Caught the tail end of My Fair Lady

[conuly]

Two thoughts.

1. The happy ending comes six months later when she successfully poisons Higgins and inherits a fortune and a house, right? (Not that Freddy, as in the play, would've been a great alternative.)

2. Who the hell was responsible for set and costume design? Why was Eliza constantly wearing pastel dresses while standing in front of light-colored backgrounds? It's not even just her!

Comments

[pipilj]

I love My Fair Lady, though I think Higgins was a pompous goat. Like your ending ;)

[conuly]

Neither of them deserves her. There has got to be one decent man in London.

[miss_s_b]

Re 1: this has always been my thought, yes.

[conuly]

Go team murder!

[cactuswatcher]

All the men in MFL are pretty awful. Her dad? Colonel Pickering? Zoltan Karpathy? At least Freddy will likely go off to World War One when 1914 rolls around and never come back. Yes, I think if she stayed with Henry Higgins she'd probably poison him, but unfortunately instead of inheriting squat, she'd likely be hanged for it, even though it would be a great service for the British Empire.

[conuly]

She'll only be hanged if she gets caught. Eliza is more than bright enough to get away with one murder.

[nightdog_barks]

HA, YES. I too caught the end of My Fair Lady last night and had the exact same thought. Eliza should've kept going -- Henry Higgins is a jerk.

The set and costume designer was Cecil Beaton. (There's a much more catty and entertaining write-up of his life and career here.)

[conuly]

You know, it's funny, but Henry and Freddy have almost the opposite flaws, and yet they still can't cancel out.

Henry Higgins doesn't realize he's in love. Freddy does - but who is he mooning over? He doesn't even know her!

Henry Higgins is a jerk to everybody, but at least he was willing to compensate a poor flower girl for a lost bunch of flowers. Freddy may dote on Eliza once she's cleaned up, but does he even understand why what he did at the start of the play was wrong?

Freddy, at least, is probably more biddable than Henry Higgins - but is that the choice Eliza has to make? The man she can control vs. the one who will control her?

The whole thing is a tragedy.

[sallymn]

I don't think many people have agreed with the ending since Shaw wrote it... :)

[conuly]

Shaw thought Eliza should marry Freddy, and wrote a whole footnote about how she and Henry would kill each other.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

1. 'enry 'iggins definitely needed poisoning, but I'm not sure he had that great of a fortune. She could have married Freddy after old 'enry had bit it - he was simple and easily led, and able to provide the comfortable life she longed for.

2. The Edwardian period was the Age of Pastels (https://www.google.com/search?q=edwardian+fashion&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS546US546&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivwPXmu5fYAhUW42MKHXOCBLMQ_AUICigB&biw=1024&bih=643).

[conuly]

1. 'enry 'iggins definitely needed poisoning, but I'm not sure he had that great of a fortune.

He had a house, and he definitely had enough for a frugal person to live on comfortably, with or without selling flowers or speech lessons on the side. The question is this: When given a comparative fortune, is Eliza the sort to maintain the habits of frugality, or the sort to blow her cash in a few months? We know what Dad would do if he'd been given straight-up cash rather than an annuity, but Eliza is more of a mystery here.

1a. She could have married Freddy after old 'enry had bit it - he was simple and easily led, and able to provide the comfortable life she longed for.

He's also a stalker, and frankly I can't forgive him for being such a jerk when she was just another poor person. I'm not sure that marriage would be so happy in the long run either... though you're right that poor simple Freddy would probably do what she told him, whether he kept her on that pedestal or not.

2. Okay, but they didn't care so much for authenticity when they dressed one lady at the ball in layers upon layers of faux-1920s fringe, so....

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well well; I went and looked up the original play (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3825/3825-h/3825-h.htm), and found that Shaw wrote an epilogue to it, detailing the subsequent life and fortunes of Eliza and Freddy, whom she does marry.

Hollywood of that era didn't care for authenticity at all; what they were going for was ambiance, and nothing says 'Edwardian' like tea gowns.

[conuly]

Until you add fringe, and then it says "1920s, but not really, lol".

[conuly]

And yeah, apparently from the very beginning everyone but him thought Eliza should end up with Henry Higgins which... bleh, they're both awful.