Pygmalion (play)
Pygmalion is a play by G. Bernard Shaw, written in 1912 and first staged in English in 1914.
The story
It is the story of Professor Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who wagers that he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into the toast of London society merely by teaching her how to speak with an upper-class accent. In the process, he becomes fond of her and attempts to direct her future, but she rejects his domineering ways and marries a young but poor man of the genteel class, Freddy.
The original stage play shocked audiences by Eliza's use of a swear word. Humour is drawn from her ability to speak well, but without an understanding of the conversation acceptable to polite society. For example, when asked whether she is walking home, she replies, 'Not bloody likely!' The actress Mrs Patrick Campbell, for whom Shaw wrote the role, was thought to risk her career by uttering the line.
Origins of the story
Shaw used Pygmalion from Roman mythology as the basis for his play. Shaw's play also owes something to the legend of "King Cophetua and the beggar maid"; in which a King lacks interest in women, but one day falls in love with a young beggar-girl, later educating her to be his Queen.
The staging
Shaw completed Pygmalion and later that same year it was translated into German. This is important because the very first performance was played by English actors in Vienna, Austria, with none other than Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle. Pygmalion opened at the Hofburg Theatre on October 16, 1913, however it was moved to England, with the same cast, and opened there, on April 11, 1914 at His Majesty's Theatre. This was the first time Shaw's Pygmalion was performed in English.
The 1938 film version
In 1938, a film version of the stage play was released,[1] starring Leslie Howard as Higgins, Wendy Hiller as Eliza, Wilfrid Lawson as her father Alfred Doolittle, Scott Sunderland as Colonel Pickering, and David Tree as Freddy Eynsford-Hill. It was adapted to film by Shaw, W.P. Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple, and Anatole de Grunwald from the Shaw play, and directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Leslie Howard was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and Wendy Hiller nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress .
My Fair Lady
The play was the basis for the musical My Fair Lady.[2]
The movie starred Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, Rex Harrison as Prof. Henry Higgins, Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Dolittle and Wilfrid Hyde-White as Colonel Pickering. Rex Harrrison won the best actor Oscar award for this film.
The play, the stage musical, and the film musical have different endings. At the end of the play, Eliza leaves Higgins to marry the upper class but otherwise useless, Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Shaw, annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek 'romantic' re-interpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay for inclusion with subsequent editions in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting married. In the stage musical, this is left unresolved, and the final scene is of a lonely Higgins. Both the 1948 film and the musical version of the play("My Fair Lady") add a final scene with both of them apparently about to reconcile.
Trivia: In the scene where Eliza is practicing her "H's", she sits down in front of a spinning mirror attached to a flame. Every time she says her "H's" correctly, the flame jumps. If you look closely at the paper she is holding in her hand when it catches fire, you will see handwritten upon it the dialog that she and Professor Higgins have been saying previous to this. "Of course, you can't expect her to get it right the first time," is the first line written on the paper.
Goofs: Continuity: The recording Higgins plays of Eliza speaking in the last scene of the film is different dialog from the actual scene that was supposedly recorded.
Quotes: Professor Henry Higgins: The French don't care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.
Awards: Won 8 Oscars. Another 12 wins & 10 nominations