1965 Oscar Best Cinematography Color
1965 Oscar Best Art Direction Color
1965 Oscar Best Costume Design Color
1965 Oscar Best Music Scoring of Music Adaptation or Treatment
Despite being more or less a translation of a Broadway musical, this is perfection despite the ending, which is the sole element of the thing that doesn't quite work.
Lerner and Loewe's stage sensation became the last great Hollywood musical. It's a Technicolor and Cinemascope epic which takes George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and crams it full of amazing songs. It's a hugely ambitious production full of startling fashions and set decoration, and treasured performances from its stars. When it's good, it's fabulous.
But it's far from a perfect film. It seems disinterested in of the philosophical themes of the play. It hardly acknowledges the profound misery of the poor or the entitlement of the wealthy. No one learns anything. Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) ends up the same misanthrope and misogynist he was at the start, except he is in love (sort of). It doesn't climax, it just stops.
However, the songs are immortal. My personal favourite is the Cockney-blues of Wouldn't It Be Loverly. The lyrics are witty and intelligent. By the usual standards, the dancing is no more than perfunctory. But... My Fair Lady ultimately triumphs because of the brilliant performance of Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl who becomes a phoney princess.
She gives the film its heart. Eliza is tied into a web of exploitation and cruelty, and Audrey makes that pathos come alive. Even when miming the songs. Harrison does well to make his curmudgeonly aristocrat just about tolerable. George Cukor keeps the musical romance light and entertaining over its long, long running time (plus interval).