Category: George Cukor

David Copperfield (1935)

Frank Lawton, WC Fields and Roland Young bring Dickens to life in David Copperfield

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Freddie Bartholomew (Young David Copperfield), Frank Lawston (Old David Copperfield), Edna May Oliver (Betsey Trotwood), Elizabeth Allan (Clara Copperfield), Jessie Ralph (Peggotty), Basil Rathbone (Mr Murdstone), Herbert Mundin (Barkis), Jack Buckler (Ham Peggotty), Una O’Connor (Mrs Gummidge), Lionel Barrymore (Daniel Peggotty), Violet Kmeple Cooper (Jane Murdstone), Elsa Lanchester (Clickett), Jean Cadell (Emma Micawber), WC Fields (Wilkins Micawber), Lennox Pawle (Mr Dick), Lewis Stone (Mr Wickfield), Roland Young (Uriah Heap), Madge Evans (Agnes Wickfield), Hugh Williams (James Steerforth), Maureen O’Sullivan (Dora Spenlow)

You could argue David Copperfield is one of the most influential films ever made. David O Selznick was desperate to bring Dickens’ favourite novel to the screen. But the MGM suits were convinced it couldn’t be done (800 pages in two hours?! Get out of town!) and anyway who would want to come to the cinema when they could read the book at home? They were wrong, wrong, wrong and Selznick proved that classic literature (even if it was a cut-down version of a great book) could be bought to the screen and capture at much of the spirit of the book, even if you couldn’t dramatise all the events. David Copperfield remains very entertaining, not least because it also showed you can’t go to far wrong when you assemble an all-star cast who fit their characters perfectly.

The story of the film pretty much follows the novel (with exceptions, deletions and abridgements). Young David Copperfield (Freddie Bartholomew, growing up into Frank Lawton at the half-way point) grows up loved by his mother (Elizabeth Allan) and nurse Peggotty (Jessie Ralph), but loathed by his step-father Mr Murdstone (Basil Rathbone) who barely waits five minutes after his mother passes away before dispatching David to a factory in London. There David forms a bond with the charming exuberant Mr Micawber (WC Fields) before deciding to walk to Canterbury to seek the protection of his aunt Betsey (Edna May Oliver). Growing into a young man, he faces romantic problems, the schemes of the vile Uriah Heap (Roland Young) and the betrayals of his schoolfriend Steerforth (Hugh Williams). Will all turn out well?

Stylistically, David Copperfield aims to be as true to the novel as impossible. It’s designed to look as much as possible like a series of Phiz sketches bought to life and the actors have clearly studied both novel and illustrations to craft themselves as much as possible into living, breathing representations of their characters. Well scripted by Hugh Walpole (who also cameos early on as a Vicar), the film manages to be faithful without being reverential and tells an engaging story with momentum – even if the pace accelerates a little too much towards the end.

Walpole’s adaptation splits the book into two acts: the childhood of our hero and his life as young man. Giving an idea of how the momentum accelerates towards the end, this basically means the first hour of the film covers the novel’s opening 200 pages, leaving the last hour to hurry through the remaining 600. This means several characters and events are deleted, simplified or removed. However, Walpole still manages to retain all the truly vital information and iconic material, and recognises most of the striking material is found in that first 200 pages.

This childhood story is very well told, partially because Freddie Bartholomew (while he has touches of school play about him) is an affecting and endearing actor, who makes the young David a kid we care about rather than either an insufferable goodie-two-shoes or a syrupy brat. He’s a smart, kind, slightly fragile boy who we end up caring about – and it gives a real emotional impact when his mother dies (a very tender Elizabeth Allan) or to see him misused by Mr Murdstone (a perfectly judged performance of austere coldness by Basil Rathbone). Little touches of joy in his life – like the time he spends at the Peggotty’s converted ship home (a perfect representation of its description in the book) are really heartwarming, because David himself is such an endearing fellow.

It does create an obstacle for Frank Lawton when he takes over, since the audience is asked to try and bond with this new actor having already committed their hearts for just over half the run time to another. Lawton also has to deal with scenes rushing towards the conclusion rather than getting character beats like Bartholomew. Cuts impact his key relations: his school friendship with Steerforth is relayed second hand, meaning Steerforth turns up only to almost instantly let everyone down; Dora Spenlow and Agnes Wickfield get only brief screen time to establish their characters. The schemes of Uriah Heap are barely explained (he’s just a hypocritical wrong ‘un, okay?). It says a lot that the last fifteen minutes rush through the deaths of three major characters, a shipwreck, a dramatic confrontation, David travelling the world and a resolution of romantic tensions. It’s the only point when the film feels like its ticking boxes.

But it doesn’t completely matter (even if a two-part film would have helped no end – particularly allowing Lawton more room to develop a character) since the performances are so good. Expertly marshalled by Cukor – who rarely introduces visual flair, but coaches pin-perfect turns from the entire cast – every role is cast to perfection. None more so than WC Fields, for whom Wilkins Micawber became a signature part. Replacing Charles Laughton mid-filming (he claimed he looked more like he was about to molest the boy), Fields keeps his own accent and some of his own persona, but still fits perfectly into the Dickensian larger-than-life optimism and good will of Micawber. His comic timing is spot-on – watch him climbing over a roof or bantering with David and his family – and he seems like he has just walked off the page. If there had been a Supporting Actor Oscar in 1935, he would almost certainly have won it.

He’s the stand-out of a host of excellent performances. Edna May Oliver is very funny and has a more than a touch of genuine emotion as Betsey Trotwood. Jessie Ralph is excellent as Peggotty. Lennox Pawle makes a very sweet Mr Dick. Roland Young is the very picture of unctuous hypocrisy as Uriah Heap. Only the young women get a little short-changed: despite her best efforts, Madge Evans can’t make Agnes Wickfield interesting and Maureen O’Sullivan is rather cloying as Dora.

But the film itself is pretty much spot-on for the tone of Dickens, even if events are rushed. The impact of the Peggotty/Steerforth story is lost since we are never given the time to get to know any of the parties involved, and certain plot complexities are only thinly sketched out. But Cukor marshals the actors perfectly and throws in at least one striking shot, of Murdstone appearing in the distance as the camera follows a cart bearing David away from his mother. It always looks just right and the characters that do get the time are perfectly played, so much so that a few performances (Fields, Oliver, Young) may even be definitive.

David Copperfield proved you could turn a doorstop novel into a film and, even if you sacrificed some of the complexities (and might need to rush to fit it all in) you could still produce something that felt recognisable and true to the original. So, for that – with the mountain of adaptations that followed – we have a lot to thank it for.

Gaslight (1944)

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman excel in Cukor’s cinematic staging of Gaslight

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Charles Boyer (Gregory Anton), Ingrid Bergman (Paula Alquist Anton), Joseph Cotton (Brian Cameron), May Whitty (Miss Bessie Thwaites), Angela Lansbury (Nancy Oliver), Barbara Everest (Elizabeth Tompkins), Emil Rameau (Maestro Guardi), Edmund Breon (General Huddleston), Halliwell Hobbes (Mr Mufflin), Heather Thatcher (Lady Mildred Dalroy), Lawrence Grossmith (Lord Freddie Dalroy)

Spoilers: Spoilers here in for Gaslight both film and play

Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman) has terrible memories of finding her aunt, a world-famous opera singer, murdered in their home on Thornton Square when Paula was just fourteen. Years later she falls in love with, and marries, the charming Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) who suggests she returns to London and her old home. To save his wife’s nerves, Gregory has all her aunt’s property moved into the attic. But then Alice starts to lose items, Gregory tells her she moves things and has no memory of it and at night she sees the gaslight dim and hears strange creaks in the attic. Is she slowly going mad as her husband insists? Or is she – and this is where the word comes from – being gaslit into thinking so by a husband who isn’t as nice as he seems?

Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s play, George Cukor’s bring a sumptuous version of the iconic story of a decent wife manipulated by a bad husband to the screen (MGM allegedly tried to destroy all copies of a British version from 1940 so this could be the ‘only’ adaptation). While the original play is a claustrophobic one-set affair, using minimal characters and taking part in a narrow window of time, the film expands and deepens the stories timeframe and uses a host of locations to build-up Paula’s isolation and mounting insecurity. It’s a subtle and extremely well-handled costume-noir thriller, that holds it cards close to the chest and is powered by excellent performances.

It also makes several genuine improvements to the original play. There, the villainous husband is trying to drive the wife mad so he is no longer constrained by her presence while he searches the house he has purchased for missing jewels. It’s not clear why the villain has saddled himself with a wife (when his life would be much easier if he was a single man). The film improves this immeasurably by making marriage to the wife an essential prerequisite to the villain gaining entry to the house. This one change unknots many problems with the original play and also raises the stakes considerably, by increasing the personal connection to events from the wife.

Giving a traumatic backstory to the re-named Paula (all the names are changed from the play), also gives Ingrid Bergman far richer material in her Oscar-winning role. Bergman’s Paula is already nervous and vulnerable from the start, and her desperate need for love and security draws her inevitably towards a man who, even before we work out he’s a wrong ‘un, offers her a sort of fatherly reassurance. Bergman’s heartfelt performance also contains a streak of independence and determination: she struggles painfully with knowing she isn’t insane, even while being told she might be. The film also gives her a greater sense of agency, and Paula’s final act payback works as well as it does, because Bergman has made her gentleness so under-stated earlier, that her sudden iron and fury are even more striking.

Opposite her is an equally fine performance from Charles Boyer. Boyer inverts his charm and suaveness into a ruthless opportunist, devoid of morals, who takes a sociopathic delight in his own cleverness, even as he semi-regretfully mentally tortures and manipulates his wife. He’s never less than charming – making it all the more unsurprising that Paula places as much faith in him as he does – but the little marks of danger and control are there throughout. Cukor uses a wonderful shot early on of Paula disembarking from a train, at which point a hand enters frame and grasps her arm – it’s revealed as Anton, but a brilliant indicator of his threat and controlling nature. Truth is, Gregory is insane, and Boyer subtly suggests this throughout: there is another lovely shot from Cukor late on where studio lights are reflected in Boyer’s eyes giving him an insanely intense gaze.

It all revolves around finding those diamonds. If there is one area that film is slightly weaker is that it doesn’t actually dedicate much time to that dimming gaslight or those creaking floorboards at night. It feels like a beat that should be hit more regularly (a montage would have helped no end), a more constant presence would have helped make it a more convincing continual dread for Paula.

But its counter-balanced by the expansion of the film to multiple locations where Gregory manipulates Paula to disgrace herself in public. From a lost broach in the Tower of London to an evening soiree where she is made to appear as if she has stolen a watch, it all helps to tip Paula more and more into believing she is losing her mind. Again, Cukor keeps the focus within all this finery very much on our two leads, reproducing for us as much as possible the growing claustrophobic fear that is consuming Paula that was as at the heart of the stage production.

The moments away from this are slightly less strong. Joseph Cotton has a thankless role (with an awkward mid-Atlantic accent) as a police inspector, who smells a rat or two. The ‘investigation’ moments around this are often heavy handed, and labour under the sort of exposition that the scenes between Gregory and Paula skilfully avoid. Basically, Inspector Cameron barely has a personality, meaning he never really develops beyond being just a plot device.

Conversely, a character who takes on a great deal more presence is Angela Lansbury’s star-making turn as a sultry, defiantly sexual maid, parachuted into the house for goodness-only-knows what reason (!) by Gregory, who takes every opportunity to undermine her mistress. It’s a brilliantly pointed little performance from Lansbury, full of sass and smirk (it got her an Oscar nomination in her first movie) that adds even more to the feeling of Paula being a stranger in her home.

Gaslight is all smartly directed with Cukor, brilliant as always with actors, adding more visual flair than he often does with his fog-filled London and noir-tinged Edwardian home. With strong performances and many changes that materially improve the original material, it’s a fine adaptation.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Three stars are at the top of their game in this classic screwball-style comedy

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Katharine Hepburn (Tracy Lord), Cary Grant (C.K. Dexter Haven), James Stewart (Mike Connor), Ruth Hussey (Elizabeth Imbrie), John Howard (George Kittredge), Roland Young (Uncle Willie), John Halliday (Seth Lord), Mary Nash (Margaret Lord), Virginia Weidler (Dinah Lord), Henry Daniell (Sidney Kidd)

In 1938 Katharine Hepburn’s career was over. After the flop of some now forgotten (wait, hang on…) screwball comedy called Bringing Up Baby, she took centre place on the Independent Theatre Owners list of “Box Office Poison”. Flops after flop hit Hepburn (all of them are classics today of course), and the studios did their damnedest to drop her. So, Hepburn returned to the stage, developing The Philadelphia Story with Philip Barry – and creating a lead role for herself that would play to all her strengths and help win back public affection. And which (with a little help from Howard Hughes) she would own the rights for: so, if and when they wanted to make a film, she could insist she starred. The rest is history.

The Philadelphia Story is perhaps the best example of the Code-approved genre, the “remarriage comedy” (because the code wouldn’t countenance the idea of a couple cheating). Daughter of a rich Philadelphia family, Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn) is to marry her dull fiancée George Kittredge (John Howard). George’s main attraction is he’s the complete opposite of her charismatic ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant). Dexter crashes the build-up to the wedding, bringing along reluctant society journalist (he’s really a renowned short-story writer) Mike Connor (James Stewart) and press photographer Elizabeth (Ruth Hussey), promising to introduce them as distant friends of the family so they can report on the wedding. But then Tracy finds herself drawn to Dexter and Mike and George as well – who will she end-up walking down the aisle with?

Perhaps the best thing about The Philadelphia Story is that you really don’t know who it will be – and the film successfully keeps the question both up-in-the-air and deeply entertaining. There even seems a chance (unlikely as it is) that Tracy really will stick with George (a tedious nouveau riche businessman with priggish middle-class morals who can’t even mount a house – imagine!). Directed with the sort of unfussy smoothness Cukor excelled in – and helped get the best out of actors – it’s a superb comic treat, with a sparkling adaptation by Donald Ogden Stewart.

At the heart of it, Hepburn is superb in a role that riffs considerably off her own public personality. Hepburn was smart enough to know most audiences saw her as far too clever by half. Her sharpness, acidity and no-nonsense unwillingness to suffer fools had made her hard to relate to. Quite correctly, she felt she needed a role where she could “fall flat on her face”. Which , by the way, is more or less the first thing she does – a hilarious prat fall while throwing Cary Grant’s Dexter out, him responding to her snapping his golf clubs by gently putting his hand on her face and pushing her off-balance (only Grant could have got away with that by the way).

Tracy Lord is a version of the Hepburn many people felt they knew. Tracy genuinely believes she’s smarter and better than anyone else, with unquestionable judgment and superior morals. The film is a gentle exercise in pricking her balloon, showing her she is as prone to mistakes, prejudice and, above all, getting giddy and silly in love, as anyone else. This is a fiercely practical woman, who sets high standards for those around her, suddenly finding herself falling in love with three men at once. It’s the exact flighty lack of commitment she spent years condemning her estranged father for.

This is all scintillatingly played by Hepburn, at her absolute best. The rat-a-tat dialogue (with its classic, Wildean comedy of errors and mis-identification) is under her complete control. She’s delightful when, under the influence, she flirts with Mike – Hepburn showing the world (clearly they missed it in Bringing Up Baby) that she could be as silly and vulnerable as the next girl. Hepburn knew people wanted to see her personae deconstructed, and for her character to learn that (in the words of another comedy) nobody’s perfect. It works a treat – and this remained one of her greatest (and funniest) performances.

It helps she had two of the greatest to riff off. Cary Grant is at his light-comedic best here, turning Dexter – a manipulative reformed alcoholic it would be easy to dislike – into the embodiment of sophistication, charm and playful wit, who we adore as much Tracy’s family does. James Stewart won an Oscar and matches Grant gag-for-gag in a comedic masterclass. He’s a master of hilarious comedic and physical reactions – and lovable enough to turn a chippy newspaperman into a sort of hilariously droll sage. His ‘drunk’ acting is also some of the funniest you’ll see on film (even Grant can be spotted cracking up just a little as Stewart hiccups his way through a scene).

Hepburn’s chemistry with both actors is sublime. Her romancing scenes – both the worst for wear for drink, but also empowered to say things they’ve clearly been burying all day – with Stewart are not hugely romantic, but also rather sexy (Cukor’s direction here is also exquisitely spot-on). It’s a masterclass in on-screen flirtation – and you can see why George gets as pissed off as he is. Hepburn and Grant meanwhile bicker and taunt each other with all the chemistry of a match and a fire.

Each scene has a bounce that teeters between heart-felt and farcical. The set-ups are frequently silly – but they work because they hinge on characters that feel immensely real. Every performer is spot on – credit also goes to a superb Ruth Hussey, one of the few grown-ups in this weekend of flirting, feuding children. Set in a sumptuously rich Philadelphian mansion, for all of Mike’s chippy criticism it’s a celebration of the smooth upper classes over hard-working, dull prigs like George. Its sole fault might be it’s too long (at just under 2 hours, a few scenes and set-ups outstay their welcome). But, as a classic Hollywood comedy, it’s pretty much the top of the class. Box-office poison no more.

A Star Is Born (1954)

James Mason and Judy Garland deal with ups and downs in Hollywood in A Star is Born

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Judy Garland (Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester), James Mason (Norman Maine/Ernest Gubbins), Jack Carson (Matt Libby), Charles Bickford (Oliver Niles), Tommy Noonan (Danny McGuire)

A Star is Born’s story had effectively been told twice already in Hollywood – once under the same title in 1937 and once before that as What Price Hollywood?, directed by none other than George Cukor. But Judy Garland’s husband Sid Luft saw the project was perfect for her. Luft thought the volatile Garland needed a director who could draw the best from her – and who better than Cukor, who worked with actors perhaps better than any other director in Hollywood. Cukor had been worried about repeating himself – but the chance to direct his first musical, first technicolour epic and work with Garland was too tempting.

The story is of course familiar. Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland) is an aspiring singer who – with quick thinking and performance nerves of steel – saves drunken Hollywood star Norman Maine (James Mason) from humiliation by involving him in a musical number at a charity event. When he sobers up, Maine goes to visit Esther to thank her – and is blown away when he hears her singing. Convinced she will be a major star, Maine arranges for a screen test with studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) and later pitches heavily for her to be considered as a last-minute replacement on the studio’s big new musical when the star drops out. Esther – or Vicki Lester as the studio renames her – becomes a major star when the film is a smash hit. But as her career goes up and up, Maine’s alcoholism and unreliability start to catch up with him and his own career hits the skids.

Cukor’s A Star is Born is a big, charming, impressive film that mixes emotional desperation with moments of joyous celebration. The film was not the box-office bomb it’s often believed to be (although it did do disappointing business) but, worried about its length, the studio cut the film several times during its release. The film we have today is a slightly neutered version, with several scenes reassembled by film historian Ronald Haver using audio, the odd clip and still photographs (it adds an impressionistic section of the film which you can’t imagine Cukor would have cared for) – but Haver did locate several missing musical numbers which add to the film’s impact.

Garland sings all the numbers, and some of her best work ever is in this film. Her late night bar rendition of The Man That Got Away (the performance that wins Norman’s heart) is superb. I love the affectionate spontaneity of Someone at Last, Esther’s recreation to amuse Norman of the sequence she has spent the day filming in the studio. This scene is playful, sweet, funny and has a freshness not all the numbers have.

Some of the other numbers go on too long – and it’s hard to escape the feeling that they are in there solely because of Garland and not because they serve the plot. Because this isn’t really a musical as such, more of a romantic tragedy with the odd tune, with each number a performance. It works superbly because Cukor’s sympathetic direction draws some of her best work from Garland – and a truly superb performance from Mason.

Cukor works particularly effectively with Garland who, in real life at this point, was far more similar to the destructive Maine (she delayed the film frequently with her absences and fluctuations in health). Garland is of course too old for the part – but it doesn’t really matter as she brings it such freshness, naturalness and emotional openness that you can persuade yourself that she’s a young ingénue at least ten years younger than she looks.

Garland was also surely helped by being paired opposite Mason. Not the first choice – that was Cary Grant – or indeed the second, Mason was hired as his professionalism and expertise could deal with Garland’s erraticism. Under Cukor’s direction he gives his finest work on screen here. His turns Maine into someone decent, charming, kind – but overwhelmingly self-destructive. His slightly slurred speech and ability to turn on a sixpence to anger makes for some of the best drunken acting you’ll ever see. But it works especially as we are desperate for Maine to kick the bottle. Because when he’s sober he’s the perfect husband and gentlemen. But Mason uses that to mine the deep tragedy of the character, his intense shame and self-loathing. The later sequences of drunken misbehaviour are heartbreaking (Maine’s drunken interjections at Esther’s Oscar-winning speech are almost unbearably painful to watch), and it’s all powered by Mason’s humanity in the role. It’s a truly great performance.

The film itself is perhaps a little slow and uneven around these performances. The musical numbers – whisper it – frequently slow the action down or grind the plot to a complete halt (none of them add anything to the story at all, and exist to showcase Garland). The film is so tightly focused on its two leads that it never develops any sub-plots to contrast with the main action. There is some light satire on Hollywood studios and their rapacious desire for more money – but not too heavy as the villain here is the odious press man (a weasly Jack Carson) while the studio head is a kindly, affectionate, fatherly figure who would never make a call based on business. The matter of fact way both stars have their names changed (the moment when Esther discovers Norman’s real name is a hilarious throwaway moment) is a neat gag. But the film takes a long time, frequently stopping for another Garland set-piece.

Perhaps the studio instincts were right that the film needed to be tighter – and some of the dialogue sequences reinserted by Haver hardly add much too the plot. Cukor’s direction is calm but assured though and the superb performances of the two leads make the film what it is. It looks fabulous with its technicolour depth, and it carries a genuine emotional force that pays off dramatically by the film’s conclusion. A Star is Born is uneven at times and overindulgent but it has more than enough going for it to reward the viewer.

Adam's Rib (1949)

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn go toe-to-toe in court and marriage in Adam’s Rib

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Spencer Tracy (Adam Bonner), Katharine Hepburn (Amanda Bonner), Judy Holliday (Doris Attinger), Tom Ewell (Warren Attinger), David Wayne (Kip Lurie), Jean Hagen (Beryl Caighn), Hope Emerson (Olympia La Pere)

He’s a tough-on-crime DA. She’s a top liberal lawyer with a feminist agenda. So when Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday) is arrested for firing a gun at her philandering husband Warren (Tom Ewell) and his lover Beryl (Jean Hagen), naturally Adam (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) end up on opposite sides of the court case in this witty “battle of the sexes” married life comedy.

Directed with unfussy calmness by George Cukor who, as he often does, hires the best actors, points the camera and lets them get on with it, Adam’s Rib is an enjoyable and fascinating watch, partly ahead of its time in its gender politics, partly relic of another era. It completely accepts the idea that a woman can be a successful, skilful lawyer – the idea isn’t even questioned – while still bemoaning the march of militant feminism. After all even the title is a humourous little reminder of where Eve came from.

The plot revolves around Amanda’s belief that a man firing a gun at a cheating wife would get very different treatment from a woman doing the same: that he would be seen as a man protecting his home, while the woman is a neurotic danger. Adam disagrees strongly with this – a crime is a crime – and to be honest he’s probably right (today Doris would almost certainly go down for actual bodily harm, if not attempted murder). But in the 1940s, this issue gets tied up with women starting to push against the idea that their role was just to follow the man’s lead and not threaten to shake up his existence. And that’s exactly contrary to what happens in this film.

Amanda is played by force-of-nature Katharine Hepburn at her most quick-witted and sharp, a lawyer more successful in many ways than her husband (and by being in private practice, probably the main bread winner as well, although that is never stated). Her place in the court is never questioned, which is interesting in itself in the post-war era where the idea of women in the professional world was just beginning to be seen as a possibility (although lord knows there was still decades to go until it was to be seen as completely normal).

It’s not a position that Adam questions. His main problems are more with the law being used as a tool for a very specific agenda, rather than a feeling that women are crowding into his realm. Played with brusque stuffiness and uncomfortable formality that tips over into moral outrage by Spencer Tracy (again showing his natural gift for both acting and reacting), Adam feels that his belief in the law is being damaged by Amanda’s use of Judy’s case as a political tool for women’s rights, rather than being judged on its actual merits.

So this becomes the spring board for a series of extremely well-acted (and frequently funny) arguments between this tempestuous couple as the court case turns from a flirtatious rivalry into an increasingly bitter one. These ding-dong battles work so well on screen because of the immense chemistry between Tracy and Hepburn, a couple so devoted in real life that they convey this even when really going at each other on screen.

Mix that in with an obvious sexual chemistry between them (and this film is remarkably open about sex, by my count the camera cuts to black to imply sex at least three times in this movie – and the couple have separate beds in their bedroom as per the Hays Code, but only one sees the sheets disturbed by sleeping!) and you’ve got an entertaining show. The courtroom antics are frequently both dynamic and entertaining, and the perspectives of both Adam and Amanda carry force – yes women are treated differently by the law, but you surely can’t deny that Doris broke that law.

There isn’t much room for the rest of the cast apart from the barnstorming Tracy-Hepburn show, with the two seasoned performers tearing through the screen. Judy Holliday comes off best in the second-string as the woman on trial, suggesting enough hypocrisy and two-facedness under the surface of her butter-wouldn’t-melt sweetness. Holliday was also helped by Hepburn’s generous insistence that she be made the focus of their scenes together – Hepburn being keen to help Holliday land the leading role in the film Born Yesterday, the play of which made Holliday’s name on Broadway (it worked and Holliday won the Oscar the next year).

Of the rest, there is a neat, naughty little cameo from Jean Hagen as the other woman, though Tom Ewell mugs as the husband. David Wayne meanwhile plays the Bonners’ next door neighbour, a supremely irritating musician, smug and trying, but whom we’re meant to think of as a witty, eccentric “character”.

The latter half of the film starts to tip a little bit, as Adam has of course to end with the upper hand (he is after all the man!) which he does using underhand tactics and an actually rather unpleasant business with a fake gun (the sort of trick that you imagine if Tracy had pulled in real life, Hepburn would have walked out of the door and never come back). But this is still a film with plenty of top gags and a refreshing look at a marriage where both participants are professional equals and which goes quietly some way in arguing for greater rights for women, before retreating back to its more conservative resolution. Still great entertainment – and Tracy and Hepburn are both at the top of their games here.

My Fair Lady (1964)

Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison cover how to speak proper in My Fair Lady

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle), Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins), Stanley Holloway (Alfred P Doolittle), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Higgins), Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy), Mona Washbourne (Mrs Pearce), Isobel Elsom (Mrs Eynsford-Hill), Henry Daniell (British Ambassador)

My Fair Lady is possibly one of the most popular musicals of all time. A singing-and-dancing adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, a satire on self-improvement and sexual politics, the original Broadway production ran for over six years and 2,717 performances, while the original cast-recording album was a smash hit bestseller. It was a question of when rather than if a film version would be made. When it finally happened, the film was garlanded with Oscars aplenty, not least Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

The musical follows the story of Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a cockney flower girl in Victorian London, whose life is changed after a chance encounter with linguistics genius Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). Higgins has a bet with his colleague Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) – he can change Eliza’s accent and manners so much that the shrill cockney girl will pass for a society belle. The bet will not only change their lives, but also those of Eliza’s father, sage-like binman Alfred (Stanley Holloway), and lovestruck romantic young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett).

From the start, producer Jack L Warner wanted to develop a new verison of the film, fresh and different from the stage production. George Cukor, the esteemed director from Hollywood’s Golden Years, was brought on board as a safe pair of hands – but it was clear Warner was calling the shots. How to put your own stamp on a massive hit musical? Well you start by getting a fresh cast in. Julie Andrews had made the role her own in the original production, so Hollywood was stunned when she was overlooked for the part. Instead Audrey Hepburn was hired – while Julie Andrews got the consolation price of being able to accept Disney’s offer of the role of Mary Poppins. Warner knew who he wanted for Higgins – and Cary Grant was swiftly courted for the role. But Grant refused, allegedly responding that he wouldn’t even see the film unless Rex Harrison was retained in his signature role.

So Harrison owes him a drink or two, because the film allowed him to leave a permanent record of a stage role he had played over 1,000 times on Broadway and in the West End. Harrison had taken a revolutionary approach to musicals, by basically not singing. Instead he sort of spoke the songs rhythmically – an approach that every other performer of the role has stuck to. The film is a brilliant capture of this unique and authoritative performance, and while Harrison is not exactly fresh he’s certainly charismatic, delivering every scene with confidence and well-rehearsed bombast.

Harrison’s steely lack of willingness to compromise also lead indirectly to a revolution in sound recording in the movies. Harrison refused to obey the custom at the time to lip-sync on set to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Harrison insisted that his performance was subtly different every time so he could never lip-sync accurately. Instead the technicians were forced to invent a sort of wireless microphone that could be disguised in the over-sized neck ties Harrison wears. This also means that at least one musical number has the bizarre situation of Harrison singing live, Hyde-White lip-syncing and Audrey Hepburn being dubbed.

Ah yes Hepburn. If there is one thing everyone remembers about Hepburn’s performance in this film, it is that she doesn’t sing a single note of the final film. Her actual singing was quickly considered by Warner to be not up to snuff, and so she is replaced by voice-double-to-the-stars Marnie Nixon. It’s always a mark against Hepburn, whose performance is often rather shrill, stagy and (whisper it) even a little bit irritating. In fact, she’s pretty much miscast as the cockney flower girl, never convincing as a bit of rough from the streets, and is so horrendously misstyled throughout that she also jarringly looks like a 1960s fashion icon floated into a period film.

Having hired the male star of the Broadway production – not to mention Stanley Holloway also being retained from the original cast after James Cagney refused to be drawn out from retirement – the film quickly settles down into being a straight Broadway musical captured as faithfully as possible on the big-screen. My Fair Lady is a film crushed under the pressure of its design, and watching it today it looks unbearably studio-bound and flat. In every scene you can never forget you are watching the action take place on enormous sets, with the camera pulled back to try and get as much of the expensive soundstage work in frame as possible.

As a dance musical, it’s pretty flat – Holloway’s numbers in particular are strikingly lifeless in their dancing, which makes you regret even more that Cagney couldn’t be lured to star in it – and much of the singing feels forced or over-performed. Even Harrison’s numbers feel pretty by-the-numbers from Harrison’s constant repetition of them. Even the more impressive scenes – such as the race track sequence – feel artificial and over-designed, the money chucked at the careful period detail and over-elaborate costumes and set (designs courtesy of Cecil Beaton, who allegedly drew the designs and then disappeared to leave them to be interpreted by others) seeming more and more dated as the years pass by.

But then this was a film that probably felt dated at the time it was made – it beat Dr Strangelove for best picture, and in five years’ time Midnight Cowboy was lifting the Oscar – never more so than in Cukor’s direction. One wonders at times what Cukor really did: Warner cast the film and led on the design and staging. Harrison and Holloway had played their roles literally thousands of times already. The camera work is as conservative and unimaginative as you can expect, with the film dryly set up to give you the perfect view from the stalls. Several touches – such as the staging (complete with blurry focus edges) of Eliza’s fantasies of the domineering Higgins being punished by firing squad – are clumsy and obvious. It’s a film made with no real independent personality whatsoever.

Not to mention the fact that it completely fails to draw any chemistry from the Higgins/Doolittle relationship whatsoever. It’s an odd one, as the musical takes on a romantic ending of the two characters together – an ending, by the way, that Shaw famously hated when a suggestion of it was added to the original Pygmalion production. Here, this comes from nowhere, and feels unbelievably forced and artificial as Harrison has demonstrated no interest at all (other than irritation) for Hepburn, and she in turn offers little back. When they come back together it’s hard to care.

But they cared back then as this was a huge box office smash. It’s very odd to imagine it now – because this isn’t a great film, it’s a decently done one that carries some charm but never finds an identity for itself as film away from its musical roots and never brings anything unique and imaginative to the table. It’s extraordinarily flat as a piece of film-making and seems increasingly more and more dated in its performances, its atmosphere and its staging. It’s got some charm, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough.