Latest digital restoration of ‘My Fair Lady’ negative improves sound and rejuvenates color

When Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz first restored “My Fair Lady” more than 20 years ago, the original camera negative of the Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe musical was already in bad shape.

“The negative had been run about 140 or 150 times,” Harris said. “Every 70mm print is always made from the camera original, so the negatives get run again and again. The more popular a film is, the worse the conditions the elements are going to be in. That one was horrible.”

The Audrey Hepburn classic won eight 1964 Oscars including ones for George Cukor’s director, Rex Harrison’s acting and Cecil Beaton’s exquisite costume design. But the negative of “My Fair Lady” had tears. “Perforations were missing, splices were opening up,” Harris said. “But there was very little fading.”

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Harris and Katz’s acclaimed restoration, released in theaters as well as home video, took eight months to complete and used traditional photochemical restoration, as well as new digital tools.

But that was two decades ago.

Last year Harris told Ken Ross, executive vice president and general manager of CBS Home Entertainment, that the original camera negative was now at risk and a new digital restoration was needed.

“When you are a steward of the brand, you have the responsibility to the public, to the fans and the culture to make sure these things are preserved,” Ross said.

Though the negative was stored under proper conditions in a vault in Burbank for the last 20 years, the negative had faded extensively.

“There was a differential fade at the end and tails of a lot of the shots because oxygen gets into the layers of the film where there were splices,” Harris said.

The new high-definition 4k restoration of “My Fair Lady” is from an 8K scan of the original negative and other surviving 65mm elements.

Five months were spent getting the color back to its lush, vibrant original.

More than 12 million digital fixes were made, including getting rid of dirt and other detritus. Thanks to digital tools, the soundtrack sounds as good as it did 50 years ago. In fact, it might sound a bit better because the soundtrack includes “things that you didn’t hear before,” Harris said.

This even-lovelier restoration of “My Fair Lady” will have a limited theatrical release around the country beginning Sunday. Among the theaters screening it include the TCL Chinese Theatre, iPic theaters in Westwood and Pasadena, and the Cinemark 18 & XD in Los Angeles. For dates and times, go to www.myfairlady50.com.

The “My Fair Lady” 50th anniversary edition arrives Oct. 27 on Blu-ray and DVD with a slew of extras.

susan.king@latimes.com