Pygmalion

Introduction

Pygmalion was one of the high prestige films which David Lean edited from 1936 until his first directing credit in 1942. After Paul Czinner's Shakespeare (As You Like It, 1936), came Gabriel Pascal's first attempt at putting George Bernard Shaw on the screen. Joining Lean on the production team were people who would famously work with him later; Jack Hildyard was the camera operator and John Bryan was the art director. Actor Anthony Quayle, later to play Colonel Brighton so brilliantly for Lean in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), took the uncredited role of the hairdresser in one tiny scene as Eliza is preparing for the Ball.

Pascal, a charismatic Hungarian, saw it as his personal mission to translate Shaw's plays to film. Major Barbara, also edited by Lean, followed in 1941. Pygmalion had first been produced in the theatre in 1913. It was a comedy about class distinctions, in which Higgins, a professor of phonetics, successfully introduces a cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into high society, after teaching her to speak, dress and behave as a lady. Shaw had admired Wendy Hiller playing his St. Joan at the Shaw Festival in Malvern in 1936, and recommended her for the part. He also wanted Charles Laughton to play Higgins, but Pascal held out for Leslie Howard, who is excellent, if a little too romantic in the role.

David Lean's work in the film can be seen to stunning effect in the montage sequence which shows Higgins teaching Eliza to speak properly. He also expertly cut the Ball scene,written especially for the film. Shaw wrote a new character for the scene, the Hungarian Karpathy, which was modelled on Pascal himself.

Janet Moat