UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ My Fair Lady-- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[MatthewA]

So how much money has My Fair Lady generated over the years? It must still be very profitable for ViacomCBSParamountWhatever if they still roll out the red carpet for it after all sorts of corporate mergers, un-mergers, and associated scandals over the past 25 years or so.

A bunch of studios made money off of it despite not making it. Fox still held the home video rights when it was first restored after not one, but two widescreen laserdiscs that demonstrated why it was necessary. Then WB got it back for a little while for DVD (one I still keep just for the audio commentary), but for the last 10 years it has been at Paramount, and with CBS and Paramount's on-again/off-again relationship in "on" mode now, it's likely to stay there for years to come.

 

[John Maher_289910]

Isn't Grease the most financially successful film musical even adjusting for inflation? And is The Wizard of Oz even as beloved as TSOM and Grease as it once was when its annual showing were national events?

Adjusted for inflation, GREASE comes in at Number 28 for all films. Even MARY POPPINS beats it, at Number 27. MY FAIR LADY is 66. THE SOUND OF MUSIC is Number 3, and that doesn't include any re-releases, which GONE WITH WIND Number 1 and STAR WARS Number 2 do include.

Top Lifetime Adjusted Grosses

www.boxofficemojo.com

 

[roxy1927]

There was a time when Grease beat SOM. I remember years ago somebody asking Julie Andrews how she felt about Grease being more successful financially than the sound of music and she said well things change. I am glad that that is no longer the case. Though I am surprised that movies like Titanic and Avatar are not higher.
I don't believe my fair lady was the success that Jack Warner thought it would be. I think he thought that it was going to be a blockbuster close to the level of The Sound of Music. On release it had a less than 2 year run including roadshow and general release engagements. The Sound of Music had a four year run.

 

[Worth]

Grease made more money at the box office than Sound of Music if you don't factor in inflation.

 

[Gerani53]

MY FAIR LADY was a huge hit; THE SOUND OF MUSIC was simply a bigger hit, the most popular movie of all time in its day, as I recall.

 

[roxy1927]

The Sound of Music knocked everyone for a loop. I always wondered about the contracts of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. Did they get a flat fee or did it include any percentage? I assume Andrews got royalties of the soundtrack which alone would have made her very very rich.

 

[MatthewA]

Fox kept it running for four years because they needed the money after that other Rex Harrison 70mm epic, Cleopatra, cost so much. Home video and streaming pretty much guaranteed that will never happen again.

 

[roxy1927]

If Andrews got director approval she would have gotten co-star approval as well for Camelot no? And being that Burton wasn't going to do it she decided there was no point? Maybe Peter O'Toole? Burton would have gotten a fortune with Camelot with his salary and points. Much more than Taming of the Shrew I would think.
I bet with the two of them and a better director it would have been a huge hit.
Even Billy Wilder was in talks to do a musical with Andrews. She was money in the bank.

 

[Matt Hough]

The Sound of Music knocked everyone for a loop. I always wondered about the contracts of Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer. Did they get a flat fee or did it include any percentage? I assume Andrews got royalties of the soundtrack which alone would have made her very very rich.

Flat fee, I'm sure for Julie. Remember The Sound of Music was completely filmed and in the can before Mary Poppins was even released, so there was no guarantee she would take the world by storm. If I recall correctly, she was paid $75,000 for Poppins and $250,000 for The Sound of Music. Yes, the soundtrack for Music made her a millionaire several times over.

 

[MatthewA]

Disney had less money to pay actors at the time. Prior to the 1980s, they mainly used people who were on the way up or on the way down.

Even Billy Wilder was in talks to do a musical with Andrews. She was money in the bank.

Was. That was before her Gertrude Lawrence and WWI pictures lost money.

 

[PMF]

Even Billy Wilder was in talks to do a musical with Andrews.

Some Like It Jazz Hot, perhaps?

 

[MatthewA]

Billy Wilder was one of the directors who turned down The Sound of Music.

 

[B-ROLL]

Some Like It Jazz Hot, perhaps?

Where's the Beouf ?

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I think Robert Harris will confirm that the MFL vaults contain no trace of the Margaret Rutherford screen tests as Liza in MFL. She could get the accent but apparently her age was held against her. Another case of ageism working against sublime talent.

 

[RichMurphy]

I think Robert Harris will confirm that the MFL vaults contain no trace of the Margaret Rutherford screen tests as Liza in MFL. She could get the accent but apparently her age was held against her. Another case of ageism working against sublime talent.

And Stringer Davis could have been cast at Freddy.

 

[Robert Harris]

Many of the extras carried over for the 4k, were originally prepared for the 2015 CBS Blu-ray. Elements such as the 70mm prints of lighting (rain) tests and Mr. Hyde-White fitted with a hairpiece. WB was extremely helpful in searching their vaults for anything that remained as bits of MFL archaeology that were missed when the film changed ownership in 1971.

 

[MatthewA]

Who lost the music tracks? I had always assumed CBS lost/discarded them, but then they recently came up with enough score elements for the Cinema Center Films production A Boy Named Charlie Brown to do an expanded soundtrack.

For this film, Sony Music had to do an "expansion" right off the film's mixed soundtrack when they re-released it on CD in the 1990s, but then they managed to find an unused cue for the finale, which presumably would have played when Higgins returns to his home and turns on the record of Eliza after "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" ends.

 

[roxy1927]

That cd was poorly produced. Maybe because the original music cues were no longer available so they had to go directly to the soundtrack. So the music never made it from Warner to CBS? Warner just dumped it?

 

[MatthewA]

I have my doubts that Warner would have been the one to lose it. They saved the score to Blazing Saddles so that La-La Land Records could give it a proper soundtrack release, but even before that, they still had enough elements on 1962's Gypsy to do a stereo remix in the late 1990s for the remastered widescreen laserdisc put out by Image Entertainment; it had a music & effects track that has appeared nowhere else. Camelot also has an isolated score on DVD if I am not mistaken (but a bunch of other remix issues to go with it). They even managed to save a mono music-and-effects track to Auntie Mame. The only reason they gave up on remixing Mame for stereo even though the soundtrack album is presented as such is that they only have music tracks but not the right vocal tracks to do it correctly.

Then again, there were all those 1950s stereo mixes they threw out or recorded over, and the fact that they had A Star is Born in stereo only for the short version while they could put together the long version's soundtrack in mono, and that stereo came from a print.

 

[Robert Harris]

Who lost the music tracks? I had always assumed CBS lost/discarded them, but then they recently came up with enough score elements for the Cinema Center Films production A Boy Named Charlie Brown to do an expanded soundtrack.

For this film, Sony Music had to do an "expansion" right off the film's mixed soundtrack when they re-released it on CD in the 1990s, but then they managed to find an unused cue for the finale, which presumably would have played when Higgins returns to his home and turns on the record of Eliza after "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" ends.

What Mx tracks?