Continuing my personal ranking of the 25 movie musicals deemed essential by the American Film Institute…

#9. My Fair Lady – 1964
(#8 on the AFI list)

My one memory from a childhood viewing of My Fair Lady is Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle, newly refined, slipping in to her former dialect at a horse race and shouting “Move yer bloomin’ arse!” to the horror of the upscale crowd around her.

That is indeed a standout moment in a movie that is filled with good humor, great songs, and delightful performances by the entire ensemble cast.

My Fair Lady started its life on Broadway as a Lerner and Loewe musical. Rex Harrison, who won a Tony for his performance of Professor Henry Higgins on stage, reprised his role for the film. Julie Andrews, Broadway’s Eliza Doolittle, was turned down for the film role because producer Jack Warner felt she wasn’t sufficiently well-known to movie audiences.

Audrey Hepburn was at the peak of her fame, and though she initially advocated for the casting of Andrews, she ultimately took the part. Producers weren’t happy with her singing, however, so they had Marni Nixon dub her vocals. Nixon was the busiest ghost singer in Hollywood. She also dubbed the vocals for Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music, just to name three movies on AFI’s Top 25.

I’m sure Andrews would have been marvelous in a screen adaptation of My Fair Lady, but it’s hard to argue with Hepburn’s wonderful performance. For the first half of the film, she barks out her Cockney accent and is so brazenly ill-mannered that you can barely recognize the elegant beauty of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Harrison, too, is a marvel. His songs are elaborate and hilarious, and he perfectly captures Higgins’ pomposity and arrogance while somehow making him at least a little bit likable.

My Fair Lady was an unqualified success, hailed by critics as a brilliant adaptation of the beloved stage musical, and a big draw for audiences. It was the second-highest grossing film of 1964.

The film that beat it? Mary Poppins. I guess Julie Andrews did have the chops for a major film career after all.

My Fair Lady was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won eight of them, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Harrison is another of the nine actors to win a Tony and Oscar for the same role (I mentioned Yul Brynner last week, and a third will show up in next week’s posts).

Hepburn didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, one of the Academy’s most infamous snubs. That year’s trophy went to, you guessed it, Julie Andrews.