Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Phonetics professor picks up street girl for a Victorian grand social experiment---can she learn to speak well enough to fool everyone into thinking she's a noblewoman?
Biased, pithy comments: So, with all stage-to-screen adaptations, you have to rate both the conversion and the story itself, and then combine it into one rating. I don't think this is Lerner and Loewe's best work and, though the music is good-to-great, the plot grinds on very slowly; the 3-hour running time isn't justified by the material. (In particular, I might just redact the entire sequene with Holloway ambling around singing about his character about whom I don't care a fig.) In terms of moviemaking, Cukor and his collaborators drag out quite a few scenes that looked like they must have been tighter on stage. Also, since it was the 60s, the women's fashions look horrendous (they were not accurate to Victorian fashion much). Harrison is fantastic, however, and Hepburn is adequate. Anyway, if you're a musical fan you'll like this film (assuming you don't mind the 60s-isms), but it ain't quite the best.
Other Notes: Yes, I'm perverse; I liked ``Paint Your Wagon'' better than this. You figure it out. Interesting; Ebert seems to believe that modern Hollywood would delete Holloway's character (Mr. Dolittle) as well. So, I guess I'm a child of the 80s and 90s.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White.
Directed by: George Cukor