Amazon.com: 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 Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - A lowly draggle-tailed guttersnipe
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; ... Read More
Rating: - Best Liza yet
First there was the smash hit play, then came the 1938 B&W movie with Leslie Howard is the ultimate pedantic as Prof. Henry Higgens and Wendy Hiller is utterly charming as Eliza Doolittle. I have a VHS copy of the movie but when I realized that the Criterios Collection has released a DVD taken from a very clean print, I leaped for it. I was not disappointed. Plus, it has the added advantage of all DVDs that I could jump to my favorite scenes: Liza on her first outing at Prof. Higgins' mothers home; Liza's father talking about the "underdeserving poor" and the final confrontation between Liza and Prof. ... Read More
Rating: - Matchless version of Shaw's great play
Pygmalion ,Bernard Shaw's magnificent 1913 comedy,is ideally served by this splendid ,perfectly cast movie.Leslie Howard -cast against the wishes of the author who wanted Charles Laughton in the role -plays Professor Higgins ,a wealthy phoenetics professor who meets Eliza Doolittle,a Cockney who sells flowers outside Covent Garden Opera House .He takes on a wager made with Colonel Pickering ,his best friend that he can transform her from a slovenly and slatternly ,uncouth girl into a lady able to pass as such in polite society.Quite a challenge for a man who described her as "a squashed cabbage leaf" ... Read More
Rating: - Classic Shaw in classic film
Pygmalion (1938): Classic Shaw in classic film.
Directed by Anthony Asquith/Leslie Howard
With: Leslie Howard,Wendy Hiller
Criterion Collection's digital transfer edition 2000 offers a first rate black-and-white picture that is a pleasure to watch (in as large a screen as possible), in the original aspect ratio 1.33:1. The edition offers an information booklet but no other extras, commentaries, or other features. However, those familiar with the original G.B. Shaw play will be able to make a comparison with this script, which had several writers, including Asquith. Some divergences will ... Read More
Rating: - Better than with Audrey Hepburn
Much that I love Audrey Hepburn she seems to play a totally different role from the one played here by the great Wendy Hiller. I understand this was her screen debut. I can say the role is just for her. You can't help falling in love with this young woman. That is it, she plays a real woman who is young, but a woman. The drama is intensified because we can feel what she goes through, socially and emotionally in her relationship with her cold and reluctant lover.
There's more than simple comedy of contrasts here. The "unwilling" romance is accentuated here. There are the intricacies, and feelings ... Read More
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