Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison, reprising the role he made famous on Broadway) is a master of the English language, and he makes a friendly wager with fellow scholar Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) that he can take rough-around-the-edges cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) and, with a little training, transform her into a sophisticated, well-spoken young woman.
After reaching an agreement with Eliza’s philandering father (Stanley Holloway, also reprising the part he played on-stage), Higgins spends the next several months instructing Eliza on the finer points of speaking the Queen’s English. While their first public test of the “new” Eliza (at Ascot racetrack) doesn’t go quite as planned, Eliza does eventually become the refined British woman Higgins intended. But while Eliza is understandably ecstatic about her new personality, she can’t help but wonder if there’s more to her and Higgins’ relationship than teacher and pupil. If there isn’t, then what’s to become of her when the lessons are over?
Produced by Warner Brothers, My Fair Lady was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning eight including Best Picture, Director, and Actor (for Harrison, who strikes the perfect balance between snobbishness and brilliance, making us both admire and detest him as the story unfolds). Stanley Holloway as Eliza’s father was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and rightly so; in a movie filled with one extraordinary musical sequence after another, Holloway’s two numbers, “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “Get Me to the Church On Time”, are my absolute favorites.
That said, Audrey Hepburn’s snub in the Best Actress category is almost unfathomable. I realize Julie Andrews made the role of Eliza Doolittle famous on Broadway, and there were those who wished she had played the part on film, but Hepburn is wonderful as both the “Cockney guttersnipe” (which Higgins calls her on occasion) and the Regal sophisticate who dominates the second half of the film. In fact, the scene at the Ascot Racetrack, where we get a glimpse of both sides of Eliza’s personality, results in the movie’s single funniest line (ironically, Andrews won Best Actress that year for Mary Poppins).
Also good are Wilfred Hyde-White as the sympathetic Colonel Pickering, Eliza’s confidante and supporter when Higgins gets a bit too intense; Gladys Cooper (also nominated for Best Supporting Actress) as Higgins’ mother; Mona Washbourne as loyal housemaid Mrs. Pearce; and Theodore Bikel as Zoltan Karpathy, a former pupil of Higgins’ who now fancies himself a professional linguist. Also amazing are the film’s costumes and set pieces, which bring the time and setting (London in 1912) convincingly to life (My Fair Lady also took home Oscars for Art Direction, Cecil Beaton’s Costume Design, and Harry Stradling’s expert cinematography).
As for the songs, there isn’t a bad one in the bunch! Along with those I already mentioned, highlights include Eliza’s “I Could Have Danced All Night” (Hepburn’s singing voice was dubbed by Marni Nixon) and Higgins’ undoubtedly sexist (and borderline misogynistic) but oh-so-fun rendition of “A Hymn to Him (Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?)”.
Of the four musicals that took home Best Picture Oscars in the 1960s (along with My Fair Lady, there was 1961’s West Side Story, 1965’s The Sound of Music and Oliver! In 1968), My Fair Lady is easily the best. More than timeless, My Fair Lady actually gets better with age!
Rating: 10 out of 10
Judy Garland was indeed stellar in this Warner Brothers musical extravaganza, but matching her every step of the way was co-star James Mason, delivering what might be his greatest performance as Norman Maine, an alcoholic movie star who takes a talented young woman under his wing and transforms her into a Hollywood sensation.
When singer Vicki Lester (Garland) helps him through an embarrassing drunken escapade at a benefit concert, renowned actor Norman Maine (Mason) shows his appreciation by offering her some career advice, telling Vicki to resign from her small band and try her luck in the movies. After a few false starts, Vicki finally lands a role in a major Hollywood production, and before long is on her way to stardom.
Over time, Vicki’s and Norman’s relationship develops into a love affair, and they eventually marry. But how will Norman deal with his new wife’s mounting successes while his own career is fizzling out?
Judy Garland is at her absolute best as Vicki Lester, and her musical numbers are impressively staged, especially “Born in a Trunk”, which Vicki performs in her first ever film. Yet as good as Garland’s voice is, she is even better dramatically, perfectly conveying the excitement, adoration, and eventual heartbreak that results from her character loving a man like Norman Maine.
Equally as superb is James Mason. From the moment we first meet his Norman Maine, we know he’s a loose cannon. The opening sequence, where he stumbles backstage at the benefit show, drunkenly accosting showgirls and fighting with reporters, gets the movie off to an uncomfortable yet engaging start. Mason successfully conveys Norman’s varying personalities throughout A Star is Born: the inebriated silliness with a hint of anger simmering just underneath; the self-loathing; and the genuine desire to help Vicki any way he can. Norman even manages to lure studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) into his bungalow one afternoon and sets it up so that he can hear Vicki sing for the very first time, and on the same day that another actress dropped out of a big-budget musical.
In addition, we see the love that Norman has for Vicki, and how he is willing to sacrifice everything - his career and more - for her. It’s a stunning portrayal by Mason, and it is he and Garland who carry A Star is Born to the lofty heights it ultimately reaches.
With director George Cukor in top form and a script by Moss Hart (which was partly inspired by the original 1937 film directed by William A. Wellman), A Star is Born - along with the strong performances of its two leads – also offers a less-than-glamorous glimpse into what happens behind the scenes in Tinseltown. Like Sunset Blvd before it, this 1954 movie exposed the seedy underbelly of the motion picture industry and, in so doing, went on to become a Hollywood classic in its own right.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Directed By: George Cukor
Starring: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery
Line from the film: "I never could understand why is has to be just even, male and female. They're invited for dinner, not for mating"
Trivia: Both Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler died within four years of the film's release: Dressler in 1934 at age 65, and Harlow in 1937, at age 26
Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke), the wife of shipping magnate Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore), is throwing a dinner party in honor of a British lord and his wife, who are visiting America. As Millicent, called “Millie” for short, dedicates every weaking moment to planning the shindig, her husband Oliver wrestles with the reality that his company, which has been in his family for generations, is going under. To make matters worse, someone is buying up the company’s stock with the intention of taking it over, and Oliver has no idea who it is.
For help, he turns to self-made millionaire Dan Packard (Wallace Beery), who has connections in Washington D.C. To get in his good graces, Oliver asks Millie to invite Packard and his wife Kitty (Jean Harlow) to the party. A rather common girl, Kitty is thrilled by the prospect of attending such a swanky event, though her husband isn’t too keen on the idea. Not willing to let his stubbornness get in the way of her social climbing, Kitty issues Dan an ultimatum: either take her to the dinner, or she’ll spill the beans that he is the one trying to take over Oliver Jordan's company!
Other guests include renowned actress Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), an old flame of Oliver’s who has fallen on hard times; and Dr. Wayne Talbot (Edmund Lowe), a general physician and womanizer who is having an affair with Kitty Packard.
Also invited is Larry Renault (John Barrymore), an aging actor whose best days are behind him. Unbeknownst to the Jordan’s, Renault has been secretly dating their daughter Paula (Madge Evans), who is engaged to someone else. What’s more, Renault is an alcoholic, and his drunken escapades have ruined his chances of starring in a new Broadway show.
With such an impressive guest list, Millie is certain her party will be the social event of the season. But Oliver’s failing health and a last-minute cancellation threaten to ruin the dinner before it’s been served!
Released a year after the star-studded Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight reunited all three of that film’s leading men. Lionel Barrymore’s Oliver Jordan is a friendly, gentle soul who, in spite of having the weight of the world on his shoulders, always has time to smile or say a kind word. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Dan Packard, the greedy businessman so wonderfully played by Wallace Beery. After agreeing to help Oliver save his company, Packard makes arrangements to take it over himself. Both men played similar characters in Grand Hotel, while the third lead, John Barrymore, portrays an alcoholic has-been who still considers himself a big star. It’s a tremendously poignant part (made doubly so by the fact the actor himself was an alcoholic at the time), and John Barrymore plays it to perfection.
That said, it's the ladies who steal the show, with Maria Dressler leading the way as the outspoken Carlotta. It's Dressler who generates most of the film’s laughs. When Oliver’s secretary says she’s been a fan of hers since she was a little girl, the perturbed Carlotta, none too happy to be reminded of her age, sarcastically shoots back “You know, we must have a long talk about the Civil War sometime. Just you and I”
Jean Harlow is equally strong as Kitty, the wannabe socialite willing to step over anyone, including her husband, to break into high society. Topping it off is Billie Burke (aka Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz) as the hyper Millie, too busy concentrating on her party to notice her husband’s world is falling apart. In one very funny scene, Millie learns, on the day of the dinner, that her chauffeur and butler just got into a fight, landing one in jail and the other in the hospital. Needless to say, it pushes her to the breaking point. Based on a hit play, Dinner at Eight is clearly an actor’s film, and it's the women who shine brightest.
Simultaneously witty and moving, Dinner at Eight is, like Grand Hotel before it, a fabulous motion picture, featuring some of Hollywood’s most talented performers at the absolute top of their game.
