My Fair Lady: Audrey Sings!

While Audrey's singing may not be quite as "musical" as the singer they hired to dub her, I much prefer her original renditions of these songs - this was a great concept for an edit.

Overall it's quite well done, the sync isn't perfect but neither is the original dub so that's pretty much a wash, and audio wise the edits are mostly seamless - the one exception is "Danced All Night", which has some obvious volume/white noise differences at the start of the song and the voices of the other women singing is muddled, particularly when they're dressing her. But I'd definitely pick the edit over the original any day of the week, it really increases the charm and character of the film.

Very well done. This movie is a favorite for me and my wife. While the musical numbers have always been kind of jarring, switching from Audrey to an obvious studio dubover, perfect musical numbers are not as critical to this movie as they are in other musicals of the time. Since Rex Harrison gets to leave his singing in the film, it was pretty unfair that Audrey got the dub. So this is a perfect concept, well executed.
Audrey's singing is not as pitch-perfect, but it is authentic. And that authenticity works well when she breaks into song. She is competent enough to merit her own recording.
It is a shame that this edit needed to be done, as the studio could have produced much higher quality authentic tracks with Audrey singing if they had been so inclined. The sources for this edit are not perfect, and there is some crackling, static, and a general difference in tonal quality when the tracks come in. But this does not detract from the enjoyment at all. Audrey's voice is a critical element to My Fair Lady, and hearing it throughout the songs is a marked improvement to the movie.
The video source uses the latest remastered print, so of course it looks as stunning as you've ever seen it, and I believe the video has been left untouched for this edit.

This is a long overdue edit, and one of many that sit in the back of many of our minds as "I'll get to that one day"...but catferoze got the cream and actaully delivered...and big thanks for doing so.

Is this a fave musical of mine...? NOPE....

Does this have challenges to pull off? for sure...and this achieves all that with aplomb!

Even as a youngster, it was obvious to me that the lady singing was NOT Audrey hepburn, and of course as the years have passed, we now all know it was MArni Nixon, who dubbed MANY a voice in a host of movies.

To me, the illusion was ALWAYS broken when Marni Nixon's voice drops in, despite her skills, it just did not sit well with me even as a child. Now tha issue is almost resolved, and with great skill to boot.

How and why they let Mr Harrison speak through his songs and NOT allow Ms Hepburn similar latitude, is beyond me. Would Julie Andrews have been as convincing as Eliza? Who knows...but for me, this is finally the GOTO version; already burnt to Blu Ray and slipped into the Anniversary edition on the shelf.

Technicals are all top notch, and I'm exercising forebearance on the scoring...I do not see why an edit should be penalised for using the best sources, even if sonically the new song sources are not quite as vibrant...WHO CARES? Not MOI !

What this achieves more than anything is NOT that the original performances have been added back...but in fact it elevates the authenticity of the character and the protagonists believability in the fiulm to the heights it should always have been.

More so, it is yet another example as to why I beieve there should be a CLASSICS category in future FEOTY awards since edits like this not only raise awareness of these classic movies, but in many cases elevate them to new heights.

Highly recommended!

I film that I had only seen once before in its theatrical form and wasn't very fond of, a significant aspect of this was the obvious use of ghost-singers that didn't align with speaking voices; in an amusing piece of film trivia the character played by Hepburn in "Paris When it Sizzles" (produced a couple of years earlier) described "My Fair Lady" as being a Frankenstein-like story, comments that seem very apt in this particular aspect. She was certainly more capable than Harrison, and it felt unfair to me that he gets to practically talk his way through songs while she was re-voiced by Marni Nixon, who (while a gifted singer) was not an ideal vocal match.

The edit does an excellent job of reintegrating the original tracks, though the clarity does sometimes noticeably drop this must be due to the quality of the available sources, and I think that it represents an improvement overall with only one song that sounds like a struggle, but even that is not too bad, certainly better than other examples I can think of! It's a shame that one song could not be replaced, and that Jeremy Brett remains dubbed by Bill Shirley since he never got to record despite having an excellent voice. I also wish that there was some way to liven up Harrison's speak-singing as I've never liked it much, but that would probably necessitate remaking the film altogether! Visual editing is great, didn't notice any new cuts and the only thing to give away the non-originality was occasional loss of AV synchronisation with the new tracks: I'm sure I've seen worse in other, officially released, productions though, and I don't feel that it would be fair to deduct points.

While it's not a film I plan on revisiting any time soon this would likely be the version I turn to, thanks catferoze for finally implementing an idea that must have been floated since the original tracks were unearthed thirty-odd years ago.