hot bath ("You know, you can't be
a nice girl inside if you're dirty outside")
- spiteful and hateful toward her harsh teacher Henry
Higgins, Eliza vengefully sang: "Just You Wait" - a fantasy
about her asking the King on Eliza Doolittle Day for Henry Higgins'
head (and execution)
- the diction lessons in the laboratory, when Higgins
delivered training to Eliza and laboriously forced her to repeat
from a book the immortal words: "The rain in Spain stays mainly
in the plain" - and the joyous celebration when she finally
made a real breakthrough, singing the duet with Higgins: "The
Rain In Spain/I Think She's Got It"
- the Ascot Race Track scene when Eliza appeared dressed
in a white gown and hat with an accent or splash of red - but her
dignified English lapsed into colorful street language ("Done
her in") - and it was humorously interpreted as the "new
small talk" - but then during the second race, she excitedly
shouted out as a faltering horse passed: "Come on, Dover! Move
yer bloomin' arse!", causing other horrified patrons to faint
or gasp
- the high-society ball scene of Eliza's coming out
sequence in a beautiful white evening gown, looking like a princess;
Eliza's successful attendance at the ball caused socialite Freddy
Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett) to become infatuated with Eliza (he
danced with her), and afterwards, he sang a reprise of: "On
the Street Where You Live"; Eliza responded frustratedly with: "Show
Me" - needing to be shown demonstrative love instead of sappy
words ("...Tell me no dreams filled with desire. If you're on
fire, show me!...")
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At the High Society Ball
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"On the Street Where You Live"
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"Show Me"
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- the next morning, Higgins was baffled by Eliza's
disappearance:: "Women are irrational, that's all there is
to that! Their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags! They're
nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating,
agitating, maddening and infuriating hags" - Higgins sang-talked
to Pickering: "Why Can't A Woman" - wondering why women
didn't have the same "honest, so thoroughly square, eternally
noble, historically fair...so pleasant, so easy to please...so
friendly, good-natured and kind...so decent" qualities that
men have
- Eliza's telling-off and spiteful rejection of Higgins
- she surprised him with her decision to marry Freddy - after she
had had enough of his bullying and big talk, in the song "Without
You" ("There'll be spring every year without you. England
still will be here without you"); afterwards, when seriously
thinking of letting Eliza go, Higgins begrudgingly acknowledged his
love for her presence in "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" while
walking home: "I've grown accustomed to her face...She almost
makes the day begin..."
- the film's concluding sequence, when Eliza suddenly
reappeared in Higgins' study, and told him in her Cockney accent:
("I washed my face and hands before I come, I did"); and
then he delivered the final, contrary, misogynistic closing line
to her: "Eliza? Where the devil are my slippers?" as he
leaned back and pushed his hat forward onto his forehead
The Ending: Higgins and Eliza Back Together
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"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face"
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"I washed my face and hands before I come,
I did"
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"Eliza? Where the devil are my slippers?"
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Linguistic Prof. Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison)
Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) - Cockney Flower Vendor
- "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"
Eliza Refusing to Take a Hot Steamy Bath
Eliza's Vengeful Fantasy: "Just You Wait"
Eliza: "The Rain in Spain"
At Ascot Races: "Come on, Dover! Move yer
bloomin' arse!"
"Why Can't a Woman"
"Without You"
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