Genre: Drama / Family / Musical / Romance Director(s): George Cukor Release Date: 21 October 1964 Movie rating: 7.9

Directed by George Cukor and based on an earlier film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion”, “My Fair Lady” is regarded as one of the greatest musicals of all time. Starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, it was a box office success and was met with high raise. The film tells the story of Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn), a lower class Cockney flower seller working in the Covent Garden. One day two men pass her by. She overhears one of them, arrogant phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Harrison), boasts to his friend, Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White), about his knowledge of the English language, suggesting a wage that he could make even the thick accented flower seller sound and act like a member of royalty. Intrigued and ambitious, Eliza visits professor Higgins asking him to teach her to speak properly, and when Colonel Pickering offers to pay her tuition, her lessons begin. Elisa goes through a frustrating transformation, enduring Higgins’ harsh methods and his poor treatment of her, until Higgins finally decides that she is ready. He introduces her to the upper echelons of Edwardian London at a horse track and she makes an excellent first impression, but reveals her Cockney upbringing when her horse wins the race and she lets out a vulgar scream. After some additional coaching, Higgins takes Eliza to the embassy ball, where she makes a splash and impresses the queen of Transylvania. With her training complete, Eliza leaves the Higgins household frustrated with Higgins’ refusal to give her any credit for her progress, and it will take the thick headed phonetics expert some time to realize that he has fallen in love.

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