Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title, and adapted by him for the screen. The film was a financial and critical success, and won an Oscar for best screenplay and three more nominations. The screenplay was later adapted into the 1956 theatrical musical My Fair Lady, which in turn led to the 1964 film of the same name. The phoneticist and speech coach Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) meets the flower ... more

Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title, and adapted by him for the screen. The film was a financial and critical success, and won an Oscar for best screenplay and three more nominations. The screenplay was later adapted into the 1956 theatrical musical My Fair Lady, which in turn led to the 1964 film of the same name. The phoneticist and speech coach Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) meets the flower girl Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) on the steps of St Paul's Covent Garden and offers a bet to the Sanskrit scholar Colonel Pickering (Scott Sunderland) that he can teach her to behave and speak like a duchess in six months, which would then allow her to join a florists' shop rather than sell flowers on the street. The following morning, she arrives at Higgins' flat asking for elocution lessons and he takes her on, formalising the bet with Pickering. Eliza's father, Mr Doolittle (Wilfrid Lawson), also calls at Higgins' house, and "sells" him... less