my fair lady

The most impressive aspects of George Cukor's grand old Warner Brothers 1964 musical My Fair Lady are the immense but intricate sets, the indelible music (adapted from Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Broadway hit), and Cecil Beaton's lavish Academy Award-winning costumes and magnanimous hats.  Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) is a brash, naive Cockney flower girl who is groomed and taught speech lessons by phonetician Professor Henry Higgins.  This much beloved film hasn't really dated well--it's overlong, Rex Harrison's priggish Mr. Higgins is nearly unbearable (nevertheless Harrison won the Oscar) and lovely Audrey Hepburn's performance is at times unsteady (and sort of annoying) as she puts upon a Cockney accent and lip syncs for her life (to her dismay, the studio chose to dub her vocals by Marni Nixon).  Neither performer has the seemingly effortless grace and thespian skill of Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller who played George Bernard Shaw's Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion.  It's interesting how Pygmalion was filmed over thirty years prior to Lady but seems more modern, more complex and savagely satirical in comparison (I wasn't a fan of Lady's changed ending from Shaw's source material).  Yet it's hard not to resist My Fair Lady and its music and big-budget 1960s Hollywood appeal. Besides winning Oscars for Best Picture, Cukor's direction, Harrison, its warmly-lit cinematography, Costume Design, and Sound (besides the dubbing, many smoothly-handled tricks are done here), the picture also won for Art Direction (credited to Gene Allen, Beaton, George James Hopkins).  There's such beautiful attention to detail from the title cards of flowers to the moldings, the columns, posts, swinging gates, gilded lattice work and the Covent Garden cobblestones--individually crafted and designed.

The most breathtaking moment (and ultimately symbolic) for me is the Ascot Racecourse scene with its spectacular costumes and vocal harmonies. There's something eerie too in watching these upper crust characters as shallow, stiff mannequins, wrapped in black & white satin and silk.  Another highlight is the embassy dance ball where Doolittle is shown off in her iconic bouffant hairdo with a glimmering little crown, necklace and simple beaded white gown.  The middle of the picture becomes more resonant as Doolittle slowly realizes she is merely Higgins' show pony.

Perhaps because this isn't musical of dance, it comes off a bit stodgy at times, and it's clearly meant for the big screen, yet My Fair Lady is an essential, sometimes exquisite relic of bloated, dazzlingly hand-crafted Hollywood epics that would eventually fade within the changing mores of sixties cinema.  One of the era's seminal events even occurred while filming "Wouldn't It Be Loverly," when Hepburn got word of JFK's assassination. She announced his passing to the crew and requested a moment of silence; then they all walked off the set and went home.  ***

-Jeffery Berg

a woman's face

Known for his classic sparkly comedies, A Woman's Face is somewhat of a departure for director George Cukor.  This unusual and dark story was originally a play by Francis de Croisset that was later adapted as a 1938 Swedish film with Ingrid Bergman.   Joan Crawford is haunting in the lead role, the facially disfigured Anna--a notorious blackmailer.  Her beauty is restored with the aid of renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Segert (Melvyn Douglas).  She then becomes a governess for the prominent uncle (Albert Bassermann) of Torsten (Conrad Veidt), with hopes of abandoning her shady past and making a fresh start.  Mostly told in flashback from the courtroom testimonies of an eclectic array of characters (a unique storytelling device which works fairly smoothly here with such a vivid cast).  This is one of Crawford's most emotional roles and at times she is devastating.  The make-up is effective as well.  The film works less well in the third act when she moves to a chateau to take care of the almost unbearably shrill Lars-Erik (Richard Nichols), even though there's a few suspenseful scenes between them, including one that takes place in a cable car high above a mountain range.  Overall A Woman's Face is a fairly compelling mystery enhanced by Crawford's enigmatic presence. ***

-Jeffery Berg

the claws come out

"No pride at all.  That's a luxury a woman in love can't afford."  These are the final lines Norma Shearer utters in George Cukor's classic 1939 comedy The Women featuring a stellar all-female cast.  The Code may have toned down the original satiric bite though watching this film today and uncomfortably witnessing its politics (women are compared to animals in the opening credits), it's fortunate to see how much things have changed.  Yet fluffy romantic comedies revolving around a man's affections do still exist.  Hollywood even attempted to remake this in 2008.  It isn't too different from watching an episode of "Real Housewives of New York," except these Park Avenue fur-wearing queens have better dialogue, fights, and wardrobe.  Shearer plays likable Mary, whose husband Stephen (unseen in the picture, one of the brilliantly clever choices of Cukor and the film's female screenwriter Anita Loos, an adaptation of a play by Clare Boothe Luce) is cheating on her with Crystal (Joan Crawford), an icy shopgirl who pushes expensive fragrances like 'Summer Rain.'  Rosalind Russell is Syliva Fowler who joyously and deliriously dishes out the gossip to the Park Avenue set with 'Jungle Red' nails.

Overall The Women is a fun, glossy flick from the Golden Age. It's a treat for the eyes with all the fabulous costumes (those dazzling patterns and drapes and Shearer's enormous, fluffy white fur coat!) and oddball sets (exercise rooms and spas galore).  There's even a hilariously bizarre and flamboyant fashion show for the ladies (tennis apparel!) in Technicolor.  The patina-thin plot buried under mile-a-minute dialogue sometimes grows tiresome and the picture occasionally lags in energy but it zings to life whenever Russell (a comic marvel) and Crawford appear.  There's a brawl between Russell and Paulette Goddard that's one for the ages.  Legend has it that Russell left a permanent scar on Goddard's leg.  A hilarious emotional breakdown from Russell is a highlight and perhaps where Kristen Wiig's Bridesmaids meltdowns originated. ***

-Jeffery Berg