John Chard

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated. Upper crust phonetics Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) agrees to a wager that he can make brash London speaking flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) presentable in high society. Lerner and Loewe's Broadway version of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" comes to the big screen and is an utter joy. A winner of 8 well deserved Oscars, pic boasts top line performances, songs that either gladden or melt the heart, gorgeous costumes (Cecil Beaton) and in director George Cukor the venture had a man who knew how to blend together the theatrical with the core basics of human interactions. Julie Andrews had played Eliza Doolittle on the stage and it was something of a sore point to many that Hepburn got the gig for this filmic version. It really doesn't matter, Andrews went off and made another ode to joy in "Mary Poppins", while here Hepburn (dubbed by the wonderful Marni Nixon for the musical numbers) absolutely lights up the screen by being funny, heart warming and simply gorgeous in equal measures. Not for everyone of course, it asks for a lot of patience since it runs at 170 minutes, while some back story issues (which I care not a jot to write about) irk others. Yet to me this is never one where I find myself looking at the clock, I'm too busy tapping my feet and being beguiled by it all. If you buy into it the first time you ever watch it? then you will find it's a love that lasts forever. Bloomin Loverly! 9/10