My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady has the advantage of a few good songs, a Stanley Holloway, the fact that Pygmalion is good, but not much else. George Cukor's direction is very tired here almost embracing the idea of making the film look as stagy as it possibly can. This is unfortunate as there are many films in his past filmography that were set on sound stages but certainly did not look like it. Rex Harrison's singsong style and Leslie Howard impression wear thin very quickly. Audrey Hepburn is rather curious in that her innate charm almost allows her to get away with a terrible performance, only almost though. It's an extremely slow film that loses most of its energy by the second act and comes basically to a halt long before the ending.
2/5

The Pumpkin Eater

I found the film not to be particularly engaging as it went about having stream of consciousness like approach to the story of a woman dealing with her husband's infidelities. The scenes are both simply yet ramble on often with some odd, surely stylistic, choices like a long focus on James Mason's mouth. I really don't mind an excess style, I do love me some David Lynch after all, but here I felt it failed to make a captivating film though it certainly tried.
2.5/5

Night Of The Iguana

John Huston proves a pretty good fit for Tennessee Williams's material in this case as he keeps the material from becoming to melodramatic while in no way limiting the characters. The cast is more than decent, thanks especially due to Ava Gardner giving perhaps her best performance, though there are few moments where Richard Burton falls upon his usual yelling routine, but thankfully it does not overwhelm his character in this case. In addition Huston actually manages to relieve the film of almost any memory of the stage by realizing a real sense of place for the story.
 4/5