Pygmalion. Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, 1938.
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Edition screened: Criterion ‘Essential Art House’ DVD released 2009. Runtime approximately 95 minutes.
Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.
I was humbled and embarrassed watching this movie. Of course I knew (whatever that means) that My Fair Lady was adapted from Shaw’s Pygmalion, if for no other reason than I have seen MFL way too many times and this fact of adaptation is noted prominently in the credits. [In my defense I must stress that these waytoomany times were in my childhood and teen years.] But I was stunned to discover that in this case “adapted” means “copied almost line-for-line and modified slightly to make stupid”.
All of the cute facial expressions and theatrical nuances we attribute to Audrey Hepburn are copied from Wendy Hiller’s earlier, superior, portrayal of Eliza Doolittle, Leslie Howard provides one of his best performances as a better Henry Higgins than Rex Harrison, and the character of Freddy Eynsford-Hill is bearable rather than un-.
Perhaps of most personal significance is the obvious absence of musical numbers in Pygmalion. Over the decades I came to understand that the songs in MFL were in fact stupid and questionably performed, not shimmeringly wonderful as children are taught to believe. But it was not until watching Pygmalion that I realized the music actually ruins the production, sucking all the humor and timing out of the witty script in favor of prancing and howling.