This is a funny play and, in my not-very-exalted opinion, Shaw's best. It's not only amusing but incorporates all sorts of comments on ethics, social class, responsibility, and affection. It makes mincemeat of some of them.
There are many versions of the story but it isn't easy to get them confused. Especially eminent is the version with Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, and Wilfred Hyde-White. One of the reasons it's primus inter pares is that it cost so much. The budget must have been as generous as Hepburn's ridiculous bonnets.
That one was a musical, which is too bad. The tunes are nice and the lyrics appropriate but the play isn't a musical and the numbers, however smart, remind us that it's just a movie and detract from the more powerful elements of the plot.
Alas -- and I hate to say this -- but the performances in the Hepburn version are better than those here. Everyone in this version shouts as if they were in a play and must address the balcony. But when it's filmed, it's no longer a play but a movie, and the screeching sometimes becomes irritating.
Maybe it's partly for that reason, along with the budget, and along with the extra latitude the budget gives for retakes, that Rex Harrison seems so much more comfortable with the role of Henry Higgens than Peter O'Toole does. Harrison's voice seemed to convey an innate sneer.
Margot Kidder is a decent actress but she's simply not the gamin, both succulent and vulnerable, that Audrey Hepburn was. Nor is she the knockout that Hepburn was. Nobody was. As Colonel Pickering, John Standing loses to Wilfred Hyde White. Standing is a colorless nonentity, while Wilfred Hyde White was perfect as the sidekick. If nothing else, his presence was established by his bony face and nasal voice. Finally, as Alfred Doolittle, Liza's father, Donald Ewer comes on like a ton of bricks, while Stanley Holloway gave us his practiced and practical working man. He was cheerfully resigned while digging graves in Olivier's "Hamlet." I'm really reluctant to say this because I think most of the difference between the two productions may simply be a matter of money, a vulgar consideration. Peter O'Toole has been outstanding elsewhere, when he's not required to rant ALL the time. However, regardless of fine differences in performances and production values, it's still a funny play with an edgy undertone, and the play, of course, is the thing.
There are many versions of the story but it isn't easy to get them confused. Especially eminent is the version with Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, and Wilfred Hyde-White. One of the reasons it's primus inter pares is that it cost so much. The budget must have been as generous as Hepburn's ridiculous bonnets.
That one was a musical, which is too bad. The tunes are nice and the lyrics appropriate but the play isn't a musical and the numbers, however smart, remind us that it's just a movie and detract from the more powerful elements of the plot.
Alas -- and I hate to say this -- but the performances in the Hepburn version are better than those here. Everyone in this version shouts as if they were in a play and must address the balcony. But when it's filmed, it's no longer a play but a movie, and the screeching sometimes becomes irritating.
Maybe it's partly for that reason, along with the budget, and along with the extra latitude the budget gives for retakes, that Rex Harrison seems so much more comfortable with the role of Henry Higgens than Peter O'Toole does. Harrison's voice seemed to convey an innate sneer.
Margot Kidder is a decent actress but she's simply not the gamin, both succulent and vulnerable, that Audrey Hepburn was. Nor is she the knockout that Hepburn was. Nobody was. As Colonel Pickering, John Standing loses to Wilfred Hyde White. Standing is a colorless nonentity, while Wilfred Hyde White was perfect as the sidekick. If nothing else, his presence was established by his bony face and nasal voice. Finally, as Alfred Doolittle, Liza's father, Donald Ewer comes on like a ton of bricks, while Stanley Holloway gave us his practiced and practical working man. He was cheerfully resigned while digging graves in Olivier's "Hamlet." I'm really reluctant to say this because I think most of the difference between the two productions may simply be a matter of money, a vulgar consideration. Peter O'Toole has been outstanding elsewhere, when he's not required to rant ALL the time. However, regardless of fine differences in performances and production values, it's still a funny play with an edgy undertone, and the play, of course, is the thing.