Pygmalion - Criterion Collection
by Asquith, Anthony
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Everley Gregg, Kate Cutler, Leslie Howard, O.B. Clarence, Wendy HillerDirector: Asquith, Anthony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: Pan & Scan, 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-09-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Pygmalion - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: A lowly draggle-tailed guttersnipe
Summary: 5 Stars
There are no few words that can express how I feel about Pygmalion. Everything about this film is perfect. Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard (Gone With the Wind) co-directed the film; Bernard Shaw wrote both the screenplay and the dialogue; and director David Lean (Doctor Zhivago, Brief Encounter, and Lawrence of Arabia) edited the film--what a pedigree! And what a debut from British actress Wendy Hiller who earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Eliza Doolittle, a scruffy flower girl who's taken off the streets and refined into a beautiful duchess. Every actress and actor has a defining role; Eliza Doolittle is Wendy Hiller's defining role. The following paragraphs are a basic--but descriptive--account of the film's premise.
Pygmalion is set in London England. The film opens on a crowded sidewalk in front of a theater. It's gloomy and raining. The cobblestone streets are wet. Tiny people are juxtaposed against the theater's enormous colonnade. Well-dressed people pour out of the theater. Some are hailing taxis.
A flower girl (Wendy Hiller) flees the rainy downpour for the dry sidewalk in the front of the theater. Her clothes are heavy with cold water. She pesters the well-dressed people for money. She enters a loud verbal dispute with someone. A tall well-dressed gentleman looms in the background. He wears a hat and a long coat.
The gentleman's name is Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard), and he is a phonetics professor whose ear is so sensitive that he can place any man within six miles. He has a pen and a small notepad.
The flower girl notices the man in the background with his pen and notepad; she takes him for a detective. He tells her that he is not a detective; he's a phonetics professor. She has no idea what a phonetics professor is. Her ignorance and innocence amuses Higgins.
Out of the few words she utters, Higgins is able to tell her where she's from: Lisson Grove. He plucks a few random voices out of the disorderly crowd; he tells the owner of each voice where he or she is from. The astonished crowd harasses Higgins. A tall well-dressed gentleman walks up and utters a few words; Higgins unravels the man's voice with ease--Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India. The man is impressed; his name is Colonel Pickering (Scott Sunderland) and he, too, is a language professor.
The flower girl overhears Higgins and Pickering; Higgins boasts to Pickering that he can transform the common flower girl into a duchess. Offhandedly, Higgins directs a stream of insults at the flower girl. His sarcasm causes her to cry.
Suddenly, a white pigeon swoops off the ground; its ruffling feathers snatches Higgins's attention. Then, a church bell tolls. Out of superstition, Higgins, softly and respectfully, drops sixpence into the flower girl's empty basket. His act of kindness and charity surprises the flower girl; happily, she takes a taxi away from the theater.
She lives in a small room of a huge disintegrating apartment building on the poor side of the town. She sits at an old scuffed up dresser. Upon this dresser rests a small mirror into which she gazes at herself.
The flower girl takes a taxi to Henry Higgins's mansion at 27-A Wimpole Street. He's surprised to see her; compulsively, he heaps insults on her. She wants Higgins to make her into a lady. He calls her names and jokingly threatens to toss her out of the window. Then, he rudely orders the flower girl to sit down. Colonel Pickering gently asks the woman what her name is; her name is Eliza Doolittle. Then, Colonel Pickering politely asks her to have a seat. The flower girl's demeanor softens; she is both surprised and pleased by Colonel Pickering's kindness and respect.
Higgins accepts Eliza as his student, but she must agree to his conditions. She must live in his mansion for six months. He will teach her how to speak beautifully, like a lady in a florists shop. If Eliza's good and does what she's told, she will sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat, and have money to buy chocolates and to take rides in taxis. If she's naughty and idle, he'll make her sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce (the maid) with a broomstick. At the end of six months, she shall go to Buckingham Palace in a beautifully dressed carriage. If the king finds out that she's not a lady, the guards will take her to the Tower of London and cut off her head--this will serve as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls. If she is not found out, she will receive a salary of seven and sixpence to start life with as a lady in a flower shop. Eliza agrees to his terms. He smiles, then he calls her dirty and "deliciously low." He seizes her wrist and flings her to his maid. He orders Mrs. Pearce to burn Eliza's old clothes. Colonel Pickering poses a question towards Higgins: has it occurred to him that Eliza might have feelings?
Mrs. Pearce drags Eliza upstairs to give her a bath. Eliza is hysterical; she's never had a bath in her life. Mrs. Pearce cajoles Eliza: "Don't you want to be sweet and clean and decent, like a lady? You know, you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside."
In the main room downstairs, Higgins is smiling to himself and playing his piano. Colonel Pickering is leaning on the piano; he asks Higgins a loaded question: "Are you a man of good character where women are concerned? You know what I mean? I hope it's understood that no advantage is to be taken of her (the flower girl's) position."
Pickering's allusion offends Higgins. "What? That thing (Eliza)? Sacred, I assure you. I've taught scores of American women to speak English--the best looking women in the world--I'm seasoned. They (women) may as well be blocks of wood."
Afterwards, Higgins subjects Eliza to months of strenuous voice training. Finally, she's ready to be tested. Before taking Eliza to Buckingham Palace, though, Higgins tests her on his family and friends--his mother, Colonel Pickering, Reverend Birchwood and his wife, Fred Hill, his sister, and their mother, Mrs. Hill. Eliza is dressed in a white bonnet and a white gown of delicate lace and satin. She says her lines mechanically but perfectly. Before he presented her to this group, Higgins instructed her to speak on only two subjects: the weather and "how do you do." However, Eliza strays from Higgins's script. Speaking politely, Eliza uses her own street slang. The demonstration succeeds anyway. Now, Higgins becomes more determined to change Eliza. There's nothing she can't do. Higgins receives an invitation from the Transylvanian Embassy; he'll take Eliza there and pass her off as a duchess.
Higgins trains Eliza night and day. Months later, Higgins takes Eliza to the ball at the Transylvanian Embassy. The atmosphere is upper class and snobbish. Eliza is stunning. She's wearing a long satin gown. Pearls dazzle her neck. Her skin is glowing. Her manners are graceful but careful. Eliza fools them all. She bewitches the queen and dances with the prince. No one suspects that she's only a flower girl. Higgins has outdone himself. He's taken a lowly draggle-tailed guttersnipe and transformed her into a duchess. Now the game is over. He's won his bet with Pickering. But what's to become of Eliza? She's not the woman she was, she can't go back to where he found her, besides, her leaving his mansion--and his life--is something Higgins hasn't considered--until now.
Pygmalion has many counterpoints. In one of the film's early scenes, Mrs. Pearce (the maid) says to the flower girl, "Don't you want to be sweet and clean and decent, like a lady? You know, you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside." Throughout Pygmalion, Higgins, though clean and well bred on the outside, is rude, obnoxious, and conceited towards people and particularly women; on the other hand, Eliza, who's dirty and illiterate, is sweet, honest, and very sensitive. Another counterpoint in the film is the abusive manner in which Higgins treats Eliza and the kind manner in which others--Colonel Pickering, Mrs. Pearce, Mrs. Higgins (Higgins's mother), Fred, etc, -- treat Eliza. Such episodes contrast each other throughout the entire film. The paradox of the film is that no one--including Higgins--could see Eliza's inner virtues until she got herself together on the outside. In this sense, Mrs. Pearce's adage was correct when she said, "...you can't be a good girl inside if you're a dirty girl outside," hence, good can sometimes predicate good, and bad can sometimes predicate bad. Pygmalion is a great film; see it!
author of Gotta Be Down!
Summary of Pygmalion - Criterion Collection
Cranky Professor Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) takes a bet that he can turn Cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) into a "proper lady" in a mere six months in this delightful comedy of bad manners based on the play by George Bernard Shaw. This Academy Award-winning inspiration for Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady was directed by Anthony Asquith and star Howard, edited by David Lean, and scripted by Shaw himself. Criterion presents Pygmalion in a beautifully restored digital transfer.This bold 1938 production of George Bernard Shaw's famous play about a linguist who turns a Cockney flower peddler into a princess was codirected by Anthony Asquith (The Browning Version) and star Leslie Howard, who brings a calculated coldness to the character of Henry Higgins. There's no My Fair Lady sugarcoating here: Higgins is a brute using language as a weapon of class war and patriarchal subjugation of women. He's a likable brute, mind you, but a bully nonetheless, and his molding of poor Eliza (Wendy Hiller) into a Cinderella story is not a pretty sight. Everyone in the cast is in perfect accord with this production's take on Shaw's tale, and while this Pygmalion is a fairly radical enterprise, it is also very funny and handsomely realized. Hiller and Howard have never been better, and the rest of the cast, including Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr, Scott Sunderland, and Jean Cadell, can't be improved upon. Edited by David Lean, who eventually directed Brief Encounter and Lawrence of Arabia. --Tom Keogh
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