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Features: DVD, Dual Layer, Widescreen, Dolby Digital (5.1), Commentary
By George, they've got it! Newly transferred from elements painstakingly restored in 1994, the film version of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady is lavish, loverly and the acclaimed recipient of eight 1964 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture and Best Director (Cukor).
Best Actor Oscar® winner Rex Harrison reprises his signature stage role of Henry Higgins, the supremely assured phoneticist who wagers that under his tutelage, cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle can pass for a duchess at the Embassy Ball. In one of her best-loved roles, Audrey Hepburn plays Eliza. If ever there was a face the professor could grow accustomed to, it's hers. In Hartford, Heresford and Hampshire (and elsewhere) no one's fairer than My Fair Lady, one of the most irresistible musicals ever.
Editor's Note
A priceless classic, MY FAIR LADY has become one of the most popular musicals of all time. Based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play PYGMALION, the film swept the Academy Awards. Cecil Beaton's lavish sets and costumes and Lerner and Loewe's winning score became the background for George Cukor's striking mix of styles that ranged from the fantastic to the abstract in his telling of the tale of a waif who's educated into being a lady. Egotistical linguist Professor Henry Higgins (Oscar-winning Rex Harrison) bets his friend, Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), that he can transform Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) in time for an important society ball. His gamble could pay off--but the spirited Eliza is more of a handful than the Professor could have predicted. As she slowly becomes more refined, and less reliant upon him, Higgins realizes, to his confusion, that he can't live without her. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars and won eight, including Best Picture and Director.
Plot Summary
An insufferably arrogant linguist, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), bets a colleague that he can transform a flower-selling Cockney guttersnipe into a regal lady. His quarry, the irrepressible Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), accepts his offer for diction lessons in good faith, hoping to improve her station with a career as a shopgirl. This quintessential musical, scored by Lerner and Loewe, was based on the 1913 play PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw, and virtually swept the Academy Awards, winning, among others, Best Picture, Director, and Actor (Harrison).
| Features | Region 1 | | Keep Case | | Feature-Length Audio Commentary by Involved Participants | | Behind-the-Scenes Documentary: The Fairest Lady | | Alternate Audrey Hepburn Vocals of "Show Me" and "Wouldn't It Be Lovely?" | | Interactive Menus | | Production Notes | | 4 Theatrical Trailers | | Scene Access |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
|  | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 8/1/2006 |
| Running Time: 170 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1964 | | Catalog ID: 16668 | | UPC: 00085391666820 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew | Theodore Bikel | | Jeremy Brett | | Gladys Cooper | | Audrey Hepburn | | Rex Harrison | | Wilfrid Hyde-White | | Mona Washbourne | | Stanley Holloway | | Isobel Elsom | | Henry Daniell | | André Previn - Music Director | | William Ziegler - Editor | | Alan Napier - Featured | | George Bernard Shaw - Story | | John McLiam - Featured | | Frederick Loewe - Composer | | Gene Allen - Art Director | | Cecil Beaton - Costume Designer | | Harry Stradling - Director of Photography | | George James Hopkins - Set Designer | | William Taylor - Featured | | Betty Blythe - Featured | | Laurie Main - Featured | | Barbara Pepper - Featured | | Maurice Dallimore - Featured | | Patrick O'Moore - Featured | | Hermes Pan - Choreographer | | Ben Wright - Featured | | Marjorie Bennett - Featured | | John Holland - Featured | | James Wood - Featured | | Jack L. Warner - Producer | | Colin Campbell - Featured | | Alan Jay Lerner - Lyricist | | Walter Burke - Featured | | Monika Henreid - Featured | | Dinah Anne Rogers - Featured | | John Mitchum - Featured | | Grady Sutton - Featured | | George Cukor - Director |
| Awards |
Academy Awards (1964) |  | Winner, Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (Color) | | Winner, Best Costume Design (Color) | | Winner, Best Picture | | Winner, Best Sound | | Rex Harrison, Winner, Best Actor | | Jack Warner, Winner, Best Picture | | André Previn, Winner, Best Adapted or Musical Song/Score | | George Cukor, Winner, Best Director | | Harry Stradling, Winner, Best Cinematography |
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"...Glorious....Features [Beaton's] astounding costumes, [Cukor's] stately direction, the best-loved, most hummable of all Broadway scores and a sublime cast headed by [Harrison and Hepburn]..."| 09/21/1994 p.C13Chicago Sun-Times
"...One of the most joyous musicals ever written....Cukor's film is a pleasure to behold..." 09/23/1994 p.40 |
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