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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."

George Bernard Shaw was very wary about allowing his movies to be filmed. He had seen movies by other famous writers and dramatists thoroughly rewritten for the screen, and thoroughly wrecked as a result. So the greatest English speaking dramatist of the 20th Century held off from any involvement with motion pictures into the 1930s. Then he met Gabriel Pascal. Mr. Pascal was thoroughly honest. He admitted he did not have a cent to his name, but he also admitted a desire to produce all of Shaw's major plays as movies exactly as Shaw wanted them shown. Shaw was impressed and made an agreement giving Pascal a monopoly on all his plays for movie making. In return, Shaw was to be involved in the productions.

It turned out to be a remarkably small but fruitful partnership. Of the over fifty plays of Shaw's output (not to mention several novels), only four were produced by Pascal. They are PYGMALION (1938), MAJOR BARBARA (1940), CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1945), and ANDROCLES AND THE LION (1952). They are all good films, and the first three have reason to be considered great. Shaw died in 1950, so he was not there to see (after Pascal's death) the decline in standards of films based on his plays - such as Otto Preminger's brave attempt at ST. JOAN, and the wretched THE MILLIONAIRESS with Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren.

PYGMALION was a good choice for the first of the series, probably as it was the most popular comedy by Shaw. It was also one of the most controversial plays because of the problem that bedeviled the original production of 1914 and has effected it ever since: how is it supposed to end? Will Higgins and Eliza put aside their differences and admit they love each other and come together at the end?

Shaw clearly felt that Pygmalion Higgins and Galatea Doolittle were doomed not to end in an embrace. He wanted the audience to be left thinking of Eliza as one of the 20th Century's "New Women", who is independent and strong, not just a piece of weak clay to be kneaded by an artistic and overpowering male ego. In the dialog (which he uses in the play and in the movie script) Shaw insisted that Eliza favors Freddy Eynesford-Hill over Higgins because Freddy is a weakling. All her life she has been dominated by strong men (first her father Alfred, then Higgins, and (although he is kinder) Col. Pickering). Freddy is the first one to show his need for guidance and help - he is shown at the beginning of the play as little better than a servant for his mother and sister, getting them a cab in the rain.

But Shaw did not have an easy time with this view. The play was produced by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, one of England's leading stars of the Edwardian and Georgian stage (he was brother of critic and writer Sir Max Beerbohm, and his son David Tree plays Freddy in this film version). Beerbohm Tree felt that there was a real romance between Higgins and Doolittle, and insisted on playing it like that, to the point of throwing a bouquet of flowers to Eliza as she is leaving. Shaw was furious at this, and wrote a seven page afterword which (mercifully) is never read at productions. I saw Peter O'Toole as Higgins in 1988, with Amanda Plummer as Eliza, Lionel Jeffries as Pickering, and the late Sir John Mills as Alfred Doolittle, and the play ended on the right note of uncertainty wanted. It did not have a thin, bearded actor as Shaw coming out to read the afterward.

In this afterward, Shaw said that Eliza learns from the brutal Higgins he is a confirmed bachelor devoted to his mother (an interesting psychological point there that another play could have been built from). She does marry Freddy, and (as Higgins had sneered) things are tough - though not due to Freddy being unfaithful but that he is not very sharp. But Col. Pickering helps them set up a florist business, and after awhile it prospers. Clara Eynesford-Hill (whose character is barely developed in the play or on the screen) does become a friend of the socialist and novelist H.G.Wells. Alfred Doolittle, after getting speech lessons from Higgins, becomes a popular speaker and writer on social issues. As you can see, Shaw's anger got the better of him.

Shaw was convinced by Pascal (for business reasons) to soften the conclusion, by showing Eliza fleeing Higgins in Freddy's car, Higgins walking alone through London to his home, slamming the door of his study, causing the phonograph to go on, playing a record of Eliza's old voice talking. As he sits with head in his hands, Eliza shows up at the door, turns off the machine, and starts talking as on the record. But Higgins realizes it is her, although he does not turn around. He sits back with a happy, if smug expression on his face, pulls his hat down over his eyes, and says (shot from his back to Eliza), "Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?" It is suggestive of a meeting of two souls, but it leaves it still in the air. It is superior to that idiotic afterward.

George Bernard Shaw won his only Oscar for a screenplay for PYGMALION. It is a brilliant play and script, given top notched direction by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, with Howard giving one of his three top performances in it as Higgins - ably matched by Wendy Hiller as Eliza and Wilfred Lawson as Doolittle. And it's conclusion was so good, it was kept by Learner and Lowe for MY FAIR LADY on stage and screen.

While My Fair Lady was a tremendous film which is a pleasure to watch and rewatch, Pygmalion is the true cinematic version of Shaw's work and this version is brilliant. While I still have mixed feelings about the Henry-Eliza relationship and the play ending, it has to be said that the two leads here are perfect for their roles. There were not many British actors better than Howard at the time for this type of thing, and Wendy Hiller never disappointed her audience once in her long career. A good film full of detail and feeling. The one sticking point is the weak and feeble Freddie who at least was given a personality in MFL. Here you can't wonder that Eliza is so quick to discard his attentions. A film which should be celebrated and treasured more in the UK than it is.

Nearly 70 years later the Gabriel Pascal "Pygmalion" still sets the bar for film adaptation of a stage play. So much so, in fact, that the GBS incorporated many of the film's upgrades into the authoritative published version of the play, despite the play being more than 20 years old when the film was made.

When was the last time you saw a performance leap off the screen like Leslie Howard's as Professor Higgins? Shaw never saw such treatment on screen again, even under Pascal's hand. The film of "Major Barbara" is interesting (and a bit bizarre toward the end) in its own right, with some magnificent bits in the Act II homeless shelter and a heart-wrenching Wendy Hiller, but pales next to the stage version in its intellectual, political and dramatic depth. And all the rest, even the charming "Caesar and Cleopatra" with Raines and Leigh, just don't cut it compared to the plays.

"Pygmalion" is where any screenwriter needs to start in adapting a play for the movies. No one has done it better since.

(BTW, GBS's afterward to "Pygmalion" is intended to be tongue-in-cheek, I think. It's intentionally ridiculous, so that the mob clamoring for a romantic ending would realize just how inappropriate and uninteresting that would have been.)

Perfect cinema. That was my reaction when I first saw Pygmalion, the first of 50 viewings and counting, and I still think so. Who could not fall in love with Leslie Howard, one of our greatest actors, so tragically assassinated in the Second World War? Wendy Hiller IS Eliza. The cast is flawless. The script... words fail me, for George Bernard Shaw was a genius, he did not simply adapt his play for the screen, it is so good that it is like it's happening before your eyes. My God, after seeing this is there anyone out there who thinks 'My Fair Lady', the slowest film musical on record, is the best screen version of Shaw? If they do, they are mad.

That film moves me not one jot, everything is so clean, so smug, so unreal. Here we see poverty, but also hope. These are not actors and actresses moving through the sets garbed in Cecil Beaton, but real people, real suffering, but humanity lights every scene like a beacon. The unbearably moving scenes of Eliza capturing society at the ball, the irresistible waltz, watch this with no tears in your eyes, I dare you. Halliwells Film Guide calls this 'one of the most heartening and adult British films of the thirties'. Too right. I cannot fault this film, it is priceless. By the way, I saw 'My Fair Lady' on stage recently, and it's miles better than the film version. Warner Bros really let Shaw down, and it's impossible to put it right. But this...well it is a big compensation. And I don't miss the songs one little bit.

There are so many classic scenes I can't pick any out. Of course viewers will spot that it was 'updated' to 1938, and the original play set in the Edwardians. That doesn't hurt it at all, 'polite' society didn't change much in the intervening years and gives the play an added 'contemporary' edge. Please, please, please see this film. You will be gripped.

This is a four-star movie in the various video guides, but not for me. True, there is much to like. It can be very funny. But two-thirds of the way through the film I began finding the Henry Higgins character unbearably dense--for all his brilliance--and tiresome.

Here Eliza Doolittle has been transformed into a veritable princess, but for Higgins this just means he's won his bet with Pickering. He can't see the beauty that's right in front of him. For that matter, throughout the film he cannot see the human woman that's right in front of him; he treats her like an object and is downright mean.

Higgins strikes me as the sort of irascible eccentric that we are meant to find delightful and, when all is said and done, endearing. It's been my belief that eccentrics are tiresome because they really have no sense of what they look like to others and in fact don't really care that much about others. They're too busy riding some behavioral or mental hobby horse. And that's what makes them eccentric.

Wendy Hiller is wonderful as Eliza, both pre- and post-Higgins. I don't see anything funny about the way Higgins treats her character.

I don't know anything about G.B. Shaw other than this film derived from one of his plays. It doesn't make me want to find out more about his work.

The nice thing about watching the screen version of Pygmalion is that having seen My Fair Lady and heard the original Broadway cast album a few thousand times, you know where the songs are supposed to go.

And you know the plot. There's a little more of George Bernard Shaw's social commentary about class in this one, but still we enjoy the romance of the man falling in love with his creation.

Leslie Howard is cast very much against type here. The romantic idealist that was Alan Squire or Ashley Wilkes, there's no trace of here. Professor Henry Higgins is one misanthropic fellow, a man who's disdained the social class mores of the pre-World War I, United Kingdom. But he's no social crusader. He's taken up the esoteric study of language and phonetics and on a bet with Colonel Pickering, boasts he can obliterate class lines for any subject by teaching proper speech.

And who's the subject, cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle. Someone who Higgins opens a new world for and after the wager is finished, just can't go back to what she was.

As in My Fair Lady, the funniest scenes are Eliza trying to master the English of the Oxford Dons. We don't get the Rain in Spain here, sung and danced as Eliza breaks through, but it's still the part I like the best.

Shaw's commentary about class distinctions come out of the mouth of Alfred P. Doolittle. Wilfrid Lawson's ideas about morality may very well make him the most original moralist in the English speaking world. The poor just can't afford them and he's driven kicking and screaming into the middle class with a sudden burst of luck. Think Mickey Rourke in Barfly, forced to clean up his act for the sake of convention.

Pygmalion introduced Wendy Hiller to the screen as Eliza Doolittle. It's a difficult part as Eliza evolves in front of us. Quite a revelation for Leslie Howard also.

Hiller of course would be another Shavian heroine in Major Barbara, another great role for her. Howard, sadly, never got a chance to tackle George Bernard Shaw again. I could see him as Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra or Cusins in Major Barbara.

Even without the songs, Pygmalion can be seen and enjoyed by all.

Charming and amusing British pre-war production of Shaw's celebrated play starring Leslie Howard and "introducing" Wendy Hiller in the lead roles of the indomitable chauvinist Professor Henry Higgins and impoverished, uneducated Eliza Doolittle. Of course, Shaw being Shaw (indeed the great man himself was involved personally in the production) there's more to the film than just posh-meets-poor comedy. As well as a battle of the sexes, we're presented with class warfare and almost unbelievably at the end, the most unlikely of love stories.

There are plenty of amusing situations and lines sprinkled throughout although probably the most famous part when Eliza spectacularly drops her haitches in high society is held back and highlighted to better comedic effect in the later musical remake "My Fair Lady". Otherwise nicely paced from the outset, the movie's only other missed beat is with the unnecessary gentrification of Eliza's not so dear old dad, but I suspect that was unavoidably in the writing.

Howard is fine as the stuffed shirt Higgins and Hiller finer still as the initially gauche and vulgar flower girl who not only transforms into the lady Higgins sets her out to be but also into a woman which he didn't count on.

Although still stagey in its execution, this adaptation of the Galatea legend is winningly realised and well worth a butchers for those who might otherwise only know the story from "My Fair Lady".

George Bernard Shaw was commissioned to write the screenplay to Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard's 1938 adaptation of his 1913 play "Pygmalion." A tale so familiar to people as the basis of so many revised and conte03, +mporary romantic comedies, most notably as the musical "My Fair Lady" and more recently as the adolescent comedies "She's All That" and "The Duff." Within two blocks, he can determine where a person comes from by their accent. He encounters a flower girl with a heavy Cockney accent and lewd conduct with Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller). Higgins says that in three months he will pass her off as a duchess. This bid is taken up by Colonel Pickering (S cott Sundersund). Eventually, Eliza comes to Higgin's house to learn how to act like a lady. Pygmalion's Greek mythology was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved and brought to life afterwards. Metaphorically, Eliza is "borne to life" and becomes the ideal woman of Higgin. With a beautiful Oscar winning script written by Shaw with fresh dialog and scenes with W's support, Wendy Hiller does a tremendous job. P. Lipscomb and Lewis. Leslie Howard is coming off stubborn and trapped, but he manages it very well. A wonderful movie that was the first editing job for David Lean.

George Bernard Shaw wrote the play "Pygmalion" in 1912 and 1913 as part-social protest, part-satire, part-comedy of manners. Its central character, Henry Higgins, a London teacher of elocution and expert in regional phonetics, makes a small wager with his friend and colleague, Colonel George Pickering, that he can take a waif from the streets, one Eliza Doolittle, and pass her off as the cream of the social crop. Using a pedagogical technique consisting mostly of inhumane badgering and humiliation, he manages to pull off the feat with unexpected success – but at an emotional cost he does not foresee.

Besides the inventive montages illustrating Higgins' transformation of Eliza from Cockney flower-girl to the statuesque, gowned beauty who's mistaken for a royal princess at a diplomatic reception, there are additional items that failed to materialize in Shaw's original – the use of the phrases, "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains" and "Hurricanes hardly happen in Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire," both of which later became lyrics for Lerner and Lowe's musical version. And in the play, Higgins's irritating Hungarian nemesis is not given a name; here, for the first time, he is dubbed "Kaparthy."

Leslie Howard, who co-directed this 1938 film, impersonates Higgins as hard-core realist - diabolical, profane, impatient, sometimes maddening. And as Eliza, Wendy Hiller has her coy moments, particularly when she is "tried out" at a tea party given by Higgins's mother. Her carefully high-toned enunciation of "the new slang" is timed to perfection.

The film, unfortunately, leaves one with the feeling that at the story's conclusion - with Higgins quietly demanding to know from Eliza the whereabouts of his slippers - both student and mentor "live happily ever after." This contrived ending must have been a compromise on the part of the producer, Gabriel Pascal, although one finds it mystifying that Shaw, who is credited with the story's adaptation, would have ever endorsed such a sentimental ending. For as Shaw had written at the end of his play over two decades earlier, "the rest of the story need not be shown...if our imaginations were not so enfeebled by their lazy dependence on the...reach-me-downs of the rag shop in which Romance keeps its stock of happy endings..." The playwright then proceeded into seven pages of prose, describing an epilogue in which Eliza married the worshipful young suitor, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and the generous Colonel Pickering set up the newlyweds in their own business near Victoria Station. As for any relationship between Higgins and Eliza, according to Shaw, "(to this day) he storms and bullies and derides; but she stands up to him so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins." As is the aftermath of most good stories, the worm indeed did turn.

With Wilfrid Lawson as Eliza's father, Alfred; Scott Sunderland as Pickering; and David Tree impersonates the shallow but inoffensive Freddy in high style. (He would do the same with the role of Charles Lomax three years later in "Major Barbara.") If the American schleps and male-pushovers that Ralph Bellamy used to play in "The Awful Truth" and "His Girl Friday" ever had a British cousin, David Tree was it; he did the upper-class twit better than anyone.

Professor Henry Higgins (Lesley Howard) is an arrogant bachelor professor of phonetics who bets with his rich friend Colonel George Pickering (Scott Sunderland) that he is able to transform the cockney accent of the simple low class seller of flowers Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) in a British accent that would make high class people believe that she is a duchess. This story is one of the most delightful in the cinema history. Based on a book of Bernard Shaw, this was the first time I watched this 1938 version, and I found it marvelous. The cast has an outstanding performance. I am Brazilian, but it seems to me that the cockney pronunciation of Wendy Hiller is perfect. I intend to watch today again `My Fair Lady', a musical and fancy version of this story for comparison. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Pigmalião' (`Pygmalion')

If there has ever been a perfect film, that's the one. A great story and a superb cast, it makes the musical 'classic' look like a children's movie. Howard is the real Higgins, witty and cynical, intellectual but cheerful, unabashedly snobbish, yet strangely endearing. But above all, there is Wendy Hiller, whose sole performance gives the movie its enduring charm. When I first saw the movie, I fell in love with her, literally. The next thing I knew, I was scouring video stores for any Wendy Hiller movie, and I was not disappointed. I think she is one of the greatest actresses of all time, second to none, probably except Giulietta Masina. It's a pity that her dedication to the theater did not allow her to make more movies. A long time after I first saw this film, its memorable moments are still fresh in my mind-and the dialogue: 'I'm a good girl, I'm'; 'I don't want to speak grammar, I want to speak like a lady'; 'If you say "I'm a good girl" again, father will take back home'; 'them she lived with would have killed her for a hat pin, let alone a hat'; and so much more. Who could have been wittier than Shaw?

There can be no doubt that LESLIE HOWARD was the perfect actor to play Henry Higgins in Shaw's PYGMALION--although when watching it one can't help hearing Rex Harrison behind some of the lines, so ingrained is the Harrison performance on this particular role.

But Howard shows the flair for comedy that he demonstrated in other films of the '30s, most notably a screwball comedy with Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland called "It's Love I'm After" in which Howard and Eric Blore stole the film with their riotous performances.

Here he excels as Higgins and with a wonderful Eliza in the form of WENDY HILLER, the two of them make you forget there ever was a musical version--well, almost. Every time they mention "the rain in Spain" or other Shaw phrases that were turned into musical phrases, you can envision the musical behind the play.

SCOTT SUNDERLAND is a delightfully aristocratic Col. Pickering and WILFRID LAWSON is impressive as Alfred Doolittle, each making the role their own in a way that rivals the broader playing of the roles in the musical version directed by George Cukor.

What's nice about this MY FAIR LADY is that it isn't overstuffed to the point where it takes more than two hours to tell the tale. It's performed in a brisk one hour and thirty-six minutes without any dull spots.

WENDY HILLER is remarkable as Eliza, making the transformation from ignorant Cockney flower girl to a glittering lady with the right amount of poise and charm. She isn't as glamorized as Audrey Hepburn for the ball scene, but still manages to convey the elegance that classifies her as a princess to the elite ladies and gentlemen at the ballroom.

If you look closely, you can spot a youthful LEO GENN as the prince who dances with Eliza while the onlookers stare. He hasn't a line of dialog.

Well done, smoothly directed by Anthony Asquith, it's a pleasure to watch.

The last few times I've tried to watch "My Fair Lady," the musical based on George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion," I've found it tough to sit through. It feels so padded, so lumbering, so long, and ooooh boy does that second half turn into a slog, when the story seems to be over but the movie just keeps going and going. But watching "Pygmalion," the 1938 film, renewed my appreciation for the Lerner and Loewe musical. Without the color and the songs, this "Pygmalion" just feels so lifeless and drab.

The screenplays of both films are an almost word-to-word match, which doesn't help the earlier movie because almost none of the line readings are as funny as they are in "My Fair Lady." You hear Leslie Howard delivering any number of one liners and all you can think is how much funnier Rex Harrison was delivering the same lines. But even minor characters, like Mrs. Pearce the housekeeper, are funnier in the musical. Wendy Hiller probably fairs the best as Eliza, since I've never felt Audrey Hepburn was a great match for the role. And Wilfred Lawson also does just as well as Stanley Holloway, and at least we're spared the endless "Get Me to the Church on Time" number that grinds the musical to a halt in its last half hour. But if I'm going to watch a version of this story, "My Fair Lady" is the one I'll be turning to.

"Pygmalion" won the 1938 Academy Award for Best Screenplay, and it was nominated for Outstanding Production, Best Actor (Howard), and Best Actress (Hiller).

Grade: B-

A pretty wonderful film of the George Bernard Shaw play.

Both Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller are terrific in the leads, and this production brings out both the fun and wit of Shaw's words, and the sharp, complex, and sometimes paradoxical political and social observations underneath.

Dated in style, yes, and Hiller is a bit older than ideal for the role's innocence. And some of the supporting performances are too stagy (although some are very good indeed).

But overall this is a lot of fun, and quite thought provoking, with a nicely ambiguous ending.

This adaptation of Shaw's play has bright moments, and Hiller is beautiful in an unusual way, but it's so insufferably talky that you beg for more quite moments as a relief.

Pygmalion by George Bernard shaw is my favourite play, closely followed the importance of being earnest by Oscar Wilde. And this version of it has to be one of my top ten favourite films. i love it, everything from the acting to the story is note perfect. Leslie Howard IS professor Higgins and one cannot imagine a better Eliza than Wendy hiller.

everyone knows the story (which is loosely based on a Greek myth), a cockney flower girl (Eliza Doolittle) is trained by a fussy and arrogant elocutionist (prof Higgins)to behave properly in high society. The story is witty, entertaining and is extremely popular. the casting in this is note perfect, Leslie Howard (probably best known for his portrayal of Ashley Wilkes in 'gone with the wind'), who also co-directed this film stars as professor henry Higgins and he embodies him perfectly, capturing every aspect of this arrogant, witty, fussy and infuriating man. the character is easily the most popular in the whole play (much against the playwright's wishes, shaw was a feminist). it was also one of Howard's favourite roles in his career as this man did not particularly like Hollywood films, considering them to be stupid and he spent his working life in Britain. he earned a nomination for best actor at the Oscars for this role (i really wish he had got it!). Wendy hiller making her screen debut and also personally recommended by shaw for the role is the best Eliza one will ever see. she also got nominated at the Oscars that same year. the rest of the supporting cast was good too, Scott Sunderland as the gentlemanly colonel pickering was very good, Wilfred Lawson as Alfred Doolittle was excellent (when he breathed at Higgins with his bad breath, i nearly wet myself with laughter), jean Caddell as the proud but middle class housekeeper Mrs Pearce, Marie Lohr as Higgins's stern but caring mother, David tree as the wimpish Freddy Eynsford-Hill who falls for Eliza and Esme Percy as count Aristid Karpathy. every one was nearly perfect in their roles.

the one thing i wasn't too pleased about was the fact that Anthony Asquith has decided to take out some of the funniest lines in the play an replace them with ones no where near as good as the old ones. he has also done this in the 1952 version of importance of being earnest.

shaw was a bit weary at his plays being done on screen. he had constantly turned down Hollywood offers to do screen his play (thank god, Hollywood has the greatest reputation of ruining British stories). he won an Oscar for best screenplay as he adapted his own play onto the screen here which did not please him. he was an odd man. they had too add in more here if they were going to make it feature length, so they have shown us Eliza's tutoring and the ball scene which is very well done. they also change the ending where Eliza returns to Higgins instead of leaving with Freddy. we are left wondering whether they get married, of live as friends or whatever. Higgins makes it perfectly clear that he will never marry anybody, but it could have happened. and Eliza is unlikely to marry a man who bullied her for six months but it leaves the audience guessing which is exactly what shaw wanted. the ending of the original play was Eliza leaving Higgins to go with Mrs Higgins, colonel pickering and Freddy to Alfred Doolittle's wedding and Higgins was left alone but with an incorrigible manner. in the film where she returns, it makes our imagination work a little more.

don't be taken in by the musical version of this play, my fair lady. this version is the real thing. i originally saw my fair lady before i saw this film and it was a lesson for me to see this and really appreciate it. i loved Rex Harrison's slightly mad performance as Higgins but Leslie Howard plays him closer to the original play (it has also been said that he would have been given the role of Higgins in my fair lady if he had still been alive) and Audrey Hepburn is just plain irritating in the role of Eliza, she can't hold a candle to Wendy hiller's performance. shaw would have undoubtedly hated my fair lady, he couldn't stick musicals, he probably wouldn't have allowed them the rights to make it. it didn't take me long to find fault in my fair lady and start loving this though. my fair lady is a Hollywood musical, they haven't a clue how to do British properly. it irritates me that everyone remembers my fair lady and fewer people know this film.

Pygmalion is deservedly a British classic and should be so much more appreciated in the UK than it is.

Professor of Linguistics Leslie Howard (Henry) bets a colleague that he can take Wendy Hiller (Eliza) a common flower girl from the streets and pass her off as a lady of breeding at a society function. So begins the training.

There are some funny moments, most memorably when Hiller is allowed to ad lib conversation at a high class tea setting with Howard's mother Marie Lohr and guests. She butchers the English grammar and throws in some choice words. Outside of this scene, there are tedious sections and forced humour that doesn't work, eg, an attempt at screwball comedy where characters talk at the same time. This was never a funny style of comedy. Still isn't.

There is a romantic undercurrent that surfaces between the 2 leads at the end and even if the characters and the love theme is a little unconvincing, it doesn't matter. After all, pigs might fly.....

This is another one of those movies that everyone and their uncle blindly praises because their art teacher told them it's a good movie and people are too dumb to think for themselves. If their art professor told them it's a masterpiece, it must be a masterpiece because sheeple can't think for themselves.

Even if you ignore the fact that this movie is too boring, this movie's entire premise is a total nonsense. A professor takes a flower selling girl, teaches her to speak "proper English" that is he fixes her pronunciation and suddenly her IQ goes up 40 points, she becomes elegant, smart, intelligent, classy...etc., just because her pronunciation changed.

Why do people go to school if you can just make someone a lot more smarter and capable just by changing the way they pronounce words?