My Fair Lady is a brilliant musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's famous play Pygmalion. My Fair Lady was produced in 1964 by Warner Brothers - First National Pictures. Audry Hepburn starred as the common flower girl Eliza Dolittle who was painstakingly transformed into a fine creature of loveliness by Professor Henry Higgins, played by the talented Rex Harrison, in order to win a bet he made with Colonel Pickering. This musical also stars Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Dolittle, Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Higgins, Wilfrid Hyde-White as Colonel Pickering, Jeremy Brett as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and many other delightful actors.

The play opens with Eliza Dolittle dressed in dirty clothes with a dirt smudged face peddling flowers in the street. It is here that she meets the rude and often demanding Henry Higgins, an intellectual man who studies dialects from around the globe. Higgins meets up with a fellow student of dialect named Colonel Pickering. It is here that Higgins brags that he could teach Eliza to speak like a lady and pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball within a six month period. He also comments that he could probably get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires even better English.

Eliza is intrigued by this and shows up at Higgins' home while he is entertaining Colonel Pickering with his phonetics equipment. Eliza offers to pay Higgins for language lessons. Higgins clearly sees her as nothing better than garbage, but Colonel Pickering makes a bet with him on his boastings of being able to turn her into a lady. He also offers to pay for her lessons. Higgins finds the challenge to be too much to resist. The two men take her in, clean her up, and begin giving her speech lessons.

Poor Eliza gives it her best, but she makes plenty of mistakes and nearly drives the men to distraction. They spend night and day beating the speech lessons into her head until she finally breaks and begins to absorb the proper form of speech. Professor Higgins decides to introduce Eliza to his mother in order to get her opinion of the girl. When they show up, Mrs. Higgins is entertaining the Eynsford-Hills. The young Freddy Eynsford-Hill falls in love with Eliza at first sight, convinced that she is a magnificent, fine lady.

Eliza is taken to a ball and not only passes as a fine lady, but is mistaken for a Hungarian Princess. When they all return back home, Pickering and Higgins congratulate each other and pat each other on the back. They also take full credit for all of Eliza's hard work. Not only is Eliza furious at this, but she is also worried about what will happen to her now that Higgins has won his bet. Eliza and Higgins argue. She throws his slippers at him and pitches a ring he gave her into the fireplace. When he leaves the room she falls to her knees to retrieve the precious ring.

The next day, Higgins discovers that Eliza has left. Only then does he realize that he misses her. As for the rest, you'll have to watch the movie. After all, I don't want to spoil the ending!

If you've never seen this musical, then I suggest you go out and buy it right away. It is one of my favorite movies of all time and I must have seen it more than a hundred times. I might just watch it again this evening.

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