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The great longrun stage musical made by Lerner & Loewe and Herman Levin) out of the wit of Bernard Shaw's old play, "Pygmalion," has now been transformed into a stunningly effective screen entertainment. "My Fair Lady" in Technicolor and Super Panavision 70 must clean up for Warners. It has riches of story, humor, acting and production values far beyond the average big picture. It is Hollywood at its best, Jack L. Warner's career capstone and a film that will go wthout now-forseeable limits of playoff in reserved seat policy and world rentals.
That Warner paid $5,500,000 for the rights alone is a staggering first fact. Add that after $20,000,000 the original stage production interest collects 47 1/2% of thenet. So a lot of people are going to again make it to the bank from this Midas musical.
Care and planning shine in every detail and thus cast a glow around the name of director George Cukor. Of course the original staging genius of Moss Hart cannot be overlooked as a blueprint for success. But like all great films "My Fair Lady" represents a team of talents. The delicate task of proper apportionment of credits will draw different answers but this reviewer would rate Rex Harrison's
performance and Cecil Beaton's design of costumes, scenery and production as the two powerhouse contributions. Which, of course, in no way neglects appreciation of the master eye behind the camera, to wit, Harry Stradling.
Alan Jay Lerner's screenplay derivcd from his own stage libretto has not attempted to improve on a hit, although there is some rearrangement, com-pression and telescoping for cinematic effects. Some of the action is "opened up." The color of London before World War I benefits through the carnera
creation of both working and upper class customs.
Gene Allen's art direction probaably constitutes a major credit, even within the master-plan of Beaton. Francis J. Scheid and Murray Spivack handled the sound, a mighty undertaking. A plus value for the widescreen version is that anybody may sit anywhere and hear every lyric and see every facial nuance. An important aid to the over-all impression is the editing of the footage by William Zeigler, which is exceptionally smooth, although there are a number of sharp jumps of locale.
This is a man-bullies-girl plot with story novelty. An unorthodox musical without a kiss, the audience travels to total involvement with characters and situation on the rails of sharp dialog and business. The deft segues of dialog into lyric are superb; especially in the case of Harrison. One can only guess the preparation and takes necessary to get the effect. Technical maps and paraphernalia incident to Higgins scientific work in phonetics have been given much attention. It enchances the verbal obsessions of the Harrison role upon which all is based.
Main credit, following a prolonged garden of flowers, stars the title rather than Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, who are billed below the show, and hence not strictly within the defined conditions of stardom. Some may wonder why Harrison is subordinate to the girl in the billing since he dominates: "My Fair Lady"as he dominated "Cleopatra." Only incurably disputions persons will consider it a defect of "Lady" on screen that Julie Andrews has been replaced by the better known Miss H. She is thoroughly beguiling as Eliza though her singing is dubbed by Marni Nixon.
Stanley Holloway repeats front the Broadway stage version. Again and again his theatrical authority clicks. How this great English trouper takes the basically "thin" and repetitious, "With A Little Bit O'Luck" and makes it stand up as gaiety incarnate.
Every one in the small cast is excellent. Mona Washbourne is especially fine as the prim but compassionate housekeeper. Wildred Hyde-White has the necessary proper gentleman quality as Pickering and makes a good foil for Harrison. Gladys Cooper brings aristocratic common sense to the mother of the phonetics wizard.
The lovesick young man who sings outside the house, and is otherwise just a tenor from sub-plot has been assigned to Jeremy Brett. He photographs handsomely and sings with nice melody. The Hungarian charlatan speech expert who nearly upsets the masquerade at the high style ball is plausibly handled by Theodore Bikel.
The staging of the fashionable paddock scene at Ascot closely approximates the tableau used on the stage, though enlarged. Elsewhere in the picture there are a number of. Freeze-action bits but in general the story is told with strict realism, albeit dressed to the burst of Beator's imagination. Women must dote on the gowns. All will be struck by the comfort and service for the well-to-do of the England that was. The house in which Higgins lives and where most of the action takes place is sheer recapture of a bygone era.
Hermes Pan cleverly handled the choreographie movemen t essential to some of the songs which travel

I should have known it was a doomed trip from the start.

We all managed to get up very early and were just about to walk out the door when the phone rang. One of my employees called in sick that morning so I had to go take care of a pool that he normally opens for me on Sunday morning. I have a limited staff on Sundays, so there were no other employees around to go fill in. We all went over to take care of the pool, got it finished, and thought, ok now we can finally get on the road. We've had a late start, but not too late to get there and enjoy the day!

We all piled in the Explorer and started off on our trip. I was so happy to be getting away for the day - this was a real treat for me as we hardly ever get to go away from home in the summer as its our busy season at work and we work every day.

Two hours away from home, the vehicle starts overheating. We tried to find a garage but this was Stevensville, where there are no garages open on Sunday. So, after a few hours of searching and trying to figure out what to do, we decided to just leave the vehicle at the Western Auto for repair and get a rental car, but guess what? There are no rental car places open in Stevensville (or anywhere else within forty miles) on Sunday. We walked over to McDonald's to get a fish sandwich and mull it over.

We ended up paying $87.00 for the only cab available in Stevensville to drive us to BWI to get a rental car. AND, the cab was an old station wagon that smelled like a combination of old house and beer, with windows that would not roll down, no air conditioning, and the blazing sun shining in on my side of the car! The ride was like a sauna and we had all lost at least ten pounds and were in a heat coma by the time the forty five minute drive was done. Combine all this with what had to have been stress-induced hot-flashes and you girls out there can just imagine what my ride to the airport was like :-)

We finally got to the airport, got through the process of getting the rental car and proceeded to the zoo to arrive at 4:00. Most of the animals were already inside for the day and the inside places were already closed, hence the reason why most of my zoo photos are of flowers :-) But we had a wonderful walk around the zoo in the afternoon sun and saw some of the beautiful animals there.

Anyway, there always is a silver lining, right? Well, while I was at the Western Auto in Stevensville waiting for the portable sauna-on-wheels to arrive to take us to the airport to get the rental car, this awesome little bug landed on my dress and decided to check me out for a good five minutes. I was able to get this close-up shot of him before he went on his way. I haven't had time this week to look up what his real name is, but one of the very helpful guys at the Stevensville Western Auto (who went out of their way to try to take care of us) said "yep, that there ma'am is a skeeter eater - don't worry he won't hurt you". So I took his photo and proceeded to enjoy some quality time with this cute little bug!