Pygmalion1.0168_BernardShawAsquith

Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, directors, Pygmalion, a motion picture adaptation of the comic play by George Bernard Shaw (1912), 1938. Distributed on DVD by The Criterion Collection, film 365, with critical materials provided at criterion.com (see link above). [For GBS's play, see the OGCMA slide at Pygmalion1.0168_BernardShaw.]

Prof. Henry Higgins is a professor of phonology who creates a lady of Eliza Doolittle. Asquith's screenplay diverges from the Bernard Shaw original in a few key moments. The most important of which may be where GBS's Eliza says "You think I must go back to Wimpole Street because I have nowhere else to go but father's. But don't you be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked down to. I'll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as he's able to support me." Wendy Hiller's Eliza says something radically different. [A YouTube link provides this critical scene.]

In the image at right, Leslie Howard plays Higgins and Wendy Hiller plays Eliza in Anthony Asquith's film.