I did not love this film. I know I’m in the minority here, and I actually did like it quite a bit, I just didn’t love it. Starting off, my biggest beef with it is that it’s too long, coming in at just under three hours. They could have easily cut 30-40 minutes out of this film, and I would have enjoyed it much more. It also lacks drama for the first half of the film. There is a certain amount of conflict between the main characters, but it the conflict and drama doesn’t really hit its stride until we’re more than half way through the film. The frustrating thing about that is that there are several opportunities for drama and conflict that they passed on.

I feel like I should have enjoyed it more because there is a lot of quality film making and storytelling going on in My Fair Lady. Rex Harrison is delightfully pretentious and snobbish as the phonetics professor Higgins. The dialogue written for him is unequalled and he delivers it with panache and confidence that makes him utterly believable as a character. It’s also difficult not to fall in love with Audrey Hepburn as the diamond-in-the-rough flower peddler, Eliza Doolittle, whom Professor Higgins bets he can turn into a woman who would be presentable even in as high societal a place as Buckingham Palace.

My Fair Lady is in many ways a textbook film to watch for aspiring screenwriters in that it is actually a character-driven story where the goal of Professor Higgins is to change Eliza Doolittle so that she changes for the better, and in turn changes for the better himself. Similarly to Gigi where the title character was not the hero, but in fact the love interest, My Fair Lady takes a similar tack. Professor Higgins is the hero of this story, as he drives the action and experiences the most inner growth. While Higgins spends the bulk of the story changing Eliza’s exterior, it is Higgins who is changing on the inside, and experiences the most profound character growth.

However, when looking at it through the spectrum of the Hero’s Journey, it is entirely possible to look at My Fair Lady as Eliza’s story as well. At the very least, we could have two main characters. Higgins presents Eliza with the Call to Adventure by telling Colonel Pickering that he could turn her into a lady of high society. She then returns the favor by showing up at his home to present him with the Call to Adventure by accepting his offer. Here’s where the story heads in Higgins’ direction when Higgins initially Refuses the Call by telling her that he has no interest in her. The Meeting of the Mentor occurs when Pickering makes the bet with Higgins that he can’t get Eliza to be transformed into a proper woman and offers to pay for the lessons. Just like the archetypal Mentor who gives the Hero some magical weapon or gift in order to be able to proceed with the adventure, Pickering presents Higgins with the payment and the challenge to his ego from which Higgins cannot turn away. Higgins and Eliza Cross the First Threshold together when Higgins finally accepts the challenge and tells Eliza that within six months he will take her to the Am and present her as a duchess to the King.

The Tests, Allies and Enemies section starts right after that when Eliza’s father Alfred, a scoundrel of the highest order, arrives trying to blackmail Higgins for taking a daughter that he never cared about anyway. He demands five pounds, and Higgins gives it to him after a bunch of hemming and hawing. Then, Alfred disappears and we never see him again until the third act. The tests continue through the famous The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain scene. She can’t get her A’s right, and then he tries another test to get her to pronounce her H’s correct. The servants sing about Poor Mister Higgins as his frustration mounts. Eliza shows the exhaustion that you would expect from the constant drilling. That is, until Eliza finally gets her A’s correct with The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain. She does this after Higgins stops with the criticism and gives her heartfelt encouragement. That leads to the Approach where Higgins wants to test out the progress they’ve made by taking her to the races. Eliza then goes into the song, I Could have Danced All Night and she realizes that she’s fallen in love with Higgins. Unfortunately Higgins is a confirmed and committed bachelor. That’s where the conflict finally comes into this film, as Eliza falls deeper in love with Higgins, but he continues to blindly resist what he should be feeling.

The second act continues with the Supreme Ordeal which is when Higgins and Pickering take Eliza to the races. They sit in the box of Higgins’ mother, and this is where Eliza meets Freddy, a young man who is immediately infatuated with Eliza, and serves to be Higgins’ chief rival for Eliza’s affections. The problem at this point for Higgins is that Eliza isn’t ready. For while she uses proper pronunciation, her grammar and phraseology are completely inappropriate for the setting. In classic Hero’s Journey fashion, Eliza fails this test miserably as she loses all of her composure during the race and yells a profanity as her horse passes by Higgins’ mother then beseeches him to give up the effort, and criticizes him for playing with a live doll. The next stage in the Journey is the Reward, and that manifests itself with Freddy arriving to court Eliza. It’s also manifested in Pickering demanding that Higgins cancel the bet, but Higgins refusing to do so. She appears before them in the most elegant manner possible, and Higgins, despite his best efforts is starting to show signs of falling for Eliza as well. Act II ends with The Road Back, and in My Fair Lady, that happens when they attend the Ambassador’s Ball, and Eliza’s performance is flawless, even getting noticed by the Queen of Transylvania and dancing with the Prince. She is so flawless that after the party, Higgins and Pickering sing and boast to each other about the wonderful jobs that they did rather than giving Eliza any credit for the evening while she stews in the corner. Unable to hide her anger any longer, she demands to know from Higgins what’s to happen to her. Clueless to her feelings, Higgins allows her to leave.

The next stage starts out the third act and that’s the Resurrection. Eliza returns to the market place and sees many of the other peddlers, of which she used to be one, but is no longer. She feels like someone with no home. She doesn’t belong to high society, but she’s no longer a peddler either. She thinks that the best thing waiting for her now is marrying Freddy, which she doesn’t want at all. She finds her father, who tells her that he’s using the funds that Higgins gave him to marry his girlfriend and turn his life around. The Return With the Elixir happens after Eliza tells Higgins’ mother that the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she acts, but how she is treated and Higgins will only treat her as a flower girl. He then tells her that he treats everyone the same no matter their social standing. She finally tells him that he has her voice on his gramophone and he can listen to it whenever he wants. After Higgins angrily leaves, he has his own epiphany. He finally realizes that he misses Eliza, and that he’s also in love with her. She’s become a part of his life, and not only does he want her, but he needs her as well. As the song says, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face.” He arrives home and listens to her voice on the gramophone until she walks in and we see that they’ve finally achieved a mutual understanding.

As I see it, there are three things that are wrong with My Fair Lady. The overall movie is too long, there is no strong antagonist, and many of the individual scenes drag on for too long as well.

All in all, it’s a very nice story of growth and redemption that is mainly character driven, but it us just too darn long. They probably would have been just as well to cut the scenes with Alfred Doolittle. Even though he does have some impact on the story, it is minimal. Two of the best and most memorable songs from the film are also in his scenes. I’m referring to With a Little Bit of Luck and Get Me to the Church on Time. Those are both terrific songs that are among the most recognizable songs from the film, and they should have been cut. As mentioned earlier, there was an opportunity to make Alfred a much more effective antagonist, but director George Cukor and writer Alan Jay Lerner missed that opportunity. Since Alfred had no real role in moving the story forward, I would have cut those scenes and streamlined the story. Or they could have actually created more of an adversary in Alfred. He could have kept coming back, demanding more money and more seriously threatening to take Eliza away. Creating a stronger antagonist would have elevated the level of drama in the story and made it a lot more interesting. They also could have done that with Freddy. It’s hinted that he could be a rival for Eliza’s affections, but they never push it as far as it could go. Overall, there is a very small level of conflict in this picture, and the picture suffers because of it.

The other main problem with My Fair Lady is with the scenes. Anyone how has been following this series will note that I often point out that scenes in musicals are much like scenes in action movies. The only reason for them is to get us to the next musical number. My Fair Lady has the opposite problem. The scenes in My Fair Lady actually do an exceptional job of storytelling, but they almost all go on too long. I re-watched the film this morning after watching it the first time last night, and I found myself fast forwarding through a bunch of scenes, like the scene where Eliza shows up at Higgins’ house for the first time, and the scene where Eliza and Higgins argue at the home of Higgins’ mother because they just became insufferable. Long after the point of the scene had been made and long after it should have been resolved, the scene was still going on. So not only did the overall film need to be tightened up, several of the individual scenes could have been tightened up in order to create what would have been a much more riveting story.

The problems with the lack of a true antagonist aside, I do feel that the songs in My Fair Lady are very effective at moving the story forward, as well as revealing character. That is why many of them are remembered for being some of the most beloved songs in movie history.

My overall impression of My Fair Lady is that it’s an entertaining film that could have done more with less. The performances of Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn are wonderful and their growth as characters is top rate. The dialogue is incredibly well-written and the songs are wonderfully memorable. It is, however, a self-indulgent film that goes on for too long and would have been better if some harder story choices had been made.

Did the Academy get it right?

I am inclined to say no this time. In fact, I don’t believe that My Fair Lady was even the best musical nominated in 1964. To me that honor goes to Mary Poppins, and I definitely would have voted for the latter over the former had I had a vote in 1964. Mary Poppins has a character that goes through just as effective of a character arc in George Banks. The songs in Mary Poppins are just as iconic, if not more so, than the songs in My Fair Lady. Indeed, Chim-Chim-er-ee (Oscar-winner for Best Original Song), A Spoon Full of Sugar, Jolly Holiday, and Feed the Birds are some of the most memorable songs in the Disney cannon. Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, but was snubbed for the film role in favor of the more established Audrey Hepburn, turned in an Oscar winning performance in the title role of Mary Poppins. What’s more, the story is much tighter, and we’re emotionally much more engaged in Mary Poppins. It’s very emotional when George Banks has his moment of realization and turns his life around to be the father that his children need him to be. All of that said, the film that truly would have received my vote in 1964 was Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Unlike My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins, it’s not an apples to apples comparison, but selecting the best movie of the year never is. Currently rated #39 on AFI’s top 100 (My Fair Lady is not on the list), Dr. Strangelove is a timeless film, despite its Cold War setting and themes. Dr. Strangelove is a dark comedy in which the stakes could not be higher, as human civilization hangs in the balance. Yet, through it all, the laughs are plentiful and the tension is palpable. Peter Sellers plays three different roles and is so funny that there’s a point where you can see one of the actors behind him stifling a laugh. George C. Scott is amazing in one of his few comedic roles, and it’s the film that made Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick. I don’t begrudge My Fair Lady for winning, as it is an entertaining and beautiful film with wonderful performances. I just don’t believe that it was the most deserving film that year.