This is a four-star movie in the various video guides, but not for me. True, there is much to like. It can be very funny. But two-thirds of the way through the film I began finding the Henry Higgins character unbearably dense--for all his brilliance--and tiresome.
Here Eliza Doolittle has been transformed into a veritable princess, but for Higgins this just means he's won his bet with Pickering. He can't see the beauty that's right in front of him. For that matter, throughout the film he cannot see the human woman that's right in front of him; he treats her like an object and is downright mean.
Higgins strikes me as the sort of irascible eccentric that we are meant to find delightful and, when all is said and done, endearing. It's been my belief that eccentrics are tiresome because they really have no sense of what they look like to others and in fact don't really care that much about others. They're too busy riding some behavioral or mental hobby horse. And that's what makes them eccentric.
Wendy Hiller is wonderful as Eliza, both pre- and post-Higgins. I don't see anything funny about the way Higgins treats her character.
I don't know anything about G.B. Shaw other than this film derived from one of his plays. It doesn't make me want to find out more about his work.
Here Eliza Doolittle has been transformed into a veritable princess, but for Higgins this just means he's won his bet with Pickering. He can't see the beauty that's right in front of him. For that matter, throughout the film he cannot see the human woman that's right in front of him; he treats her like an object and is downright mean.
Higgins strikes me as the sort of irascible eccentric that we are meant to find delightful and, when all is said and done, endearing. It's been my belief that eccentrics are tiresome because they really have no sense of what they look like to others and in fact don't really care that much about others. They're too busy riding some behavioral or mental hobby horse. And that's what makes them eccentric.
Wendy Hiller is wonderful as Eliza, both pre- and post-Higgins. I don't see anything funny about the way Higgins treats her character.
I don't know anything about G.B. Shaw other than this film derived from one of his plays. It doesn't make me want to find out more about his work.