Caught a showing of Pygmalion (1938) on TCM last week. First time seeing it. I very interesting experience. I expected My Fair Lady (1964) but stripped of the delightful gaiety of the musical numbers in technicolor, and the spunky ferocity of Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle.
I did not expect to be blown away by it. Both Ginger and I were in awe of it, and wondering what had possessed me to overlook this, based on false assumptions regarding its stature relative to the later musical remake.
First off, the screenplay is not just adapted from Shaw's play. Shaw wrote the screenplay. Like Hemingway and others, he fancied himself able to compete in Hollywood as a writer. At this he was successful, and in 1938 he won the Academy Award for adapting his own 1913 play by the same name.
It is not a straight by-the-numbers adaptation. He greatly improved it, and it is clear, wrote it with a cinematographic eye. Among the whole additions for the movie was what would become known as the "Ballroom Scene," where Eliza is presented to a duchess, all the while menaced by the intrigue of Karpathy, the former student of Henry Higgins.
In Shaw's original play, Karpathy is a minor character mentioned only in the final scene For the screenplay, Shaw promoted him to a major supporting role completely contained within the Ballroom Scene, where he is given the assignment--to his great delight--to investigate the origin of the mysterious Miss Doolittle.
The biggest thing in favor of the 1938 non-musical black-and-white version, versus the 1964 Broadway musical technicolor version, is that the contest between the two Elizas is lopsided. Wendy Hiller is so far superior to Audrey Hepburn, it will be difficult to go back and watch My Fair Lady (1964) anytime soon, because I would find myself cringing at Hepburn's over-the-top caricature of the role.
We agreed a fair thing to say would be that whereas in My Fair Lady (1964), Eliza (played by Hepburn), transforms from a flower girl to a lady, in Pygmalion (1938), Eliza (Hiller) is revealed to have been a lady all along. It's much more subtle and powerful.
Hepburn is a great actress but she has better roles. She is completely believable as a flower girl (she grew up malnourished during the Dutch Famine during the war, and her constitution never recovered). By contrast, Pygmalion (1938) is Hiller's signature role as a film lead (she had an expansive theater career on stage in London).
Hiller saved a great supporting role for her later years, in the 1970s, not surprisingly as a princess, as if cashing in on the 1938 role like an artistic savings bond.
Check out the intro the Ballroom Scene. The rack focus when Higgins (Leslie Howard) and Colonel Pickering turn to see Eliza (Hiller) emerge. Then watch Hiller ascend the staircase and speak with the duchess. We are so rooting for her at this point. By extension we are rooting for Higgins. Pickering is rooting for her in fatherly fashion, even though his wager with Higgins is against her. We are rooting for everyone---except Karpathy. Except at the end of the scene Higgins (Howard) is clearly egging Karpathy towards experiencing a triumph of ego. Methinks this scene shows how Higgins actually does understand rules of social behavior very well. He just chooses to flout them whenever it pleases him. A great pretzel of motives brought to life by great actors. Howard co-directed this. Hewas year from Gone With theWind
What did I miss from My Fair Lady? No knock on Harrison's acting, but Howard was so delightful it was hard to miss Harrison's character. But I did miss his singing greatly. "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is one of the great masculine musical performances in the history of Hollywood film. Likewise I missed "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" and other upbeat numbers. Hiller wipes the floor with Hepburn, though.
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