My Fair Lady (1964/CBS DVD)
Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
More and
more films are being restored lately, though not enough and not fast enough for
my tastes or the future of cinema history.
However, some early restorations stand out and one of the most
impressive was for George Cukor’s huge hit film of Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady (1964) which has now been
reissued on DVD, this time by CBS/Paramount.
The film
was saved by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz in a rescue that was all
photochemical and just in time. It
happened so long ago that it was even issued as a deluxe 12” LaserDisc box set
with nice extras including a 24K Gold CD.
Fans still see that as a key collector’s item and it should be noted
that the packaging was some of the best that format ever saw. The box was comparable to the Blu-ray box
sets Warner is issuing for Wizard Of Oz
and Gone With The Wind. This DVD offers most of the same extras as
that older edition and will be fine until a Blu-ray is issued.
The story
is a musical version of Pygmalion as
a snobby language and voice professor (Rex Harrison) bets a friend that he can
take a down-and-out flower sales gal (Audrey Hepburn) from the streets and turn
her into “a lady” of such “class” that their upper-class friends will not know
the difference. It is a comedy, a bit
politically incorrect and there are other minor items to note about it, but it
is a well-rounded musical and until the latter reels become predictable and
obvious, a fine, entertaining film.
Many will
notice Hepburn’s voice being dubbed (Marnie Nixon had already done the same for
Deborah Kerr in The King & I,
reviewed elsewhere on this site) though Hepburn did sing and tried her
best. I would have kept her voice
pre-transformation and used Nixon’s after at least. Andre Previn also contributed to the music,
this was produced on large-frame 65mm negative film stock with Super Panavision
70 cameras and even on DVD, you can see the money on the screen. Wilfred Hyde-White, Stanley Holloway, Gladys
Cooper, Theodore Bikel and a young Jeremy Brett are among the supporting cast,
but Hepburn and Harrison have the proper sense of antagonism and with all this
talent (including Jack Warner working on the last major film at the studio he
founded, backing it up all the way) it is a serious event picture everyone
should see once.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.20 X 1 image is labeled on the back of the DVD case
as “16 X 9” but is not a zoom-in butchered atrocity of the film. Purists were not happy about 1.33 X 1
versions being made for TV after all the restoration work, but that version is
not here and this is not a problem. The
film looks really good and it is the same special print used for the LaserDisc,
a 35mm print transferred anamorphically from the 70mm print be unsqueezed to
the 70mm’s 2.20 X 1 aspect ratio. It
looks very good here, especially in the way of color, so when definition is
limited color is not. Depth can also be
pretty good.
Oddly,
the only soundtrack available is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo which has enough Pro
Logic surrounds for those interested, but this was a 6-track magnetic stereo
release in 1964 and the 1994 restoration screened in DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1
mixes, so that is a somewhat weak point here.
If you are wishing you had at least the 24K Gold CD soundtrack, note
that a better version has been issued since and we reviewed it. It is a 2-channel only Super Audio Compact Disc
edition of the soundtrack from Sony in their advanced DSD (Direct Stream
Digital) sound format that will only play on SA-CD (aka SACD) players and even
Playstation 3 machines. You can read
more about it at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6802/My+Fair+Lady+(1964+Soundtrack/Sup
Extras
include trailers, posters/lobby cards section with Rex Harrison radio interview,
must-hear Audrey Hepburn alternate vocals, Comments
On A Lady featuring separate interview pieces with Andrew Lloyd Webber
& Martin Scorsese, Vintage Featurettes, Vintage Footage, Vintage Audio and
an exceptional feature-length audio commentary track with Robert A. Harris,
James C. Katz, Marni Nixon and Gene Allen.
Nice, but the more I watch, the more I wanted new extras. Still, this is a really good single DVD,
especially considering all that is on it.
The Blu-ray has since been issued and it was a disappointment as this
link will show:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11308/My+Fair+Lady+(1964/CBS+Blu-ray)
Now you
can choose which copy to get yourself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
