Pygmalion (Asquith, 1938)

Film Details

Cast

Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller

Technical Details

Upstaged by the colour and noise of My Fair Lady, Pygmalion is – rather like Eliza Doolittle herself – easily overlooked, though unlike its protagonist, it turns out t... more >

Upstaged by the colour and noise of My Fair Lady, Pygmalion is – rather like Eliza Doolittle herself – easily overlooked, though unlike its protagonist, it turns out there was really no need-for a makeover.

Shorn of the songs and the slapstick, Shaw’s satire on the English class system is brought to the screen in its purest
form, in an Oscar-winning adaptation penned by Shaw himself. Pygmalion remains the definitive film version of the tale, with many of its costumes, sets and even camera angles reproduced faithfully by the 1964 film.

Its cast, including Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller (both insisted upon by Shaw himself), is superlative.

Howard is outstanding as Henry Higgins, the overbearing professor of phonetics who is determined to transform a flower-girl into a duchess. Howard’s Higgins is less
mannered and more energetic than Harrison’s; his relationship with Hiller’s Eliza is touching without ever
being sentimental.

A massive success in its day – not least for being the first English film to utter a certain swear-word (I’ll let you
find out which) – it’s high time this classic British comedy was rediscovered for a new audience.
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