How sad is this?

A Masterpiece!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Now, I will own up to liking 'My Fair Lady' but all those songs are not what made this story successful (as a stage play) in the first place. It isn't clear what GBS would have made of it (he'd died by then), but I could guess; possibly he is rotating subterraneously to this very day.However this version of his story was made with his (almost full) approval, and differs only in detail from the stage play. In point of fact most of the changes that were made for the film he considered improvements to the original stage play, and he recommended that they be incorporated in any future stage productions.Leslie Howard is naturally excellent as the somewhat brusque, snobbish, and occasionally pompous professor; Alfred Doolittle and Colonel Pickering are spot-on too, but the make or break character in this film is of course Eliza herself.Wendy Hiller may not have been first choice for this role in the film (it was her second film role ever), but she had already played Eliza on stage with much success. I have to say I think she is rather wonderful in this film, and I would echo the comments of other reviewers that it is lamentable (for us film lovers anyway) that she concentrated on the stage at the expense of the silver screen.Now, one of the issues with this story (on stage or screen) is that the East End accents etc need to be toned down in order that they are intelligible to those who are not familiar with them. Often those with a thick accent amongst themselves have a different voice to speak to strangers with; they are familiar with the problem. For the stage or screen it is a fine line to tread; what remains may be representative in some respects, (eg sentence construction) but is otherwise perhaps not the same thing at all. The mangled vowel sounds have to be intelligible but remain obviously distinct and 'wrong'. Hiller and Lawson (as Doolittle) do this very well.GBS wrote "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him". It is over a century since GBS wrote this play and it is remarkable that not only does it hold true that local accents prevail, but also that the same local accents prevail; the dialect of 100 years ago (despite lack of constraint at least and more often downright condemnation from experts in grammar, dictionaries etc) remains largely unchanged.And of course the social distinctions that go with accents also still remain. GBS's "hate or despise" is a bit strong but no-one is entirely immune to making snap judgements about people based on the way they speak, rather than the thing it is that they are trying to say. 'Twas ever thus, I suspect.GBS's dialogue is as sharp as a razor here; short lines are often pricelessly pithy, full of barbed comment on the class war. A good example is the exchange between Higgins and Alfred; " ... have you no morals, man?!" - " I can't afford 'em, guvnor...". There are many others.One thing GBS didn't like was the ending to the film, which differs from the play. Being hopelessly sentimental at heart, I quite like it.This is, and I suspect will remain, a definitive version of this story. It is possible that the whole premise of the story will one day no longer be relevant, but I can't see that happening anytime soon.Top marks from me.

George Bernard Shaw won an Oscar for his screenplay of "Pygmalion," which he further adapted from his own stage play that had been a huge success. The later musical hit of 1964, "My Fair Lady," was fashioned from this highly successful and popular film production. Other movies have been attempted, but all fall short of this original. Nor can any other musical attempt top the original musical rendition. This film won the Oscar for best screenplay and was nominated for the top three awards – best picture, actor and actress. "Pygmalion" and its stars were up against huge competition that year. I think Leslie Howard's Professor Henry Higgins was as good as Spencer Tracy's Fr. Flanagan in "Boys Town." And, Wendy Hiller's Eliza Doolittle was as good or better than Bette Davis's "Jezebel." The supporting cast of "Pygmalion" were all very good. Most notable were Wilfrid Lawson as Alfred Doolittle, Marie Lohr as Mrs. Higgins, and Scott Sunderland as Col. Pickering. This is a wonderful movie that all should enjoy. It's a good companion to the more popular 1964 musical. But before or after watching that film, watch this original movie version of Shaw's play as well. It is the prototype for all renditions put on film. One would be hard pressed to find better acting for this story anywhere.

. . . that "Eliza Doolittle" is driven back to Leslie Howard's self-styled modern Pygmalion, Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins. This despite the fact that the future "Ashley Wilkes" (Leslie Howard) uses the "D-word" a dozen times more than Clark Gable's Rhett Butler would the following year in GONE WITH THE WIND. (That's because England was about a dozen times more "free" than America back in the 1900s.) Eliza's wavering between misogynist "confirmed bachelor" Henry and Freddy's Mr. Giggles is understandable, since Oscar-winning screenwriter George Bernard Shaw included an "afterword" about 50 pages long with the book version of his original PYGMALION stage play explaining why he thought Freddy--NOT Henry--must wind up with the flapper version of Galatea, Eliza. Emerson said a foolish consistency is the "hobgoblin" of little minds, which excuses Shaw's ambivalence. Bernie had a great big brain--so vast that he's the only screenwriter in movie history to have a Nobel Prize on his mantle. When you watch PYGMALION, you'll realize Shaw handed Lerner and Lowe the musical openings and half the actual lyrics to their eventual 1964 "Best Picture" screen musical remake of this story: MY FAIR LADY.

Linguistically appropriate and bad-mannered Leslie Howard (as Henry Higgins) bets he can teach cockney guttersnipe Wendy Hiller (as Eliza Doolittle) how to speak in high society, and then pass her off to the Buckingham Palace crowd as a Duchess. This production of George Bernard Shaw's classic story doesn't have the great Lerner / Loewe songs made familiar in the musical ("My Fair Lady") version, but it's a much better production, overall. Mr. Shaw receives official credit; he shared an "Academy Award" win with three screenplay adapters. Whatever the distribution of work, Shaw's sharp and brilliant satire on British dialects shines prominently. Everyone performs marvelously. The accent is on excellence.********** Pygmalion (8/38) Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard ~ Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Scott Sunderland