My Fair Lady is 50 years old but still young at heart
Change is inevitable, they say. It often happens at unexpected times and in circumstances you can't control. But sometimes, just sometimes, change happens when a misogynistic old rich guy makes a ridiculously immoral bet with his fellow wealthy friend, that he can turn a poor but fairly content flower girl into a confused and altogether spoiled "lady".
My Fair Lady
Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Director: George Cukor
That's My Fair Lady in a nutshell: released almost 50 years ago today, the film is a classic - a nearly three-hour-long rags-to-riches tale of high drama, glittering silver-screen stars and wonderfully catchy songs.
But it's also an unconventional tale in the musical world, based as it is on George Bernard Shaw's 1912 play Pygmalion. Along with rousing songs, there's an undercurrent of politics and philosophy behind the film, Shaw's shrewd dialogue and witty asides satirising issues such as the British class system and misogynism.
The film is a blend of both worlds, a meeting between Shaw's ethical concerns and the adaptation's Broadway-themed sensibilities. Alongside similarly issue-driven musicals of its time such as West Side Story and The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady signalled a change in Hollywood, one that ditched the previously delude-the-public approach and took on the zeitgeist of its empowering 1960s era, paving the way for modern movies.
But for all that My Fair Lady is stuck in our collective consciousness, it was a casting change that led to the film's major success: the original production starred Julie Andrews, then a fresh-faced stage star with no movie credits. Not wanting to take a gamble, the producers hired Audrey Hepburn.