Pygmalion **** (1938, Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson) – Classic Movie Review 4945

Pygmalion? It was one of Shaw’s. And he won an Oscar!

Directors Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard’s 1938 British version of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion about the English speech-study professor who plots to make a lady of a common London flower girl is an accomplished, brisk and entertaining movie. Shaw’s own scenario and dialogue won him a shared Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay.

Star Howard (who commands the screen as well as sharing the direction with Asquith) plays Professor Henry Higgins as a perfect mix of the horrid and the appealing, while Wendy Hiller’s expert and estimable Eliza Doolittle is a fully rounded, engaging character, though, arguably, the star turn comes from Wilfrid Lawson as Eliza’s garrulous dustman dad, Alfred Doolittle. It is certainly the show-stopping turn, with the role a gift to a good, quirky actor.

While the film makes sure it does full justice to the outpouring of Shaw’s sharply witty dialogue – unsurprisingly so as he wrote his own scenario and dialogue! – it stays cinematic and never seems stagey.

Pygmalion is a perfect complement to the glossier but less sharp My Fair Lady. The writers Shaw, W P Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, and Ian Dalrymple shared the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay. Howard and Hiller were nominated as Best Actor and Actress, and the film as Best Picture, but there was just the one win.

Audiences of the day were shocked and delighted when Hiller swears as she declares to young Freddy Eynsford-Hill (David Tree): ‘Walk? Not bloody likely! I’m taking a taxi.’ It runs a brisk 96 minutes, helped along with a score by Arthur Honegger, but the US version runs only 89 minutes and has a new William Axt title theme.

Also in the cast are  Scott Sunderland as Colonel George Pickering, Marie Lohr as Mrs Higgins, David Tree, Esmé Percy, Everley Gregg as Mrs Eynsford-Hill, Jean Cadell as Mrs Pearce, Leueen McGrath, Violet Vanbrugh, Iris Hoey, Viola Tree, Irene Browne, Kate Cutler, Cathleen Nesbitt, O B Clarence, Wally Patch, H F Maltby, George Mozart, Ivor Barnard, Cecil Trouncer, Stephen Murray, Eileen Beldon, Frank Atkinson, Leo Genn, Anthony Quayle and Patrick Mcnee.

It is produced by Gabriel Pascal, one of his films based on plays by George Bernard Shaw. Pascal is also known for his work on Major Barbara (1941) and Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

Pygmalion is directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, runs 95, is made by Pascal Film Productions, is released by General Film Distributors and MGM, is written by George Bernard Shaw, W P Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple and Anatole de Grunwald, based on the play by George Bernard Shaw, is shot in black and white by Harry Stradling Sr, is produced by Gabriel Pascal, is scored by Arthur Honegger, and is designed by John Bryan.

It was made at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, on a relatively low budget of $350,000.

Oscar-winner G B Shaw died on 2 November 1950, aged 94.

Shaw did not attend the 1939 Oscar ceremony and when presenter Lloyd C Douglas announced that Pygmalion won, he joked: ‘Mr Shaw’s story now is as original as it was 3000 years ago.’ Shaw’s reaction later was: ‘It’s an insult for them to offer me any honour, as if they had never heard of me before. And it’s very likely they never have. They might as well send some honour to George for being King of England.’

Legend had it that Shaw never received the Oscar, but when Mary Pickford visited him she saw it on his mantlepiece. His home at Ayot St Lawrence became a museum on his death in 1950 but the statuette was so tarnished that the curator thought it had no value and used it as a door stop. It is now repaired and is on display at the museum. Shaw would probably not be amused.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 4945

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