I've always hated My Fair Lady. It's stiff, pompous and dull. It features songs that were hopelessly dated by 1964. And It stars charmless Rex Harrison and human stick insect Audrey Hepburn. As an added discredit, Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle over the obvious choice: Julie Andrews.
Today, watching it in fully restored Technicolorama on TCM, with the sound barely on because I loathe the songs, the light bulb finally went off.
It's not a romantic musical that shows how a semi-literate girl from the gutter can - with the help of her "betters" - overcome class distinctions and enter society as a "proper" woman. A movie for lovestruck cat ladies and dudes of dubious s3xual orientation.
In fact, it's a satire of empty-headed upper-class twits who think that if they simply apply some polish to the working stiffs all will be well in England. With proper posture and unimpeachable diction we can lick the Hun and probably beat back the Bolsheviks while we're at it. Pip pip and jolly ho!
But, of course, the source material is George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Be hard to find a more strident class warrior than the ol' marxist gasbag himself.
So what we really have is the Eliza fighting to retain her working class dignity in the face of heavy-handed polishing by the preening Prof Henry Higgins. Not to mention the society twits he hangs out with. Watching it on mute, I get it now. As an added bonus, Id din't have to listen to Hepburn's screeching (her spoken dialogue) or whoever dubbed her singing.
So we end up with a stage play with a marxist theme turned into an unlistenable musical. Talk about a bad combo.
Today, watching it in fully restored Technicolorama on TCM, with the sound barely on because I loathe the songs, the light bulb finally went off.
It's not a romantic musical that shows how a semi-literate girl from the gutter can - with the help of her "betters" - overcome class distinctions and enter society as a "proper" woman. A movie for lovestruck cat ladies and dudes of dubious s3xual orientation.
In fact, it's a satire of empty-headed upper-class twits who think that if they simply apply some polish to the working stiffs all will be well in England. With proper posture and unimpeachable diction we can lick the Hun and probably beat back the Bolsheviks while we're at it. Pip pip and jolly ho!
But, of course, the source material is George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Be hard to find a more strident class warrior than the ol' marxist gasbag himself.
So what we really have is the Eliza fighting to retain her working class dignity in the face of heavy-handed polishing by the preening Prof Henry Higgins. Not to mention the society twits he hangs out with. Watching it on mute, I get it now. As an added bonus, Id din't have to listen to Hepburn's screeching (her spoken dialogue) or whoever dubbed her singing.
So we end up with a stage play with a marxist theme turned into an unlistenable musical. Talk about a bad combo.