Pygmalion

1938
Approved
1h 29m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.A phonetics and diction expert makes a bet that he can teach a cockney flower girl to speak proper English and pass as a lady in high society.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

9.9K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Won 1 Oscar
- 3 wins & 5 nominations total

Photos30

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The scene in which Eliza accidentally swallows a marble while having an elocution lesson does not appear in the original play. During rehearsals for this scene, a pained expression came over Wendy Hiller's face. When she spat out the marbles she had in her mouth, she said, "Leslie, I've swallowed one!" to which Leslie Howard replied, "Never mind, there are plenty more." This caused such amusement among the watching crew that it was added to the movie and to its musical version, My Fair Lady (1964).

Goofs
After the ball when Mrs. Pearce serves Professor Higgins his tea, the shadow of the camera can be seen in the bottom left, moving back across his blanket.

Quotes
Eliza Doolittle: Walk? Not bloody likely. I'm going in a taxi.

Crazy credits
Opening credits prologue: PYGMALION WAS A MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTER WHO DABBLED IN SCULPTURE. HE MADE A STATUE OF HIS IDEAL WOMAN-GALATEA. IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL THAT HE PRAYED THE GODS TO GIVE IT LIFE. HIS WISH WAS GRANTED.

BERNARD SHAW IN HIS FAMOUS PLAY GIVES A MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THIS THEME.

Alternate versions
This film was made a year before the Hays Office gave Clark Gable permission to say "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", so while in the British prints of this film Leslie Howard often utters the word, in the American prints the word "damn" is replaced by either "hang" or "confounded".

Connections
Featured in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Big Parade of Hits for 1940 (1940)

User reviews103

Review

Featured review

9/10

Superb Shaw

Shaw's brilliant play is expertly filmed by Howard and Asquith. Howard is perfectly cast as the snobbish Professor Higgins and is matched by Hiller, in her second film, as Eliza Doolittle. The fine supporting cast includes Sunderland, Lawson, and Lohr, who's terrific as Mrs. Higgins. It is difficult to make a bad film of this work, given Shaw's witty dialog, but film performance is different from stage performance, with film calling for more subtlety. The love-hate relationship between the professor and Eliza works wonderfully because Howard and Hiller provide the right combination of humor and humanity. Howard's role here is in sharp contrast to the wimpy Ashley the following year in "Gone with the Wind."