Pygmalion (1938) [VHS]
by Anthony Asquith
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Product details
Actor: Everley Gregg, Irene Browne, Jean Cadell, Kate Cutler, O.B. ClarenceDirector: Anthony Asquith
Primary Contributor: Wendy Hiller
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, EP, NTSC
Running Time: 96 minutes
Release Date: 1997-09-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Madacy Records
Studio: Madacy Records
VHS Movie Reviews of Pygmalion (1938) [VHS]
Movie Review: Shaw Without the Music Still Sings in the Still Wondrous Original Film Version
Summary: 5 Stars
Far more a pointed satire on social mores than an opposites-attract love story, the original 1938 adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's classic 1913 play is still a glistening piece of pre-WWII British cinema fluidly co-directed by Anthony Asquith (The Importance of Being Earnest) and star Leslie Howard. Howard (Gone with the Wind) and Wendy Hiller (I Know Where I'm Going!) are close to perfection in the principal roles, but the movie's key distinction lies in the fact that Shaw adapted his own play for the screen with some assistance from W.P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis. Consequently, Shaw's biting wit and uncompromising tone remain intact as the familiar story of Professor Henry Higgins and Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle unfolds without the cherished Lerner and Lowe musical score that decorated the identical plot of My Fair Lady two decades later. As I am not a big fan of the overstuffed 1964 musical remake despite the wonderful songs, this version provides the same narrative in a far more economical 96 minutes. It's a genuine treat to appreciate Shaw's words without the music.
The story is familiar to anyone who has seen the musical. Higgins makes a bet with fellow scholar Colonel Pickering that he can pass off a lower-class flower girl as a duchess by teaching her how to speak and act. None other than later film master David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia) directed the montage sequence of Higgins teaching Eliza the proper elocution and etiquette. An awkward trial run occurs at the Chelsea home of Higgins' mother where Eliza makes her social debut recounting her ghastly story of a relative's suspicious death. Regardless, potential suitor Freddy Eynsford-Hill is entranced and becomes obsessed with Eliza. Later, Higgins and Pickering decide Eliza is ready for a formal ball at the Transylvanian embassy where Higgins' pompous former pupil, Count Aristid Karpathy, threatens to expose her Cockney roots. Instead, he is fooled by her demure polish into thinking she is a Hungarian princess. Higgins and Pickering celebrate their mutual accomplishment, but Eliza recognizes her contribution and self-worth in the deceptive exercise. When she threatens to leave Higgins' tutelage for Freddy's waiting arms, it becomes an uncomfortable matter that the professor realizes has slipped completely out of his control.
Shaw's ageless point is that class distinctions are artificial at their core. He recognizes that articulate speech, good manners, and an expensive wardrobe are the key elements that separate the classes, and that they can all be attained given the appropriate resources. What genuinely separated Higgins from Eliza is the fact that he is a ruthless, selfish egotist who cannot imagine wanting the respect much less the love of his blossoming student. That becoming a lady of his level of bearing should be Eliza's aspiration is what ultimately appalls her, and it becomes clear that such class distinctions have no relevance when it comes to personal value. Deep in the shadow of Rex Harrison in his definitive role, Howard brings a more impulsive, youthful energy to Higgins, so much so that there is true terror when he threatens to strike Eliza. Hiller handles Eliza's metamorphosis with arresting conviction and makes a more convincing Cockney guttersnipe than Audrey Hepburn. By comparison, Hiller's transformation is more subtle in this treatment. There are nice turns by Marie Lohr as Mrs. Higgins, Sunderland as Pickering, and Wilfrid Lawson as Eliza's ne'er-do-well father Alfred, although David Tree comes across as far too callow for the likes of Eliza as Freddy. The 2000 Criterion Collection DVD surprisingly contains no extras, but the print transfer does justice to the pristine cinematography of veteran Harry Stradling (Funny Girl) and his camera operator Jack Hildyard (The Bridge on the River Kwai).
Movie Review: Works Perfectly
Summary: 5 Stars
Not sure what everyone was talking about with bad audio, but I watched this movie first on TV, I forget what channel, some old guy introduces it and such and then it goes from there. Anyway, if you know what I'm talking about good, because this movie is the same awesome quality. I have ZERO complaints about the movie, works great, looks great on my 40inch Samsung 1080p Tv, couldn't ask for better from a 1930's era movie. Movie Review: Great companion to "My Fair Lady"
Summary: 4 Stars
I only heard about the 1938 film version of Shaw's play after I had already seen "My Fair Lady". When I heard it wasn't a musical, it sounded truly promising (I'm not much of a fan of musicals).
If I had to choose between the two, overall I'd pick this film. The story flows better and makes more sense. The biggest example of this is Eliza Doolittle's progress in elocution. In this film Eliza has a good ear for sound despite her lack of education, and she is able to mimic proper speech. Her progress makes sense, while in "My Fair Lady" she can't pronounce words as Higgins teaches her to save her life until an inexplicable breakthrough. The funniest scene is when she speaks beyond the sets of phrases Higgins taught her and properly pronounces butchered grammar and gutter slang. Wendy Hiller may not have the same beauty as the lovely Audrey Hepburn, but she is a convincing Eliza.
Leslie Howard plays a keen Dr. Henry Higgins. His single-minded devotion to his craft to the exclusion of social graces explains his insensitivity to Eliza, and Howard acts it out wonderfully. The surprise in Pygmalion is David Tree as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Here he plays a truly believable twit. We can understand why Eliza doesn't want to marry him because he is so helpless and inept. In "My Fair Lady" Jeremy Brett does not fit the character. He looks too good and confident to be the awkward boob that is Freddy. David Tree is far more annoying, so he plays Freddy perfectly! Overall, "Pygmalion" shows more fidelity to Shaw's original play.
Criterion restored much of the film to its usual high standard, but there are sections where the best extant copy was less than pristine. Fortunately there aren't too many of these sections, so the film pleases overall.
If you have only seen "My Fair Lady", you owe it to yourself to see "Pygmalion". Even if you enjoyed the former, you will see how the original did so well without the color, lush scenery, and grand staging of the latter.
Movie Review: "You see, the difference between a lady and a flower girl isn't how she behaves, it's how she's treated."
Summary: 5 Stars
The opportunity to watch Pygmalion next to My Fair Lady is not to be missed. If Shaw at first was reluctant to approve a movie version of Pygmalion, he ended up enthusiastically promoting Wendy Hiller for the part of Eliza Doolittle and, at 82, co-adapting his play into a screenplay and writing several new scenes, including the whole ballroom episode involving that oleaginous fraud, Karpathy. Thanks to Shaw, director Anthony Asquith, co-director Leslie Howard who plays Professor Henry Higgins, Wendy Hiller as Eliza and Wilfred Lawson as Alfred Doolittle, we have one of the wittiest, cleverest takes on social inequality that ever had a romance wrapped around it.
"I can't change my nature and I won't change my manners," says Higgins, a crabby, bossy, arrogant, insensitive fellow who believes the intellectual life is the only life, and who benefits from private wealth and his talent as a teacher of phonetics. His reaction to Eliza declaring her independence is to squawk, "I tell you I've created this thing out of squashed cabbage leaves in Convent Garden!"
Eliza (and Shaw) sees things differently. "You see," she tells Colonel Pickering, "the difference between a lady and a flower girl isn't how she behaves, it's how she's treated." Eliza Doolittle, after she's been cleaned up spectacularly and taught not to drop her H's by Higgins, has become, not just a "proper lady," but a woman of confidence and spirit.
Shaw, of course, turns all this into a contest of ideas -- his -- stated in dialogue so provocative and clever one really needs to appreciate the skill of Howard and Hiller. The contest between the two becomes interesting because we know (this is corny) the two were made for each other. Higgins may have taught Eliza how to speak and behave like a lady, but he doesn't have the faintest idea how to appreciate her. Eliza turns out to be a great teacher, too, and she has a good deal to teach Higgins, squirm as he may.
"Eliza, where the dickens are my slippers?" may not be the most romantic last line in movies or plays, but with Shaw, it does just fine. More than fine, because the question of whether Eliza will stay with Higgins is left up in the air. That last line also works so well because of the two extraordinary performances by Howard and Hiller. Despite Pygmalion being a showcase for Shaw's opinions, Howard and Hiller make it also a showcase for this strange and appealing combination of intellect, sexual attraction and love.
Watching My Fair Lady right after is something like looking at carefully preserved mastodon bones hauled out of the LaBrea Tar Pits. There are some great bones, but the life is gone from them. This isn't to say that the theatrical version of My Fair Lady isn't one of the best musicals Broadway ever came up with. The movie version, however, was made, it seems to me, with such ponderous dignity, such careful attention to giving the audience what they think they remember, and with such an overpowering sheen of Hollywood's deadly professionalism, that the sparkle and much of the wit is either gone or coarsened. Harrison is superb, but at 56 too old (and irreplaceable in the part, although Jack Warner at first wanted Cary Grant). Hepburn is beautiful but not believable as a grubby cockney. Her beautifully posed and lit close-ups are all about Audrey Hepburn and not for a moment about Pygmalion's Eliza. Stanley Holloway is energetic but no patch on Wilfred Lawson's way with a Shavian line. When Lawson wheezes, Howard looks askance because of Doolittle's nature. Higgins' reaction is amusing. When Holloway wheezes, Harrison reaches for his handkerchief because it's a setup for a visual joke involving Doolittle's spittle and bad breath. It's just a cheap laugh.
Enjoy both movies. There's certainly much to like, sort of, in the movie of My Fair Lady. But to see a witty classic of manners, ideas and even romance, watch Pygmalion.
Criterion's Pygmalion could probably stand a re-release. It's one of Criterion's earliest and the technical quality of the transfer could most likely be improved upon now. There are no extras on the disc. A foldout brochure is included with brief notes about the movie. And let's hope one of these days Criterion will be able to do something with another Shavian movie, Major Barbara from 1941. It stars Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison and Robert Morley.
Movie Review: A lowly draggle-tailed guttersnipe
Summary: 5 Stars
There are no few words that can express how I feel about Pygmalion. Everything about this film is perfect. Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard (Gone With the Wind) co-directed the film; Bernard Shaw wrote both the screenplay and the dialogue; and director David Lean (Doctor Zhivago, Brief Encounter, and Lawrence of Arabia) edited the film--what a pedigree! And what a debut from British actress Wendy Hiller who earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Eliza Doolittle, a scruffy flower girl who's taken off the streets and refined into a beautiful duchess. Every actress and actor has a defining role; Eliza Doolittle is Wendy Hiller's defining role. The following paragraphs are a basic--but descriptive--account of the film's premise.
Pygmalion is set in London England. The film opens on a crowded sidewalk in front of a theater. It's gloomy and raining. The cobblestone streets are wet. Tiny people are juxtaposed against the theater's enormous colonnade. Well-dressed people pour out of the theater. Some are hailing taxis.
A flower girl (Wendy Hiller) flees the rainy downpour for the dry sidewalk in the front of the theater. Her clothes are heavy with cold water. She pesters the well-dressed people for money. She enters a loud verbal dispute with someone. A tall well-dressed gentleman looms in the background. He wears a hat and a long coat.
The gentleman's name is Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard), and he is a phonetics professor whose ear is so sensitive that he can place any man within six miles. He has a pen and a small notepad.
The flower girl notices the man in the background with his pen and notepad; she takes him for a detective. He tells her that he is not a detective; he's a phonetics professor. She has no idea what a phonetics professor is. Her ignorance and innocence amuses Higgins.
Out of the few words she utters, Higgins is able to tell her where she's from: Lisson Grove. He plucks a few random voices out of the disorderly crowd; he tells the owner of each voice where he or she is from. The astonished crowd harasses Higgins. A tall well-dressed gentleman walks up and utters a few words; Higgins unravels the man's voice with ease--Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India. The man is impressed; his name is Colonel Pickering (Scott Sunderland) and he, too, is a language professor.
The flower girl overhears Higgins and Pickering; Higgins boasts to Pickering that he can transform the common flower girl into a duchess. Offhandedly, Higgins directs a stream of insults at the flower girl. His sarcasm causes her to cry.
Suddenly, a white pigeon swoops off the ground; its ruffling feathers snatches Higgins's attention. Then, a church bell tolls. Out of superstition, Higgins, softly and respectfully, drops sixpence into the flower girl's empty basket. His act of kindness and charity surprises the flower girl; happily, she takes a taxi away from the theater.
She lives in a small room of a huge disintegrating apartment building on the poor side of the town. She sits at an old scuffed up dresser. Upon this dresser rests a small mirror into which she gazes at herself.
The flower girl takes a taxi to Henry Higgins's mansion at 27-A Wimpole Street. He's surprised to see her; compulsively, he heaps insults on her. She wants Higgins to make her into a lady. He calls her names and jokingly threatens to toss her out of the window. Then, he rudely orders the flower girl to sit down. Colonel Pickering gently asks the woman what her name is; her name is Eliza Doolittle. Then, Colonel Pickering politely asks her to have a seat. The flower girl's demeanor softens; she is both surprised and pleased by Colonel Pickering's kindness and respect.
Higgins accepts Eliza as his student, but she must agree to his conditions. She must live in his mansion for six months. He will teach her how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florists shop. If Eliza's good and does what she's told, she will sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat, and have money to buy chocolates and to take rides in taxis. If she's naughty and idle, he'll make her sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce (the maid) with a broomstick. At the end of six months, she shall go to Buckingham Palace in a beautifully dressed carriage. If the king finds out that she's not a lady, the guards will take her to the Tower of London and cut off her head--this will serve as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If she is not found out, she will receive a salary of seven and sixpence to start life with as a lady in a flower shop. Eliza agrees to his terms. He smiles, then he calls her dirty and "deliciously low." He seizes her wrist and flings her to his maid. He orders Mrs. Pearce to burn Eliza's old clothes. Colonel Pickering poses a question towards Higgins: has it occurred to him that Eliza might have feelings?
Mrs. Pearce drags Eliza upstairs to give her a bath. Eliza is hysterical; she's never had a bath in her life. Mrs. Pearce cajoles Eliza: "Don't you want to be sweet and clean and decent, like a lady? You know, you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside."
In the main room downstairs, Higgins is smiling to himself and playing his piano. Colonel Pickering is leaning on the piano; he asks Higgins a loaded question: "Are you a man of good character where women are concerned? You know what I mean? I hope it's understood that no advantage is to be taken of her (the flower girl's) position."
Pickering's allusion offends Higgins. "What? That thing (Eliza)? Sacred, I assure you. I've taught scores of American women to speak English--the best looking women in the world--I'm seasoned. They (women) may as well be blocks of wood."
Afterwards, Higgins subjects Eliza to months of strenuous voice training. Finally, she's ready to be tested. Before taking Eliza to Buckingham Palace, though, Higgins tests her on his family and friends--his mother, Colonel Pickering, Reverend Birchwood and his wife, Fred Hill, his sister, and their mother, Mrs. Hill. Eliza is dressed in a white bonnet and a white gown of delicate lace and satin. She says her lines mechanically but perfectly. Before he presented her to this group, Higgins instructed her to speak on only two subjects: the weather and "how do you do." However, Eliza strays from Higgins's script. Speaking politely, Eliza uses her own street slang. The demonstration succeeds anyway. Now, Higgins becomes more determined to change Eliza. There's nothing she can't do. Higgins receives an invitation from the Transylvanian Embassy; he'll take Eliza there and pass her off as a duchess.
Higgins trains Eliza night and day. Months later, Higgins takes Eliza to the ball at the Transylvanian Embassy. The atmosphere is upper class and snobbish. Eliza is stunning. She's wearing a long satin gown. Pearls dazzle her neck. Her skin is glowing. Her manners are graceful but careful. Eliza fools them all. She bewitches the queen and dances with the prince. No one suspects that she's only a flower girl. Higgins has outdone himself. He's taken a lowly draggle-tailed guttersnipe and transformed her into a duchess. Now the game is over. He's won his bet with Pickering. But what's to become of Eliza? She's not the woman she was, she can't go back to where he found her, besides, her leaving his mansion--and his life--is something Higgins hasn't considered--until now.
Pygmalion has many counterpoints. In one of the film's early scenes, Mrs. Pearce (the maid) says to the flower girl, "Don't you want to be sweet and clean and decent, like a lady? You know, you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside." Throughout Pygmalion, Higgins, though clean and well bred on the outside, is rude, obnoxious, and conceited towards people and particularly women; on the other hand, Eliza, who's dirty and illiterate, is sweet, honest, and very sensitive. Another counterpoint in the film is the abusive manner in which Higgins treats Eliza and the kind manner in which others--Colonel Pickering, Mrs. Pearce, Mrs. Higgins (Higgins's mother), Fred, etc, -- treat Eliza. Such episodes contrast each other throughout the entire film. The paradox of the film is that no one--including Higgins--could see Eliza's inner virtues until she got herself together on the outside. In this sense, Mrs. Pearce's adage was correct when she said, "...you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside," hence, good can sometimes predicate good, and bad can sometimes predicate bad. Pygmalion is a great film; see it!
author of Gotta Be Down!
Summary of Pygmalion (1938) [VHS]
This bold 1938 production of George Bernard Shaw's famous play about a linguist who turns a Cockney flower peddler into a princess was codirected by Anthony Asquith (The Browning Version) and star Leslie Howard, who brings a calculated coldness to the character of Henry Higgins. There's no My Fair Lady sugarcoating here: Higgins is a brute using language as a weapon of class war and patriarchal subjugation of women. He's a likable brute, mind you, but a bully nonetheless, and his molding of poor Eliza (Wendy Hiller) into a Cinderella story is not a pretty sight. Everyone in the cast is in perfect accord with this production's take on Shaw's tale, and while this Pygmalion is a fairly radical enterprise, it is also very funny and handsomely realized. Hiller and Howard have never been better, and the rest of the cast, including Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr, Scott Sunderland, and Jean Cadell, can't be improved upon. Edited by David Lean, who eventually directed Brief Encounter and Lawrence of Arabia. --Tom KeoghComedy Video
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