Review Detail

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.