Yar, you be here: Pygmalion - Criterion Collection > Customer Reviews

Pygmalion - Criterion Collection Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 11 Reviews)

This film is based on the play by George Bernard Shaw. The film was even scripted by Shaw so it definately is the best version of the film.

The story later inspired the much more famous musical film "My Fair Lady" I have not seen "My Fair Lady" so I am not one to compare.

The film follows a phonetics and linguistics expert, Henry Higgins. He has such a knowledge of accents that he can tell what town a person is from by hearing them speak for only a few seconds. He later makes a bet with a colleague that he can train a common girl from Cockney to speak "proper" English and fool people into thinking she is a duchess.

The Criterion DVD has no special features but the picture quality is quite good for a film of its age.

This film is one of my new favorites!

The most intelligent british comedy in the thirties
The smart script from Bernard Shaw made it possible this monumental film. The myth of Pygmalion was translated to cinema with a dazzling direction and obviously one supeb cast ; this couple Leslie Howard and the always beautiful and charming Wendy Hiller stealed the show.
The tale about a poor girl who sells flowers in Covent Garden; a gamble between two men; the awake as human being is a match against all a new world of possibilities for this woman who suudenly transforms before us and everybody in a woman with class, charming and glamour.
All the script is filled with ingenious and laughable situations with that clever sense of humor, so typical of Shaw.
This unique match will impact the life of these three people with unthinkable consequences.
A delightful movie and one of the best english comedies ever filmed.
Remade in 1964 as My fair lady. But this one is one million years light better.
A must in your collection.

Holds Up Astoundingly Well! See It!
Just in case you didn't know it, both Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller were heavy weight British acting talents. Howard was even a major star in American movies and is mainly remembered for playing Ashley Wilkes in "Gone With The Wind." This is a very different role for him from that role. Wilkes and Hiller were both perfect for the roles of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, the cockney flower girl who is tutored by the linguistics expert to turn her into a lady. Many people don't like watching the original play because it doesn't end happily with the two together as it does in its musical version, "My Fair Lady." However, the filmmaker saw the writing on the wall here, even before the musical came out, and makes one change only to the Bernard Shaw play, that ending. So here too we have the happy ending. This is as fresh and perfect as the day it was made. Every word of dialogue counts and is perfect in this satire of the British class system. Every character is superb and I especially loved every moment Alfred Doolittle, the epitome of the lower classes kicked into the middle class, was onscreen. Hubby watched it with me and remarked several times, "I can't believe how good this is." Frankly, even I was surprised that this black and white film from the 1930s, set then as well, is in no need of a remake whatsoever. A true classic that no one should miss.