More
- Preamp, Processor or Receiver
- Yamaha TRS-7850 Atmos Receiver
- Other Amp
- Peavy IPR 3000 for subs
- Universal / Blu-ray / CD Player
- Panasonic UB820 4K UHD Player
- Front Speakers
- Cheap Thrills Mains
- Center Channel Speaker
- Cheap Thrills Center
- Surround Speakers
- Volt 10 Surrounds
- Surround Back Speakers
- Volt 10 Rear Surrounds
- Rear Height Speakers
- Volt 6 Overheads
- Subwoofers
- 2x Marty subs (full size with SI 18's)
- Video Display Device
- Sony 85 inch X950H FALD TV
My Fair Lady
Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:
Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:
Audrey Hepburn was always a celebrity crush of mine growing up, and considering that I grew up in a fairly conservative household (my parents were from a much older generation, as they were nearly 45 when I was born) so films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady were shown for family movie night many a time. While Breakfast at Tiffany’s is usually touted as her “best” film, I’m firmly in the camp that My Fair Lady holds that crown with relative ease. It’s not as serious or “deep” as Breakfast at Tiffany’s but it is a masterful musical that captures the heart and soul of fun and lovable in ways that most of her movies aspired to emulate and reach. It’s catchy, joyous, and full of vivacious life in a sort of Beauty and the Beast romance between a simple flower girl and an obnoxious blue blooded phonetics professor.
Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) is a simple flower girl in London, peddling her wares to anyone who will pay a few pence for said flowers, and has no aspirations of being anything else. She speaks with a rough cockney accent, and no one considers her anything but “one of the guys”. She has to make do on her own due to the fact that her father (Stanley Holloway) is a raging drunk and notorious bum, leaving her to make her own way in the world. That is until an obnoxious phonetics professor by the name of Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) catches her in the wild and muses that he could turn her from a simple flower girl into a veritable princess, just by teaching her to talk.
Tentatively taking him up on his offer, Eliza agrees to spend the next several months living in Professor Higgins large estate learning how to speak, talk, walk, and generally act like a lady of culture as Higgins and his friend Col Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) make a bet on whether he can pull off the stunt. While it seems hard enough to learn how to speak like a lady, it’s only made harder due to the fact that Professor Higgins is an outright jackass. He bloviates, is arrogant beyond belief, and is as rough around the manners as a commoner, just hidden behind his blue blooded aristocratic book learning.
Rex Harrison also steals the rest of the movie as the brash Professor Higgins. He’s so over the top with his boorish and rude behavior that you almost love to hate him, and hate to love him. He can’t sing nearly as well as the rest of the cast, but he exudes that sort of rude charm that made him the pariah of the high society that he once came from. The movie plays his brutishness against Eliza’s burgeoning ladyhood (if that’s a word) so delicately and wonderfully that you can’t help but grin at the antics the two get into with their oil and water personalities. Their romance is nearly as good, especially when watching Higgins come to grips with the knowledge that his feels for Eliza have grown to something more than camaraderie. ESPECIALLY when he’s taken down a peg or too by Eliza’s newfound strength and confidence in her own self worth. My ONLY complaint with the movie (and the reason I’m not giving a 5/5 rating) is the ending. I felt as if the movie needed a few more minutes, or at least brought their confrontation a half hour earlier in the film, as it seems like Eliza comes back TOO soon to Higgins, not allowing him time enough to actually change. The film implies that he has gained a new respect for her, but the audience doesn’t have enough time to process it, nor does the film show enough of it to make that end scene seem realistic. That being said, it’s a minor quibble at best for an otherwise fantastic film.
Rating:
Rated G for General Audiences by the MPAA
4K Video:
Video: 
The film opens up with a resplendent display of color, utilizing the HDR and Dolby Vision abilities to their max. Colors are rich and vibrant, with the pink of Eliza’s hat plumage standing out against the deep and depth filled black night of London’s streets. There’s no sign of black crush, no sign of artifacting, and the detail levels are insane. I honestly haven’t seen the film for a couple of years, but still I was flabbergasted watching the movie as if for the very first time. Intricate details such as the lace modeling on Eliza’s dress at the horse race stood out like never before, as did the sparkling sequins on her dress at the infamous ball that is the highlight of the film’s plot. You can even see the stitching and stripping of the fabric on the house keeper’s uniform as the girls are trying to strip Eliza down for her (much needed) bath at the beginning of the bet.
As I briefly touched upon above, the HDR/DV tweaks are incredibly well done. Colors just pop off the screen, but the whites and the black levels really take the cake. The dark, shadowy, streets of London have never looked this revealing, and comparing against the “perfect” 2015 Blu-ray (using the same restoration of the 65 mm film at 8K) shows startling amounts of detail that the 1080p disc just doesn’t have the capability of showing. Except for a few tiny close ups that appear soft (some of the extreme close ups in the final argument at Mrs. Higgins house) the film is razor sharp from beginning to end, with nothing short of abject perfection being the final analysis.
Audio:
Extras:
• 1963 Production Kick-Off Dinner
• Los Angeles Premiere
• British Premiere
• George Cukor Directs Baroness Bina Rothschild
• Rex Harrison Radio Interview
• Production Tests
-- Lighting
-- Wilfred Hyde White make-up
-- Rain/set
-- Covent Garden lighting test
-- Alt. Higgins/Pickering screen test
• Alternate Audrey Hepburn Vocals
-- Show Me
-- Wouldn't It Be Loverly?
• Galleries
• Comments on a Lady
-- Andrew Lloyd Webber
-- Martin Scorsese
• Theatrical Featurettes
-- Story of a Lady
-- Design for a Lady
-- The Fairest Fair Lady
• Trailers
• Theatrical Reissue: Poster Illustration
• Theatrical Reissue: Poster Illustration Reserved Seats Trailer
• Theatrical Reissue: Poster Illustration Awards
• Theatrical Reissue
• Awards
-- Rex Harrison BFI Honor
-- Rex Harrison Golden Globe Acceptance Speech
-- Academy Awards Ceremony Highlights 4/5/65
Final Score:
I said it before, and I’ll say it again….WOW! This is an absolutely amazing disc that outclasses the already amazing Blu-ray, and for an absolutely amazing film. My Fair Lady is probably the pinnacle of Audrey Hepburn films in my personal opinion, and this release is just dazzling. I know that it’s not that common, but I must point out that his only comes with the 4K UHD disc, and the 2nd disc that housed all the special features from the 2015 combo set, so there is no Blu-ray for those of you who have TV’s and stations that need the Blu-ray. So in that case I’d suggest holding onto the Blu-ray as well. The Video alone is the only thing “different” from said 2015 Blu-ray, but it’s a doozy on 4K UHD, and WELL worth the cost of upgrading if you have the equipment. A great film, a great disc, and this garners one of the highest recommendations I can give. Must Own.
Technical Specifications:
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett
Directed by: George Cukor
Written by: Alan Jay Lerner (Book of musical play), George Bernard Shaw (from the play)
Aspect Ratio: 2.20:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: G
Runtime: 172 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: May 25th, 2021
Recommendation: Must Own
