Discussing My Fair Lady: The Ending

In his introduction to the Penguin edition of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion, Nicholas Grene calls the ending of the musical “a vulgar travesty of the play’s design.” Vulgar? Good heavens.

I appreciate what Grene is saying, that “the whole point of the play is the independent autonomy which Liza achieves, denying her status as Higgins’ male artifact,” though I disagree that that is Shaw’s whole point. He has a variety of them going on, which confuses things and prevents the play from being divided up into neat points. And there are certainly some issues I have with Shaw’s epilogue to “Pygmalion,” which he wrote later to detail once and for all what happens to Eliza and Henry Higgins so people would stop trying to put a romantic spin on his un-romantic play. However, after some reading of the play, I have concluded that the romantic spin is partially his own fault and that his epilogue is not very satisfactory at all and far too neat (but I want to write about that next week).

Perhaps I am just being defensive, because the truth is, I love the musical and I love the play. It is the musical that brought me to Shaw. I am obsessed with all things “Pygmalion” and I don’t think it’s right having one manifestation played against the next, as if they were in antagonism with each other. But in my mind, complaining that the musical is a travesty of the play is like saying the play is a travesty of Ovid’s Pygmalion account. Shaw has completely changed the meaning and ethos of Ovid’s passage in Metamorphoses. This is not a travesty. It’s genius.

But when people discuss the ending of the musical, they forget that there was a movie made in 1938, produced by Gabriel Pascal, adapted from his own work by George Bernard Shaw and starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller. There had been two previous adaptations of “Pygmalion” into film, a Dutch and German version that Shaw loathed and thought were highly sentimentalized. It was generally thought that the play could never really be turned into a good movie. One, because it is a drawing room comedy of manners and all the action that we associate with the story – the ball, teaching Eliza how to speak and act – occurs offstage. Second, not only did the play not have a happy ending, it did not really have an ending at all. Imagine, for a moment, a movie that ends simply with Eliza walking out of the room. It would be a bit abrupt.

Shaw worked very closely with Pascal on the adaption of his play and ultimately was extremely pleased with it, despite the ending that Pascal managed to slip in without his knowledge. He also opposed the casting of Leslie Howard – he wanted Charles Laughton – because it slanted Higgins towards possible romance (something I don’t think people would have been as inclined to anticipate if Laughton had been in the film). But the film remains remarkably, delightfully literate for a movie and Shaw wrote to Pascal that it was “an all-British film, made by British methods without interference from American script writers, no spurious dialogue, but every word by its author, a revolution in the presentation of drama in the film.” He remained grateful to Pascal for taking many of his plays (including an excellent film adaption of “Major Barbara,” also starring Wendy Hiller) and faithfully doing them justice in a cinematic setting.

But about that ending. In the epilogue to the play, Shaw has Eliza marry Freddy, a man she neither loves nor respects. I suppose he married her off to be cranky and to try to settle her fate so no one else could, even in their imagination, marry her to Higgins. I don’t find it very convincing, however. It seems more likely that she would marry neither man.

But when Lerner and Loewe came together to make a musical, they could not for the life of them figure out how to turn the play into a musical. Oscar Hammerstein II declared that it was impossible. No romance, no chorus, a whole lot of talk. Finally, the solution hit them and they decided to base their musical, not on the play, but on the 1938 film adaption. And indeed, when you watch the 1938 adaption, it is remarkable how similar they are, in dialogue, in action, in events. One almost expects Leslie Howard to break into song. So really, the musical is a very good adaptation of a movie that Shaw approved of. Except the ending, of course.

But I have no real problem with the romantic ending, since it is perfectly internally consistent with the story that the movie and musical are telling. And neither musical nor movie is highly sentimental. In the musical, there are no love duets, the word love is never even mentioned, the characters don’t sit around contemplating their love, since they don’t even realize it. Higgins’ moment of revelation comes at the end, when he sings “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”

For Alan Jay Lerner (who wrote the book and lyrics of the musical), “My Fair Lady” involves a transformation not just for Eliza, but most fundamentally for Professor Higgins. Eliza’s character doesn’t fundamentally change, but his does. He’s been unconsciously softened by her. In Lerner’s words, “in a far less tangible way, Higgins goes through as much of a transformation as Eliza, the only difference being that Shaw would never allow the transformation to run its natural course.” Shaw’s Higgins remains fixed in character, Lerner and Loewe, and even Pascal, have their Higgins undergo a character arc.

Another reason I think this works is because movies and musicals are fundamentally different from a play. A movie naturally tends towards romance – or at least strong emotional ties – because it is a more intimate art form than a play. And a musical must have some transcendent emotions to express musically, otherwise, why bother writing a musical? The romance is told, the characters change, through the music, not through words. In fact, because of the music of Frederick Loewe, Rex Harrison is able to play Henry Higgins as a far less romantic figure than Leslie Howard, because he has the songs to express his feelings. Howard must do it on his own and is therefore slightly softer than Harrison.

I do, however, have one complaint about the ending of the film version of My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. My complaint mostly rests in the casting of Hepburn. She’s really not bad in the role, but she lacks that fundamental spunk and strong individualism that is found in the play and 1938 movie Eliza. I don’t think this is the fault of the musical, but of Hepburn’s persona. When she goes back to Higgins, it looks like a defeat, desperation on her part to be with him, without his having to change. But I suspect that with Julie Andrews it was different. You can even hear the difference in her singing of “Just You Wait, Enry Iggins” and “Without You” in the Broadway and London cast recordings. Hepburn is overwhelmed by Harrison, but I would have believed Andrews when she said she can do without him. Her return would have signaled a change in their relationship. I don’t have that same sense with Audrey Hepburn.

Sources:

The Making of My Fair Lady – Keith Garebian

Introduction to the Penguin Edition of “Pygmalion” – Nicholas Grene

 

Anna and the King of Siam (1946) – Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison

I love The King and I. The music, the songs, the chemistry between Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, Oscar Hammerstein’s positive and uplifting view of humanity that is present in all his musicals. It is one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s best musicals. However, after watching the 1946 Anna and the King of Siam – with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison and directed by John Cromwell – I do have to admit that in comparison, The King and I is not an especially nuanced story.

Anna and the King of Siam is far richer, covering a greater period of time and with more characters given more depth and motivation, though the story is the same and there are actually a lot of scenes and dialogue that were later used in the musical. Fortunately, I only occasionally expected someone to break into song (Irene Dunne could have done it, too). Truly, the movie stands on its own and is especially well-made.

The movie begins, as in The King and I, with Anna Leonowns (Irene Dunne) arriving in Bangkok with her son, Louis (Richard Lyon), to teach the king of Siam’s children and some of his wives. Many of the events follow just as in the later film, too. They are met by the prime minister, called the Kralahome (Lee J. Cobb), Anna rather unceremoniously meets the king (Rex Harrison) and impresses him with her boldness and intelligence, and then she meets the children. There is the same story regarding her desire for a house rather than to live in the palace (specifically in the harem – Anna feels rather bad about bringing her son into a harem). The same clash of wills, the give-and take, the learning of respect and appreciation for each other. The same friendship between her and Lady Thiang (Gale Sondergaard), the king’s first wife and mother of the oldest prince, Chulalongkorn (Mickey Roth). The same incidents regarding the king’s desire to demonstrate to Britain that Siam is not a barbaric country and the same friendship between Anna and the King. One difference is that in the 1946 movie, there is less unspoken romantic tension. It is mostly a friendship, though a very warm one, which consists primarily in discussion.

Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison’s king of Siam is more of a philosopher. He was evidently persuaded years before by the Kralahome to give up being a monk and be king. He can be almost childlike in his curiosity and desire to do the right thing, but he is insatiably inquiring and always reading. There is actually a very touching friendship between him and the Kralahome (who has a very one-dimensional role in the King and I), who feels responsible for having put him in the difficult and dangerous position of being king. The king is trying to make Siam more Western in the face of growing European influence in Asia, and reveal a crueler side that very nearly drives Anna away for good.

Anna is also far more nuanced. She doesn’t just go charging in with her determined, no-nonsense British satisfaction that she is always right (as Anna does a little bit in The King and I). Anna is often right, but she also makes a number of misjudgments and has several cultural misunderstandings. There is a culture clash when she first arrives and she does not initially understand the king and the difficult position he is in as king. After an argument with him over her house, she is determined to leave and it is the Kralahome who asks her to stay and tries to get her to see things in a different light. Later, she gets so caught up in the king that she does not see that Prince Chulalongkorn is longing for more of her attention and teaching.

I really enjoyed the character of the Kralahome in this film, too. He and Anna interact almost as much as she does with the king and he acts as a kind of go-between for Anna and the king. Intelligent, dignified, diplomatic, he also has a good sense of humor. Gale Sondergaard won an Oscar for her performance as Lady Thiang, the first wife of the king who loves her husband but knows that she no longer has either his love or his ear. Instead, she must now look out for her son, crown prince Chulalongkorn. Linda Darnell is billed third, but she has a fairly small role as Lady Tuptim, who was a gift to the king and is also his current favorite, until she realizes that the king now listens to Anna rather than to her, and runs away to the man she loves.

Apart from the relationship between Anna and the king, there are two other significant themes in the film. One is the theme of home. When she arrives in Siam, Anna wants a house. When she is considering leaving, the Kralahome suggests that since she has no home or family in England, she should consider making Siam her home, her place to put down roots. Siam becomes not just a place where she works, but the place where she forms her relationships and ties.

The second theme is that of the crown prince, who represents the next generation. It takes a while for Anna to see clearly how much the prince wishes to learn; it takes an explanation from Lady Thiang, who cannot give her son what he needs and it is really only after Anna loses her own son that she sees that the prince has been lost in the shuffle of the palace, which revolves around the king.

Not especially historically accurate, the film is nevertheless excellent. I like Irene Dunne in pretty much everything she does. She could do comedy, drama and musicals, anything. Rex Harrison, Lee J. Cobb, Gale Sondergaard are also excellent. I found it a very touching film and especially enjoyed the relationships between the characters. It doesn’t have the joyous music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but what it does have it does just as well, and I think is a better story. Though I must warn potential viewers that the film conforms to contemporary practices of the time by casting all white actors to play the Siamese characters. The actors do, however, endeavor to give their characters dignity and make them more than just caricatures.

Irene Dunne and

 

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Most ghost stories are meant to be frightening or creepy, even when they are funny, but The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a ghost story of a different tradition; it is a romance, a beautiful and poignant love story that gets me every time I see it.

Sometime in the early nineteen hundreds, Mrs. Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) is widow who has been living with her husband’s mother and very overbearing sister and she yearns for independence. She has some money from her husband and takes her daughter (Natalie Wood) to the ocean where she falls in love with Gull Cottage, which is thought to be haunted. She tours the house and there are some odd occurrences (like laughter, which could theoretically just be the wind) but she’s indomitable and rents the place. The cottage used to belong to a sea captain, Captain Daniel Gregg, who died four years earlier, reportedly of suicide.

One evening, during stormy weather, Lucy goes down to her kitchen to prepare tea for herself, but the lights go out and her candle is repeatedly blown out and in prim and proper annoyance, she announces that she is not afraid of the ghost, that his tricks are quite unimpressive and she dares him to show himself. To her surprise, he (Rex Harrison) really does reveal himself. She is very taken aback, but still indomitable and the ghost, Captain Gregg, is rather impressed. They make a deal: he’ll stop haunting the whole house and keep to her bedroom (which used to be his bedroom) so her daughter won’t see him if she’ll put his picture up in her room (which he likes). Also, he expects her to leave the cottage to sailors as a home, which is why he had been haunting the house in the first place, trying to keep other people away. He also rather indignantly denies having committed suicide – he was sleeping in a chair with his window shut because there was a storm and kicked the gas on with his foot.

Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney

The two argue a lot, but also become friends and spend a great deal of time talking about their lives. When her income from her husband unexpectedly peters out so that she can no longer afford to stay at Gull Cottage, Daniel suggests that she write a book, or rather that he write it and she take the credit for it. He calls it “Blood and Swash,” to her mild disapproval, but he asserts that this must be a man’s book, the unvarnished life of a sailor, which is basically his own life story.

It is while they are writing the book together that Lucy begins to realize that she and Daniel have gotten themselves into a pickle, emotionally. She realizes they are in love, but there’s nothing to be done about it. But after they finish the book and find a publisher, she meets another man, a real man, named Miles Fairley (George Sanders – in one of his inimitable cad roles) who pursues her, despite Daniel’s strong disapproval.

Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney make such an adorable couple, which is kind of funny because I don’t think I would have applied that term to either of them on their own. Gene Tierney is a gorgeous woman and I never considered Rex Harrison exactly cute, but together they are perfect; they convey that these two souls were made for each other. They are companions, as well as lovers. In fact, they are companions because they can’t be lovers. He is cantankerous and goes about saying “blast” this and “blast” that (a habit that Lucy picks up, much to the surprise of several of her acquaintances) and has lived a very full life. Lucy is very refined, very proper, but with a will of her own and a longing to do something worthwhile. She loves to hear his stories and he recognizes a kindred and queenly spirit in her. He calls her Lucia instead of Lucy, because he considers it a name fit for a queen.

I must confess the end didn’t go in the direction I was expecting at all, but it’s a beautiful story, but also quite sad because it’s about loneliness. She is a lonely widow, though she never complains about it. When Daniel tells her how he ran away to sea when he was young and how his aunt was probably glad to be rid of him, Lucy asks him if she ever wrote and he replies that she did faithfully until she died. Lucy comments that his aunt probably missed him much more than he knew. When Lucy falls for Miles Fairley, she does so partly as a reaction to the fact that he is alive and can provide real companionship and love.

But in truth, Lucy and Daniel were made for each other and Lucy never does find a real companion in life. She loves her daughter, but it’s not quite the same thing. She cares for her servant, Martha, but that also is not quite the same thing. The tragedy is that they didn’t miss each other by many years. He only died four years before she came to Gull Cottage and if he’d been alive, she still would have come to that village, they would have met, and they could have been together. When Miles Fairley enters the picture, Daniel talks to her while she is sleeping of all that they have missed, allowing himself to image what it would have been like if they could have been together.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is another example of what I call a cosmic romance: the romance that was fated to be, where there is no other one for you, that transcends time and space. Though, in this case, it’s a bit like something went wrong with fate. They were meant to be together, but he accidentally died, and that kind of messed everything up. So they have to wait for after life to truly be united.

The score was written by Bernard Herrmann, who is probably better remembered for his scores to movies like Psycho and North by Northwest. He joked that the score was his “Max Steiner score” (who wrote sweepingly dramatic scores for movies like Gone With the Wind), but it’s haunting, lovely, almost like a tone poem, often running along in the background and providing a cohesive feel to the movie, as if the movie were part of the tone poem. Leonard Maltin describes the movie as a fantasy, which it is more than a ghost story. It is a movie that has to be accepted on its own terms (why there is a ghost is never explained) and is rather achingly romantic, almost a tear-jerker, with a tremendous amount of charm from the actors.

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