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A Few Words About A few words about...™ My Fair Lady (Take Two) -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Cineman

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I think a valid question might be, is "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" a love song? Of a fashion, yes it is. But not in the way one thinks of as a romantic, man-woman, I Love You Will You Marry Me love song one usually hears in musical theater. At most Higgins is saying it is much nicer having her around than not having her around. Eliza has already stated she has no interest in a sexual relationship with him. And he responded by saying the same of her.


Bare in mind, Eliza returned to Higgins' apartment on her own, he didn't go after her and invite her back. She is a pragmatist, not a love-sick puppy. Got that from her dad. She honestly has nowhere more suitable to go at the moment. Higgins is happy to have her back, as she correctly calculated he would be, until she does have a better place to go or whenever she is ready to leave. If he had risen to his feet, embraced her and the two of them launched into a reprise of the only "love" song that either of them had sung up to that moment, or a new one, as though this was your conventional And They Lived Happily Ever After love story ending, it would have been jarringly inappropriate, IMO. I might have vomited on my shoes.


Higgins has given Eliza something more remarkable and more positively life-altering than any other man could or would, gentlemen's bet or no bet. Eliza has done the same for Higgins, hired speech instructor or not. And now they both know it. More importantly, each knows the other feels that way. That is enough "love story" ending for me between these particular characters.
 

lark144

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Many decades ago, I remember reading an essay by Alan Jay Lerner in which he stated that in writing the songs to MY FAIR LADY, he & Fredrick Loewe were determined not to write any traditional love songs. In particular, he explained the specifics on how "On The Street Where You Live" was not a love song, but the same could be said for "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face", which Cineman has so brilliantly analyzed.
 

Robin9

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Cineman said:
I think a valid question might be, is "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" a love song?

It is when it is sung properly. Ironically, the two best recordings by far are from women: Doris Day on her Broadway album and Ella Fitzgerald on her Hello Love album.
 

AnthonyClarke

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I was going to make a long post on this subject, but Cineman beat me to it in a very accurate way.

'I've Grown Accustomed To her Face' shows absolutely that Higgings is and always will be a curmudgeon, but one who has been tamed by love.Eliza has gotten under his skin. He speaks 'Where are my slippers? with domestic love, not with imperative arrogance. The ending makes perfect sense after the wonderful closing song. And they lived happily ever after, in of course an Edwardian way!
 

Cineman

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It is so much more stimulating to have the ending we've been given instead of it going full Cinderella on us, which I believe would have been a very wrong turn for these characters. It is a much more complex situation for them, as it would have to be. Look how much more there is to talk about all these years later. I don't remember this much discussion about it back in '64. But I wish we had done as much.


When I watch the final scene I have never heard Higgins' last line as a command, but rather his way of changing the subject from something that makes him feel very uncomfortable to something somewhat innocuous but, perhaps in a Freudian way, an allusion to a point of contention between the two of them before the games came to a halt in those same living quarters the previous night; "Eliza (uttered with unguarded pleasure and delight)....(change of subject) where the devil are my slippers?"


There is of course a temptation to think of a comment about slippers from Higgins to Eliza or what one might think of (incorrectly, imo) as his ordering her to fetch his slippers as the way one treats a dog. And I understand the disapproval of the moment if that is the way one hears it. But he really isn't ordering her to fetch his slippers. He is only asking her where they are and, as I have stated, more than anything else trying to come up with a way to change the subject from his unguarded "Eliza..." utterance.


But Higgins is a master sportsman when it comes to the games people play. Much of his dialogue throughout the script is him rhapsodizing on his much thought out analysis of those games. Therefore, I don't believe he just clamored around in his mind and came up with just anything at hand to change the subject. Those "slippers" do have a special meaning to the two of them and he knows what they had meant to Eliza. She threw them at him the night before with:

Eliza Doolittle: *Here* are your slippers! *There*...
[throws a slipper at Higgins]
Eliza Doolittle: And *there*!
[throws the other one]

Eliza Doolittle: *Take* your slippers, and may you NEVER have a day's luck with them!


Is his final line at once a gentle dig to her that she got it wrong about those slippers while at the same time challenging her to associate them with what he now feels but cannot say aloud is one of his luckiest days? He isn't asking her to fetch them. He is simply asking her to think about them, to remind her of their previous exchange about them. And then her smile and reaction looks to me as if she totally gets his meaning.


That is the way I heard it way back in '64 and still hear it that way when I watch the movie today.




(btw, I never thought Higgins might be gay, but considered the possibility that he might be bi-sexual. After all, during the "Rain in Spain" number he dances with Pickering every bit as much as he dances with Eliza. I wonder if there was a scene cut where Pickering sings his own rendition of "I Could Have Danced All Night"...


lol. Ok, just joking with this part between the parenthesis. hehe)
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Cineman said:
(btw, I never thought Higgins might be gay, but considered the possibility that he might be bi-sexual. After all, during the "Rain in Spain" number he dances with Pickering every bit as much as he dances with Eliza. I wonder if there was a scene cut where Pickering sings his own rendition of "I Could Have Danced All Night"...

If anything, he bordered on asexual. The dialog makes it clear that that he's had relationships with women in the past, but nothing really indicates that they provided satisfaction anywhere close to what he derives from his hobbies and interests. Even with Eliza, while he objectively notes that she's physically attractive, it's her mind and personality that he's smitten with.


I don't know what the satisfactory ending for this story is. Shaw's "What Happened Afterwards" postscript to Pygmalion is unsatisfying because Freddy Eynsford-Hill is so unsatisfying. The "happy ending" that so many productions have tacked on is unsatisfying because it requires Eliza, who has just emancipated herself from Henry Higgins, to willingly re-shackle herself.


To the extent that this film's ending works, it's because of Audrey Hepburn's performance in the final scene. Her return might have restored Higgins's self-satisfied complacency, but this isn't an Eliza who is sliding back under his thumb. Instead, she's returning under her terms, and their dance is beginning anew, with her far better equipped than the time before.
 

Malcolm Bmoor

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I refer you to an essay titled HOW MANY CHILDREN HAD LADY MACBETH?, written by Lionel Charles Knights in 1933. The point is that no children are mentioned in the text of the play, and that is what constitutes MACBETH.


So if you wish to take an interest in GBS's PYGMALION in any of its forms, the texts are the texts. Whether you see the original play, with Shaw's original ending, or the film, show or film of the show, using Shaw's approved rewrite, these are the finished works.


It's not even relevant to point out that Shaw wasn't noted for his feminist sympathies but merely to stress that he wrote a comedy and if you disapprove then write your own instead.


'IT'S ONLY A PLAY INGRID'
 

Mike Frezon

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I'm not talented enough to write my own play.


But I know what makes sense to me and what I like or don't like about a play (or any other work of art) and I know how to post that opinion in an online discussion forum.


I'm pretty sure that's the point of a place like the Home Theater Forum.
 

anorthosite

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Cineman said:
She honestly has nowhere more suitable to go at the moment.

She's got options. Higgin's classy, upscale mom, who knows about her son's bet, would put her up long enough for a proper engagement to Freddy. Also her father now has an income equivalent to about $500,000/year. He'd put her up for a while.
 

anorthosite

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Cineman said:
At most Higgins is saying it is much nicer having her around than not having her around. Eliza has already stated she has no interest in a sexual relationship with him. And he responded by saying the same of her. [...] Higgins has given Eliza something more remarkable and more positively life-altering than any other man could or would, gentlemen's bet or no bet. Eliza has done the same for Higgins, hired speech instructor or not. And now they both know it. More importantly, each knows the other feels that way. That is enough "love story" ending for me between these particular characters.

Yes. It's a fallacy to project the author's biography into his characters (or vice versa). It's hard not to wonder if Higgins is to some extent a proxy for Shaw, however. They both make a living from words.

Shaw married at 40. Apparently the marriage was genuinely affectionate. It's speculated that it was unconsummated. No idea what the evidence for that claim is. We'll never know.

If Shaw was in a loving, asexual relationship, maybe his Pygmalion ending is an expression of it. Higgins, like Shaw, has a close relationship with a woman that isn't physical. It's platonic, more agape than eros.
 

octobercountry

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anorthosite said:
She's got options. Higgin's classy, upscale mom, who knows about her son's bet, would put her up long enough for a proper engagement to Freddy. Also her father now has an income equivalent to about $500,000/year. He'd put her up for a while.
Yes, I do think that Higgin's mother would help Eliza out, if it was necessary. But Eliza's father, well... After all, he did basically tell her to stand on her own two feet and not come to him for anything, so I doubt he would be very helpful---plus, I doubt Eliza would ever want to ask him for help in the first place.
 

Reed Grele

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Maybe if Matthew Broderick gets a chance to play Miss Doolittle, they'll change the ending...


Broderick.jpg



Wouldn't it be loverly? ;)
 

PMF

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From my understanding, Higgins furthered his research in speech pathology by studying animal linguistics and thus gained his PhD at Oxford. Upon graduation, both Eliza and Henry got married. Higgins, so fully impressed by Eliza's strengthened feminism, decided as a wedding present to take on HER name, instead; and that is how he become known as Doctor Dolittle.

In this musical sequel to "MFL" Rex Harrison returned to his iconoclastic role but, reportedly, Audrey Hepburn and Jeremy Brett commanded too much money; so Samantha Eggar stepped in as the world-bound Eliza and Anthony Newley stepped in as Freddy.
 

PMF

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Dear RAH,

This is a recording session question concerning the "original" tracks from "MFL".

Long before either of your "MFL" restoration works had occurred, I had always noticed a couple of sounds that always remained a curiosity to me. The arch of these two sounds were present to me since the 60's; and inherently remains on the 50th Anniversary BD. Neither of these two sounds bother me, at all; as I find both to be interesting; but I wonder if you could confirm if my hearing has been diagnostically correct, throughout these past decades.

Sound #1 is heard within "I'm an Ordinary Man". I could swear, in one particular moment, that I am hearing the sound of a page being turned - perhaps from the musical score, itself - while Andre Previn is conducting; or, perhaps, it stems from one of the sheets of music being turned as placed upon the music stand belonging to one of the musicians. Even as a child, this very sound of interest was one I noticed when listening to the vinyl soundtrack. Do you know of this moment I speak of?

Sound #2 is heard within "The Rain in Spain". Once again, I could swear I am hearing both Marni Nixon and Audrey Hepburn, simultaneously; which comes during the first verse, as Eliza sings "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Plain" Either way, be it Miss Nixon and/or Miss Hepburn, my ear is definitely hearing an overdub of two voices.

If I am right, then could this qualify as an audible example of what Sir David Lean referred to, when speaking of the charms of leaving present that flaw or two that's found within the hand-made Movian rug?

Sincerely,
PMF
 
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Robert Harris

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Dear RAH,

This is a recording session question concerning the "original" tracks from "MFL".

Long before either of your "MFL" restoration works had occurred, I had always noticed a couple of sounds that always remained a curiosity to me. The arch of these two sounds were present to me since the 60's; and inherently remains on the 50th Anniversary BD. Neither of these two sounds bother me, at all; as I find both to be interesting; but I wonder if you could confirm if my hearing has been diagnostically correct, throughout these past decades.

Sound #1 is heard within "I'm an Ordinary Man". I could swear, in one particular moment, that I am hearing the sound of a page being turned - perhaps from the musical score, itself - while Andre Previn is conducting; or, perhaps, it stems from one of the sheets of music being turned as placed upon the music stand belonging to one of the musicians. Even as a child, this very sound of interest was one I noticed when listening to the vinyl soundtrack. Do you know of this moment I speak of?

Sound #2 is heard within "The Rain in Spain". Once again, I could swear I am hearing both Marni Nixon and Audrey Hepburn, simultaneously; which comes during the first verse, as Eliza sings "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Plain" Either way, be it Miss Nixon and/or Miss Hepburn, my ear is definitely hearing an overdub of two voices.

If I am right, then could this qualify as an audible example of what Sir David Lean referred to, when speaking of the charms of leaving present that flaw or two that's found within the hand-made Movian rug?

Sincerely,
PMF

If I'm reading you properly, what you may be hearing in sound 1, is air being pushed from a cushion. I've never noted any anomalies as to S2.

The most interesting transparency of audio that I noted, hearing the new transfer from the original six track, is what appears to possibly be a misplaced microphone as Mr. Hyde-White walks down the stairs before the intermission. It's an echo, heard load and clear in the original, which we ended up referring to as the staircase ghost.
 

Crysist

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Hi RAH,

Just curious, do you know whether My Fair Lady (or any of your other restorations) is due to be released on UHD Bluray? You've helped create such a stunning master, as it's seen on the Bluray, I can only assume it will look even better closer to it's master's resolution.

Also, do you know how HDR (10-bit color) will be treated in this case? Did the color have to be treated a certain way to go from the original 8k/4k elements to the Bluray that it wouldn't now with the expanded color space of the new format?

Thank you
 

Robert Harris

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Hi RAH,

Just curious, do you know whether My Fair Lady (or any of your other restorations) is due to be released on UHD Bluray? You've helped create such a stunning master, as it's seen on the Bluray, I can only assume it will look even better closer to it's master's resolution.

Also, do you know how HDR (10-bit color) will be treated in this case? Did the color have to be treated a certain way to go from the original 8k/4k elements to the Bluray that it wouldn't now with the expanded color space of the new format?

Thank you

Doubtful HDR for MFL. The process does not relate to the film.

RAH
 

AnthonyClarke

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I suppose the market may be just too small for MFL on HD. Or is it more related to the quality of the available elements? It's a shame as it's one of the few movies which might make me think of getting an HD projector and player .. along maybe with Oklahoma!, Casablance and all the other usual suspects....
 

Raul Marquez

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I suppose the market may be just too small for MFL on HD. Or is it more related to the quality of the available elements? It's a shame as it's one of the few movies which might make me think of getting an HD projector and player .. along maybe with Oklahoma!, Casablance and all the other usual suspects....

Anthony,
Do you mean 4K?
It's already on HD (Blu-ray).... and a gorgeous one at that (MFL).
Raul
 

Robert Harris

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I suppose the market may be just too small for MFL on HD. Or is it more related to the quality of the available elements? It's a shame as it's one of the few movies which might make me think of getting an HD projector and player .. along maybe with Oklahoma!, Casablance and all the other usual suspects....

I presume you mean HDR.

The problem with HDR and older films is overall color / density stability, without adding another set of problems. MFL is not what it appears to be. Color took five months. Problems with differential fade, mold on sep masters, and extremely unstable color, both from side to side as well as constantly changing throughout shots, necessitated multiple dissolves within single shots, as well as frame to frame color correction.

Viewing the film uncorrected was not a happy place. Ask Mr. Koster.

And therefore, not a place for HDR.

RAH
 

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