My Fair Lady appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Expect a top-notch presentation from this Dolby Vision release.
Sharpness worked well. Virtually no soft shots materialized, so definition looked terrific throughout this distinctive image.
No issues with shimmering or jagged edges occurred, and I saw no signs of edge haloes or invasive digital noise reduction. Print flaws failed to mar the visuals..
Colors looked wonderful. With a broad, lively palette, the hues seemed dynamic and vivid, with a terrific array of rich tones on display. The 4K’s HDR added impact and zest to the hues.
Blacks seemed deep and rich, while shadows offered nice clarity and delineation. HDR contributed appealing punch and vivacity to whites and contrast. Across the board, this became a simply splendid transfer that became reference standard.
I also felt pleased with the film's Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack, where the soundfield seemed forward-oriented, and it became active in that domain. Not surprisingly, most of the action revolved around the music, which was well produced here.
The songs displayed strong stereo separation and also blended to the surrounds, although the rears mainly provided light reinforcement of the score. This remained a heavily forward-oriented track, so don’t expect much material from the back speakers.
Effects and quite a lot of dialogue also spread to the side speakers and sometimes panned between channels as well. The placement of the speech seemed questionable at times.
It could end up in a "neverland" between speakers that was somewhat distracting. However, this problem seemed minor, and my overall impression of the audio was that it seemed nicely broad.
The quality was generally positive. Speech sounded clear and intelligible - discounting the severe accents we heard, as they should seem hard to understand – with only a little reediness on display. Effects were largely clean and fairly realistic; some bits actually featured a little bass as well.
The music itself - easily the most important aspect of this mix – was usually good. The music showed some signs of age, as it lacked the dynamic range we'd expect of a more recent recording, but it seemed fine. Nothing here dazzled, but the material held up well for its age.
How did the 4K UHD compare to the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray? Audio remained identical, as the 4K carried over the same Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track.
As for the 4K’s Dolby Vision image, though, we got a clear upgrade. As great as the Blu-ray looked, the 4K came with superior definition, colors, and blacks. This turned into a flawless presentation that wound up as one of the best-looking 4K discs I’ve ever seen.
No extras appear on the 4K disc itself, but we find plenty of materials on the included Blu-ray disc. Note that this package provides a platter that only includes bonus features, so it does not present a Blu-ray version of the film itself.
We launch with a 1994 documentary called More Loverly Than Ever: My Fair Lady Through the Ages. Hosted by actor Jeremy Brett, this 57-minute, 58-second program looks at the movie’s history and its restoration.
We get notes from art director Gene Allen, singer Marni Nixon, the restoration team of Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz, Mirabella magazine founder Grace Mirabella, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, actor Stanley Holloway’s son Julian, Martin Scorsese, Variety senior columnist Army Archerd, Alan Jay Lerner’s former wife Nancy Olson-Livingston, assistant film editor John Burnett, digital artist Kevin Lingesfelder, re-recording mixer Bob Litt, Julie Andrews, actor Theo Bikel, critic Rex Reed, costume designer Bob Mackie, restoration assistant editor Mike Hyatt, and former head of Warner Bros. production Rudy Fehr.
The program quickly covers the film’s promotion and reception, the history of the story and of the project. After the first 10 minutes, we start to hear about the restoration. The rest of the program cuts between background information about the movie and notes about restoring the flick.
Olson-Livingston’s remarks about how Lerner came up with some of the songs seem particularly interesting. It’s intriguing to hear Andrews relate her reactions to not getting the part in the movie and her opinion about whether this helped her get her Oscar for Mary Poppins.
A few other controversies receive attention, which came as a moderate surprise; the program seems notably less puffy than I expected. “Lovely” covers a lot of territory in a reasonably efficient manner. It doesn’t create a thorough and excellent documentary, but it goes through a lot of subject in decent detail and comes across as pretty solid.
1963 Production Kickoff Dinner presents footage of that event. The 23-minute, 20-second piece starts with silent shots of the banquet itself and then offers short promotional interviews with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison and producer Jack L. Warner. It concludes with a mix of more images from the dinner, some with sound this time.
The chats seem surprisingly hard-hitting, at least for the circumstances and the era. The interviewer asks about problems in Hollywood and pushes his theories pretty heavily.
He even tells Harrison people regard him as difficult! Some of the dinner footage itself isn’t very useful due to the lack of audio, but the interviews present some interesting material.
Next we find audio of George Cukor as he directs Baroness Bina Rothschild. In this two-minute, 39-second snippet, we watch photos from the set and hear Rothschild endlessly repeat variations on the line “she’s quite the loveliest young lady at the ball!” I may die if I ever hear that line again, but this piece does offer an insightful glimpse of the directing process.
One cool addition to the disc presents two of the film's songs with Audrey Hepburn's original vocals intact. We hear "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" and "Show Me" with Audrey's voice instead of Marni Nixon's.
I was honestly surprised to find something like this, since it has the potential to seem cruel. However, Hepburn didn't humiliate herself with her singing.
Although she hits a fair number of flat notes and clearly wasn't a strong enough vocalist to carry the film, her performances aren't bad; they're simply mediocre, which isn't good enough for a big-budget production like this.
Under Galleries, we get four collections of images. These include “Cecil Beaton Sketches” (58 frames), “B&W Stills” (68), “Color Production Stills” (52), and “Documents and Publicity” (29). These provide some decent materials but don’t seem particularly compelling.
The next area brings a Rex Harrison radio interview. Through this one-minute, six-second piece, we hear Harrison provide puffy comments about his experiences while we look at promotional images.
These bits are good for archival reasons but not tremendously fascinating otherwise, and the images lose some value due to the videotape time readings in the top part of the screen; these obstruct our view of the promotional materials.
Three “theatrical featurettes” appear, and we start with the nine-minute, 31-second The Fairest Fair Lady. Like the other two, this program comes from the period of the film's theatrical release and it completely focuses on behind the scenes details.
The coverage seems sketchy since the piece is so short, and it mostly admires the big quality of the production; for example, we learn that in this tremendously-complex undertaking, they had one woman whose sole job was to make sure that everyone wore their gloves!
The Story of a Lady runs five minutes, five seconds and features more fluffy commentary, with an emphasis on casting and crew. Design for a Lady (8:22) brings the same approach to sets and costumes.
In all of these, the focus remains strictly promotional, but since the presentation differs from the glorified trailer approach of modern featurettes, they’re somewhat fun. Because “Design” offers comments from costume designer Cecil Beaton, it works the best.
After this we see LA Premiere Footage. This four-minute, 53-second newsreel describes the event in breathless terms as we see various notables arrive. It’s another moderately interesting piece of historical material.
A similar piece, the British Premiere runs two minutes, 17 seconds. It appears less breathless than “LA” but consists of the same kind of footage.
Five clips show up under Production Tests. With a total running time of seven minutes, four seconds, we get “Lighting” (0:56), “Wilfrid Hyde-White Make-Up” (0:47), “Rain/Set” (0:49), “Covent Garden Lighting Test” (0:44) and “Alt. Higgins/Pickering Screen Test” (3:48).
Narrated by actor’s son Alex Hyde-White, we see a variety of snippets that let us view background elements. Hyde-White’s comments add to the footage and make this a nice collection.
Three clips show up under “Awards”. Rex Harrison’s Golden Globe Acceptance Speech runs 47 seconds. Apparently Harrison couldn’t make it to the ceremony, so it shows a filmed chat.
At the Academy Awards Ceremony Highlights (2:09), we see acceptance speeches from George Cukor, Rex Harrison and Jack L. Warner.
Finally, Rex Harrison BFI Honor (2:08) allows us to see the actor deliver a canned speech from the set of Lady. All of these become interesting in a historical manner.
Within Comments on a Lady we find separate interviews with Martin Scorsese (1:19) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (1:04). Scorsese discusses the need for film preservation and his work in that realm, but he never specifically gets into Lady so his comments seem fairly bland and generic.
Webber talks about his work with Lady lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on The Phantom of the Opera, though this never happened because Lerner took ill. This subject seems more intriguing, but Webber doesn’t tell us anything very interesting.
Finally, we get a slew of trailers for Lady. This area includes seven promos, and the “teaser” comes with seven alternate “tags”; these add the name of the theater where the roadshow would play in a specific city.
Note that the 2011 Blu-ray included an audio commentary that got dropped for the 2015 disc and it continues to remain MIA on the 4K. It was a good chat, so its absence disappoints.
Although it has a number of flaws, enough of My Fair Lady seems delightful and endearing for it to be worth watching. The 4K UHD provides stunning visuals as well as good picture and supplements. This easily becomes the best My Fair Lady ever to hit home video.
To rate this film visit the DVD review of MY FAIR LADY
