My Fair Lady (Warner Bros.) (1964)

The Synopsis (Not For Publication) The socialite crowd of 1912 London emerges from Covent Garden Opera House. It is raining. Freddy Eynsford-Hill (JEREMY BRETT) bumps into Eliza _— Doolittle (AUDREY HEPBURN), a dowdy flower girl who shelters under the portico of St. Peter's. Eliza's violets fall into the mud. Attempting to sell her wilted wares to a bystander, Colonel Pickering {WILFRID HYDE-WHITE), a student of dialects, Eliza is shocked to find an eavesdropper taking notes of her speech. He is Professor Henry Higgins (REX HARRISON), an authority on phonetics. Using her as a horrible example, Higgins complains WHY CAN'T THE ENGLISH speak their own language, and boasts that under his speech tutelage Eliza could become a saleswoman in a flower shop or a maid, and could even pass as a duchess in six months. Pickering and Higgins, who have heard of one another, are delighted to meet. They go off arm-in-arm after Higgins contemptuously tosses a few coins into Eliza's basket. The coins make her, for the moment, an heiress among her poor companions and she drifts into a’reverie about the kind of pleasant life she would like to have, WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY? At dawn, after a night of carousing, Alfred P. Doolittle (STANLEY HOLLOWAY), her work-detesting father, goes panhandling and even squeezes a coin out of Eliza. After Alfred leaves, Eliza recalls the boast of Higgins, determines to improve her speech ‘so that she may become a lady in a flowershop, and invades the professor's home. She offers to pay for lessons to fulfill her ambition. The irritable and astonished professor is tempted to try it, and decides to do so when challenged by Pickering to make good his brag. Higgins orders his housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce (MONA WASHBOURNE), to give Eliza a bath, burn her garish clothes and buy her a proper wardrobe. Eliza, confronted by a tub for the first time in her life, has to be subdued. When Pickering asks about Higgins’ intentions toward her, the professor vows I'M AN ORDINARY MAN who will never let a woman shatter his contented bachelor life. Learning of his daughter's residence with Higgins, Alfred Doolittle concludes that WITH A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK he can wring advantage from the situation. He calls upon the professor, makes it clear that he has no objection but wants to be paid five pounds. He refuses ten because more money would make him prudent and he would lose his happiness. Higgins, impressed by Doolittle's total amorality, writes a jesting letter to an American millionaire who is searching for England's most original moral thinker, and recommends Doolittle to the American. The professor starts on Eliza's speech, works her half to death, withholds such goodies as lunch, dinner and chocolates until she masters correct pronunciation. His treatment of her prompts Eliza to fantasies of revenge, JUST YOU WAIT! Higgins continues to use every sort of means, from phonetics apparatus to marbles in her mouth, to train her. The servants in the house deplore his overwork in POOR PROFESSOR HIGGINS. At last a day of joy and victory arrives. Eliza's former "The rine in spine sties minely in the pline' suddenly changes into THE RAIN IN SPAIN STAYS MAINLY IN THE PLAIN. Thrilled by this first success and the enthusiastic response of Higgins, she goes to bed on a cloud of euphoria, | COULD HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT. Believing she is ready for a tryout, Higgins arranges to seat Eliza in the box of his mother (GLADYS COOPER) at the snobbish Ascot Races. Elegantly gowned, carefully guarding her enunciation and limiting her comments to the weather and everybody's health, Eliza makes a hit with Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Everything goes swimmingly, if a bit irrationally, until the big race, when Eliza's excitement causes her to forget her training, and she screams, "Come on, Dover, move your blinkin' arse!" Freddy later calls on Eliza, singing ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE, but is turned away by the housekeeper. With further study and grooming, Eliza at last is fit to attend an embassy ball. She is a vision, her performance is impeccable, she evokes attentive comment from all, dances with an actual prince and then Zoltan Karpathy (THEODORE BIKEL), a linguistics expert who decides she is of royal Hungarian descent. In triumph, Eliza, Higgins and Pickering return home. The men congratulate each other on the victory with YOU DID IT! Eliza, the girl who went through the ordeal, stands in a corner unnoticed and ignored. When Higgins retires, she throws his slippers at him. In the bitter quarrel that follows, she points out that by converting her into a lady he has deprived her of the flower girl trade she once followed. She charges him with indifference | DIRECT FROM ITS PREMIERE SHOWINGS. SPECIAL ENGAGI NOW EVERYONE CAI LOVERLY MOTION PIC Winner of 8 Academy Awards including Best cal AUDREY HEPBURN-RES RR GLADYS COOPER Jeremy BREIT ans THEODORE BIKEL enow me ruav ev BERNARD SHAW BASED st one PLAY “MY FAIR LADY” OOK AND LYRICS ALAN JAY LERNER FREDERICK LOEWE. SCREEN ALAN JA\ MUSIC SUPERVISED BY ANDRE PREVIN MAT 401 — 4cc