Shavian Elements in the My Fair Lady Film
2013; Penn State University Press; Volume: 33; Linguagem: Inglês
10.5325/shaw.33.1.0160
ISSN1529-1480
Autores Tópico(s)Literature Analysis and Criticism
ResumoIt seems temporally appropriate that George Cukor's screen version of My Fair Lady should have been released in 1964, since it neatly concluded a half-century of attempts by actors, directors, and adapters alike to romanticize Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. From the very moment, in fact, that Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Mrs. Patrick (Stella) Campbell—in their respective roles of phonetician Henry Higgins and Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle—had improvised lines and stage business to imply to their opening-night London audience in 1914 that a romantic union between their two characters was inevitable, Shaw was embroiled in a perpetual struggle to control his conception of the play.To Shaw, the culminating point of Pygmalion was that Eliza achieves independence from the bullying Higgins. An Eliza-Higgins marriage, he declared, would have been “a revolting tragedy.”1 To that end, Shaw appended a prose sequel to the first (1916) English-language publication of Pygmalion in book form, in which he outlined Eliza's married life with the youthful Freddy Eynsford Hill, a minor character in the play. However, the public, in general, “went on preferring its own version.”2 The advent of talking pictures offered Shaw an opportunity to reassert his wishes, and to this end he wrote his own screenplay adaptation in 1934 for the first (German) film version of Pygmalion (Erich Engel, 1935), making it a contractual requirement that the filmmakers adhered to his (translated) scenario, in which any suggestion of a Higgins-Eliza romance had been carefully removed. Without having seen the resulting film, Shaw also granted screen adaptation rights on the same condition to Dutch- and English-language productions (Pygmalion, Ludwig Berger, 1937; Pygmalion, Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, 1938), revising his 1934 screenplay for the latter.3 However, the makers of these film versions ignored their contractual obligations, and to varying degrees implied a romantic resolution between Higgins and Eliza.All three films were domestic commercial successes, but it was almost certainly the international popularity of the British film, with its worrisome potential to influence future stage productions of the play, that compelled Shaw to revise his published stage text twice in 1939 (for, respectively, his 1939 and 1941 editions), on both occasions emphasizing (again) that Eliza did not marry Higgins.4 Following Shaw's death in 1950, the executors of his Estate—ignoring their late client's often-stated opposition to the musicalization of Pygmalion—granted the musical adaptation rights to the play to Gabriel Pascal, producer of the 1938 film version. The resulting Broadway musical, My Fair Lady (Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, 1956) was essentially an adaptation of the 1938 film, rather than the play, while the subsequent screen version of the musical eight years later was in some respects more faithful to Shaw than its stage counterpart, notwithstanding its continuation of the romanticization of the Higgins-Eliza relationship.This essay examines the 1964 My Fair Lady film, addressing the following questions: (1) to what extent is the film a faithful adaptation of its stage musical counterpart? (2) In what specific ways do the film's aesthetics convey the likelihood of a Higgins-Eliza romance? (3) In what respects is the My Fair Lady film more faithful to the stage version(s) of Shaw's play than the 1938 film version of Pygmalion?In spite of its inclusion on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Greatest American Films in 1998 (at No. 91) and its ranking at No. 8 on the same organization's list of the 25 Greatest Musicals in 2006, the screen version of My Fair Lady has received scant attention from film scholars. Gerald Mast attributes this neglect to a perception that the film is “too reverential for a ‘real movie musical’—giving up the clever game between stylized song and credible movie storytelling.”5 Its fidelity to its stage source has been overstated, however. In his adaptation of his own stage libretto,6 screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner makes numerous changes to the musical, rearranging the order of songs, deleting certain scenes and adding new ones, while incorporating a considerable amount of new dialogue material drawn from Pygmalion (the play) and the 1938 Pygmalion film (non-Shavian dialogue).Lerner makes nine principal changes in his screenplay:7The acrobatic “Street Entertainers” performance by three buskers that begins the stage musical is deleted.Eliza returns to Covent Garden the morning after her first encounter with Higgins instead of going directly to Higgins's flat in Wimpole Street.The order of Alfred Doolittle's songs “With a Little Bit of Luck” and “I'm an Ordinary Man” is reversed, so that the latter now precedes the former.A bathroom scene, in which a terrified Eliza is forced to bathe by housekeeper Mrs. Pearce and two maids, is added.Doolittle's reprise of “With a Little Bit of Luck” (Act I, Scene 4 in the stage musical) is deleted.Most of My Fair Lady's Act I, Scene 6 (“Near the race meeting, Ascot”) is deleted, together with a portion of Act I, Scene 10 (“The promenade of the Embassy”); these deletions amount to approximately two pages of non-Shavian dialogue by Lerner.A brief scene involving Higgins and his mother is added after Eliza's faux pas at the Ascot Races (see Shavian additions below).The Intermission/Entr'acte is brought forward so that it now precedes the Embassy Ball scene rather than following it.Higgins sings a new twelve-line verse in the ensemble number “You Did It.”Cukor asserts that the film version of My Fair Lady employed “even more of Shaw's screenplay than the stage version [of the musical] did.”8 It would be more accurate to state that the film is closer to the (third and final) 1941 edition of Pygmalion than Shaw's 1934–38 screenplay, since in two instances (both of which are asterisked on the following page) Lerner features dialogue in his screenplay that appears only in the stage editions of Pygmalion (all versions), and not in Shaw's screenplay, together with material that is unique to the 1941 version. Accordingly, all subsequent quotations from the stage version of Pygmalion are taken from the 1941 edition of the play.9The additional Shavian material in the My Fair Lady film comprises the following: Mrs. Eynsford Hill's interaction with Pickering from Act I is restored—“Oh, sir, is there any sign of [the rain] stopping?”10Mrs. Pearce's Act II remonstration (“It's no use talking to her like that, Mr. Higgins. She doesnt understand you”) and her attempt to retrieve Higgins's handkerchief from Eliza—“Here, give that handkerchief to me! He give it to me, not to you!”*The aforementioned Bathroom Scene (Optional Scene #2 from the 1941 version).Higgins's brusque treatment of Mrs. Eynsford Hill in Act III (“Ive seen you before somewhere. Oh it doesn't matter. Youd better sit down”).Mrs. Higgins's Act III objections to Higgins's “experiment” on Eliza.11Higgins's insistence to Pickering in Act IV that he had not been nervous during the Ambassador's reception (“Werent you a little bit nervous once or twice?” / “No, not when I saw we were going to win hands down. I felt like a bear in a cave, hanging about with nothing to do”).Eliza's exchanges with Freddy in Wimpole Street after her row with Higgins: e.g., “Eliza, where are you going?” / “To the river.” / “What for?” / “To make a hole in it.” / “Eliza, darling, what do you mean?” (from Optional Scene #5 in the 1941 version).Part of Doolittle's first speech in Act V—“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free…. Now I'm tied neck and heels and everybody touches me…. Oh, I have to live for others now, not for meself. That's middle-class morality.”Mrs. Higgins's scolding of Higgins and Pickering for not praising Eliza sufficiently after her performance at the Ambassador's reception (Act V).12*The non-Shavian material drawn from the 1938 Pygmalion film comprises just three brief instances: Pickering's insistence that Higgins give up the experiment with Eliza after the fiasco of her appearance at Mrs. Higgins's at-home day; the Ambassador's wife's exchange with Higgins regarding her curiosity about Eliza—“Such a faraway look, as if she's always lived in—in a garden” / “So she has; a sort of a garden”—and the Queen of Transylvania's request that Eliza dance with her son.Lerner's new (original) dialogue comprises approximately fifty exchanges of minor significance. One-third of these involve Doolittle in his Covent Garden milieu in scenes corresponding to Act I, Scene 2 and Act I, Scene 4, respectively, of the stage musical. The majority of Doolittle's new exchanges are with his cronies, as the former extols his carefree ways and rationalizes his parental neglect of Eliza—“I give her the greatest gift any human being can give to another: life…. Then I disappears and leaves her on her own to enjoy it.” Lerner provides Eliza with a number of new lines in the interpolated bathroom scene as she struggles with Mrs. Pearce and two maids,13 and also adds several exchanges to the Embassy Ball scene,14 increasing the element of suspense as the Ambassador's wife dispatches Karpathy (Nepommuck in Shaw's 1941 edition) to discover Eliza's identity.Thematic consequences of Lerner's changes. Lerner's Shavian additions in his screenplay principally bolster the transformation theme as regards both Eliza and her father by following the structure of Pygmalion's Act III more closely in the first instance and restoring dialogue from the elder Doolittle's Act V appearance in the second. In respect of the former, whereas the Ascot Races scene in the stage musical concludes with Higgins's roars of laughter at Eliza's “Move your bloomin' arse!,”15 the film version includes an additional scene at Ascot utilizing material adapted from the end of Pygmalion's Act III in which Mrs. Higgins remonstrates with Higgins over his experiment on Eliza16—“Youre a pretty pair of babies playing with your live doll.”17 Although Lerner does not include Mrs. Higgins's concerns regarding the potential social consequences of transformation on Eliza,18 the addition is significant nonetheless in that it underscores Higgins's inability to consider Eliza as a fully developed person—a point that is further emphasised by the restoration of his Act III line, “It fills our whole lives: teaching Eliza, talking to Eliza, listening to Eliza, dressing Eliza.”19 The terseness with which Mrs. Higgins addresses her son in this scene also underlines Shaw's point that, of all the characters in Pygmalion, she and Mrs. Pearce possess the most common sense.As regards Doolittle's transformation, the restoration of eight sentences from the first of his (Act V, Pygmalion) speeches emphasizes the comic irony of his plight to a much greater extent than in the stage musical. While the stage version fails to clarify why Doolittle objects to his new status as a middle-class gentleman, the film Doolittle identifies the essence of his distaste for “middle-class morality”—“Oh, I have to live for others now, not for meself.” To a greater degree than the stage version of My Fair Lady, the film also emphasizes Doolittle's loss of freedom—“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free”—while also conveying his realization that his predicament constitutes a form of retributive justice: “I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched [Higgins]. Now I'm tied neck and heels and everybody touches me. A year ago I hadn't a relation in the world, except one or two who wouldn't speak to me. Now I've 50, and not a decent week's wages amongst the lot of them.”Significantly, however, Lerner does not restore any dialogue from Doolittle's more serious second (Act V) speech, in which he reveals his fear of the workhouse. This omission is consistent with the overall tone of Lerner's screenplay, which in many respects is a more comic work than his stage libretto.In this section, I examine the film's various aesthetic elements, concluding with a discussion of how these encourage the expectation of a romantic relationship between Higgins and Eliza.Shot composition and editing. Not surprisingly, given that My Fair Lady and the 1938 Pygmalion film share the same cinematographer in Harry Stradling, there are striking visual similarities at times between the two films. In the opening Covent Garden scenes of both films, high camera angles are employed on Wendy Hiller and Audrey Hepburn—the actors portraying Eliza in the 1938 and 1964 films, respectively—to underline Eliza's fear and vulnerability when she discovers that Higgins is transcribing her conversation. Moreover, the similarity in the appearance, clothing, and grouping of the onlookers in both scenes is remarkable.20 In the Embassy Ball scene, the arrival of Eliza occurs in an almost identical manner,21 as she emerges from a door and walks toward the camera, while earlier in both films Cukor emulates Asquith's use of low angles in the 1938 film to emphasize Higgins's dominance over Eliza as he stands on a staircase. In both films, the use of shadow and contrast on Eliza is also very similar in the scene corresponding to that of Act IV in the play. The films differ significantly, however, in the degree of fluidity of their respective directors' approach, with Cukor employing none of the long panning and tracking shots that Asquith uses in Pygmalion, nor any of his montage work. Moreover, unlike Pygmalion, much of My Fair Lady is filmed in either medium or medium-long shot, with few medium close-ups, and virtually no close-ups.Cukor's camera is mostly static, particularly during the film's equivalent to Acts II, IV, and V in the play, with only the occasional panning shot.22 Reaction shots are minimal, and consequently assume greater significance than usual when they do occur, such as a cutaway to Eliza (to reveal her interest) when Higgins (Rex Harrison) boasts to Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) that he “could pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.” During Doolittle (Stanley Holloway)'s first long speech at Higgins's home, the camera remains entirely static. This composition style, coupled with the widescreen Super Panavision 70 format,23 reinforces the theatricality of the film, with the viewing perspective often akin to that of being seated in an ideal position in the circle of an auditorium. This is evident during some of the musical numbers involving characters other than Higgins, Eliza, or Doolittle. In “You Did It,” for example, there are no close-ups—or even medium close-ups—on Pickering while he is singing; instead, he is filmed mainly in profile with cutaways to Higgins for spoken comments and to Eliza for reaction shots. When Doolittle makes his first appearance in Higgins's study, and Higgins identifies Doolittle's origins as “Brought up in Hounslow, mother Welsh,” Cukor retains the camera on Higgins after this line rather than cutting to a (presumably surprised) Doolittle for his reaction.At other times, the editing is highly effective. Examples include the rapid cutting of shots taken from both low and aerial angles in the opening scene to convey the scurrying of people in Covent Garden during the sudden downpour, and the wittiness with which Cukor conveys the clipped speech of the British upper classes by cutting to a different shot of its members after each word—“Pulses/rushing/faces/flushing”—during the Ascot Gavotte, an ensemble number mocking the reserve of British high society.Visual motifs and color. Cukor begins My Fair Lady with rapid dissolves of still photographs of flowers in bloom, and these constitute virtually the only close-ups in the entire film. The flowers remain throughout the ensuing credits and eventually dissolve into flowers on the banisters of the entrance to the Royal Opera House, as its elegantly dressed patrons descend the stairs. They subsequently reappear throughout the film: at the Covent Garden market the morning after Eliza's first encounter with Higgins—again in close-up—presumably symbolizing not only a new day, but also the beginning of Eliza's transformation, and in the blurred foreground on both the left and right sides of the screen during Freddy (Jeremy Brett)'s serenade to Eliza, “On the Street Where You Live,” and its reprise. Thus, flowers are associated with Eliza as both a metaphor for the blooming of her character—or its transformation—and as a symbol for the transformation she effects in others. Freddy accordingly “blooms” in her presence. But as Mast observes, when Eliza abruptly leaves Wimpole Street, as she does after Freddy's reprise of “On the Street Where You Live,” by the following morning “the same street has become drab and autumnal—with gray tree trunks and limbs barren of leaves, brownstone houses devoid of color,”24 thus emphasizing the drabness of Higgins's life without her as he sings his soliloquy of self-discovery, “I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”As Mast goes on to observe, Cukor also uses color to distinguish between the natural environments of his two main protagonists: “If Higgins's habitat is the cavelike indoors, saturated in deep browns, Eliza's natural habitat is outdoors, blazing with color.”25 As depicted here, however, the vibrant colors of Eliza's pre-transformation environment of Covent Garden overpower any real sense of the squalor of her habitat. This is presumably deliberate on Cukor's part, for his motive is not one of social realism, but rather one of irony, for by associating the spirit of Eliza with color, he is able to contrast her character with that of the upper classes whom she would aspire to join. Accordingly, “Covent Garden's fashionable antithesis is the Ascot racetrack, where the ‘Ascot Gavotte’ takes the themes of Art and Nature, monochrome and color into a daytime outdoor world.” Here, the ‘proper’ grays of the men's attire and the blacks and whites of the women's symbolize a world “that … is inhabited by people who aren't flowers.”26 Cukor also uses color in this scene to signify that Higgins, in his conspicuously inappropriate light-brown rustic-looking suit, is as much an outsider as Eliza, with her socially inappropriate behavior.Use of music. In comparison with the Broadway and London original cast recordings of My Fair Lady, both of which use the 1956 production's orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett and Phil Lang, the film features a much larger orchestra and opulent new arrangements that emphasize the romantic and sentimental elements of the score, particularly in the greater use of strings. The chorus is also considerably larger than that of the original production. When four costermongers farewell Eliza at the end of her melancholy “Wouldn't It Be Loverly?,” it is not the voices of four men that we hear but a full choral ensemble. Similarly, at the end of Doolittle's valedictory ode to unmarried life, “Get Me to the Church on Time,” the extensive use of angelic-sounding high soprano voices in the choir differs markedly in impact from that of the earthier, leaner-sounding chorus in the original production. The greater romanticism of the film score is also emphasized by conductor André Previn's slow tempi, and the frequent use of the melody from Eliza's romantic “I Could Have Danced All Night”—a song in which she both alludes to her celebratory dance with Higgins after conquering her speech problems and implies that she is in love with him—which features not only in both the Overture and the Intermission/Entr'acte, but is reprised throughout the film from the aftermath of the Ascot Races scene onward. Cukor uses the melody to convey Eliza's contrasting moods; for example, the exultation of the Embassy Ball (where she dances with Higgins for the second time) and, later, the bitter aftermath of her fight with Higgins, as she searches for her ring that Higgins has flung into the fireplace.Music is also used to indicate moments of impending significance. When Eliza wanders through Covent Garden the morning after her first encounter with Higgins, a sustained note from a violin precedes Higgins's overlaid dialogue on the soundtrack (“You see this creature with her kerbstone English?”). As Eliza continues to wander, the music becomes agitated, reflecting her inner conflict, and we again hear Higgins tell her that she is a “disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns.” The melody then finds its partial resolution in a reprise of a single line from “Wouldn't It Be Loverly?” (“All I want is a room somewhere”), thus providing reassurance through the use of a familiar tune, as Higgins intones, “I could even get her a job as a ladies' maid,” before changing to a major key and a new straightforward melody as Eliza stands up, indicating that a decision has been made.Romance. Unlike the 1938 Pygmalion film, Cukor's My Fair Lady presents Freddy as a credible romantic alternative to Higgins, eschewing its predecessor's caricature-like depiction of this character. Much of this is arguably due to Brett's naturalistic performance as Freddy. Whereas David Tree overacts in the 1938 film and portrays Freddy as a slow-witted and ineffectual would-be suitor, Brett is consistently understated in a performance that suggests a “much less foolish Freddy.”27 Brett's Freddy is still clearly infatuated with Eliza, but not ludicrously so. At no time does he appear “frightened” of the more assertive Eliza, as Lerner's libretto states in the stage version of My Fair Lady (146); instead he is merely startled by her unpredictability. A contributing factor to this impression is Brett's relative maturity. Thirty years old at the time of filming, he is seven years older than the 1938 film's Tree—an age difference that de-emphasises Freddy's callowness.28 Brett's more worldly and passionate Freddy does not faint, as Tree's Freddy almost does, when presented with the opportunity to kiss Eliza.29 Moreover, there is arguably a romantic chemistry between Hepburn's Eliza and Brett's Freddy in their Ascot Races and Wimpole Street scenes—a quality that is absent in the equivalent scenes with Hiller and Tree in the 1938 film. As Sara Martin observes, “When Hepburn/Eliza sings ‘Show me’ to [Brett/Freddy], openly asking for love, it is evident that Hepburn and Brett make an attractive couple.”30One important aspect of Freddy's greater impact in My Fair Lady is due to a change that Lerner makes in his screenplay, which treats Freddy more respectfully than in his libretto. In the stage musical, Act II, Scene II ends with Eliza ridiculing Freddy by “crowning him with [her suitcase]” at the conclusion of her declamatory song “Show Me.” However, in the film, Eliza does not strike Freddy; she merely rebuffs his attempts to embrace her during the song. Moreover, at the completion of this song, Lerner restores dialogue from the equivalent scene in Shaw's 1941 version (optional scene 5) that emphasizes a much more perceptive Freddy than that of the 1938 film. Instead of emulating Tree's stuttering bewilderment when Eliza informs him that she is “going to the river … to make a hole in it,” Brett/Freddy—clearly comprehending Eliza's distraught and possibly suicidal state of mind—grasps her arm and asks her quietly but seriously, “Eliza, darling, what do you mean?”In further examples of Freddy's romantic aggrandisement in Cukor's My Fair Lady, the Overture, which plays during the opening credits of the film, begins with Freddy's “theme” (“On the Street Where You Live”), and continues for two and a half minutes, replacing “You Did It” and other melodies from the stage version of the Overture. It is then followed by the melody of Eliza's “I Could Have Danced All Night,” thereby linking Freddy and Eliza (musically) to each other from the outset. This symbolic partnering is further emphasized by the fact that, of all the characters in the film, it is Freddy (in medium shot) whom we first see (together with his mother), followed in the next shot by Eliza. This cinematic device recalls Shaw's visual linking of Freddy and Eliza in his screenplay, in which he introduces the “good-looking” Freddy to the audience before Higgins is seen, and then subtly links him to Eliza when, caught in a heavy shower, Freddy “rushes off,” followed by Eliza, who “disappears in [his] footsteps.”31Moreover, Brett/Freddy's manners toward Eliza are impeccable in their first scene together, and immediately imply a romantic and sensitive man, as opposed to Tree's haughty indifference. While in the 1938 film Tree/Freddy mutters a cursory “Sorry!” when he upsets Eliza's basket of flowers and then continues on his way, Brett/Freddy is no more culpable than Eliza when they collide, yet apologizes profusely to her and attempts to help her in gathering the violets. In an action that minimizes the class differences between them (or perhaps suggests that such differences are not important to him), he also maintains eye contact with Eliza as he kneels (smilingly) to help her. In short, My Fair Lady suggests that Freddy is both charming and lacking in snobbery—arguably important qualities if we are to believe that Eliza would consider him matrimonially.For her part, Hepburn/Eliza is attentive to Freddy and appreciative of his interest when the two meet again in the Ascot Races scene, gracefully acknowledging his gift of the bet on a horse. Freddy's impact in this scene is undermined, however, by the absence of reaction shots, close-ups, or medium close-ups on him and by the fact that, in comparison with Eliza, he is shown mostly in profile. For the remainder of the film, Freddy is similarly distanced from the audience. When he performs “On the Street Where You Live” and its reprise, he is filmed mostly in medium shot (and never closer); when he sings to Eliza at the beginning of “Show Me,” Cukor focuses his camera on Hepburn while Brett is afforded only a quarter profile. Freddy's visual marginalization in these scenes thus suggests a deliberate attempt on Cukor's part to undermine the former's romantic eligibility with respect to Eliza. At the same time, it is possible that commercial considerations may have influenced Cukor's decision to emphasize Hepburn, a major Hollywood star at the time, over the then virtually unknown Brett.Irrespective of Freddy's visual marginalization in the film, the juxtaposition of Brett's amorous portrayal of the character with that of Harrison's Higgins, who at fifty-five is clearly a much older man, is in stark contrast to the 1938 film, in which “the sexual competition for Eliza's favors between Leslie Howard as Higgins and David Tree as Freddy is won hands down by Howard's smooth Higgins.”32 Harrison's performance, in any event, is arguably much closer to Shaw's conception of Higgins than Howard's. In contrast with Howard's soft-spoken Higgins, Harrison delivers his lines “explosively” where Shaw's stage play (and Lerner's libretto) requires him to do so. As Lerner observes, I personally believed that brilliant as he was in the film, Howard was not the complete Higgins. We all ran the film together and I said to Rex [Harrison] that my entire argument could be based on the reading of one line. The line occurs in the scene after the ball when Higgins is “humbly” taking full credit for Eliza's triumph. When they are alone together, there is a moment when Eliza cries out: “What is to become of me?” Higgins looks at her and says: “Oh! That's what is worrying you, is it?” To me, when Leslie Howard delivered the line one could tell he knew full well what she was talking about. You could almost see in his eyes that he was aware of her pain and of strange stirrings within himself.33Harrison, in contrast, portrays Higgins in this scene as a man who is oblivious to any romantic “stirrings”—either within himself or Eliza—delivering the line in an almost-offhand, dismissive manner. Yet although Harrison's Higgins avoids any implication that he considers himself a “Romeo”—as Shaw had complained of Howard's interpretation of the role34—an earlier scene in the film suggests that he is already aware of his feelings for Eliza. This occurs immediately before Eliza makes her appearance on the staircase at Wimpole Street dressed for the Embassy Ball. In a line written by Lerner that also features in the stage version of My Fair Lady, Higgins tells Pickering that Eliza “matters immensely,” and then appears to reflect on the significance of his acknowledgment. By leaving his camera on Harrison for several seconds after he has spoken these words, Cukor subtly emphasizes that the moment is one of self-revelation for Higgins.Elsewhere in the film, Cukor employs a variety of means to imbue the film with suggestions of romance between Higgins and Eliza. At the end of the “Rain in Spain” scene, Cukor cuts from a shot of Higgins and Pickering, as they are discussing where best to “test Eliza in public,” to a medium close-up of Hepburn, who appears to be gazing at Harrison/Higgins in adoration. When minutes later Eliza sings “I Could Have Danced All Night,” Cukor cuts to a rare close-up of her singing virtually into the camera as she begins the lines “I only know when he / began to dance with me.” By framing Eliza in this way, Cukor creates the sense of a confessional release on her part to the audience. Later, when Eliza appears at the top of the staircase at Wimpole Street in her Embassy Ball gown, the melody to “I Could Have Danced All Night” is heard softly on the soundtrack as Higgins peruses her appearance, reaching its climax as Higgins takes Eliza's arm and leads her from the room in a manner suggestive of a prince escorting his princess. When Eliza subsequently dances with Higgins at the Embassy Ball, Cukor cuts to a shot of Pickering and Mrs. Higgins beaming with contentment, thus suggesting parental approval of the younger couple.Notwithstanding this romantic ambience, Cukor refrain
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