Pygmalion (1938)

Directors:

Anthony Asquith
Leslie Howard

Writers:

George Bernard Shaw (play)
George Bernard Shaw (scenario and dialogue)

Release Date:

3 March 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

He picked up a girl from the gutter - and changed her into a glamorous society butterfly ! . . . See Wendy Hiller, new star discovery, in this amazing role !

Plot:

Shaw's play in which a Victorian dialect expert bets that he can teach a lower-class girl to speak proper English and thus be taken for a lady.

Plot Keywords:

Bet | Flowers | English | Language | Professor

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 4 nominations

Cast

Leslie Howard	...	Professor Henry Higgins
Wendy Hiller	...	Eliza Doolittle
Wilfrid Lawson	...	Alfred Doolittle
Marie Lohr	...	Mrs. Higgins
Scott Sunderland	...	Colonel George Pickering
Jean Cadell	...	Mrs. Pearce
David Tree	...	Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Everley Gregg	...	Mrs. Eynsford-Hill
Leueen MacGrath	...	Clara Eynsford Hill
Esme Percy	...	Count Aristid Karpathy
Violet Vanbrugh	...	Ambassadress
Iris Hoey	...	Ysabel, Social Reporter
Viola Tree	...	Perfide, Social Reporter
Irene Browne	...	Duchess (as Irene Brown)
Kate Cutler	...	Grand Old Lady

Also Known As:

Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (UK) (complete title)

Runtime:

96 min | USA:89 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range System)

Certification:

Canada:G (Ontario) | South Korea:12 | West Germany:6 | Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #4845)

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Gabriel Pascal Productions

Trivia:

George Bernard Shaw wrote the ballroom scene especially for this movie.

Quotes:

Eliza Doolittle: Walk? Not bloody likely. I'm going to take a taxi.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Will & Grace: Fagmalion Part 2: Attack of the Clones (#5.14)" (2003)

Superb Shaw

Shaw's brilliant play is expertly filmed by Howard and Asquith. Howard is perfectly cast as the snobbish Professor Higgins and is matched by Hiller, in her second film, as Eliza Doolittle. The fine supporting cast includes Sunderland, Lawson, and Lohr, who's terrific as Mrs. Higgins. It is difficult to make a bad film of this work, given Shaw's witty dialog, but film performance is different from stage performance, with film calling for more subtlety. The love-hate relationship between the professor and Eliza works wonderfully because Howard and Hiller provide the right combination of humor and humanity. Howard's role here is in sharp contrast to the wimpy Ashley the following year in Gone with the Wind.