From AudioFile This performance of Shaw's perceptive comedy sparkles with wit and scintillating characterizations. Outstanding performances by the entire company, especially the actors portraying major characters, contribute to the vitality of this production. As her cockney accent gradually gives way to refined, articulate sentences, Shannon Cochran makes us believe in Eliza's transformation from flower girl to cultured lady. Nicholas Rudall artfully captures the self-centered swagger and joie de vivre of Eliza's father. Nicholas Pennell intelligently portrays the egotistical Professor Higgins. Basic sound effects are all that's necessary to create a context for this drama. The adult or high-school-age listener will find this audio production the next best thing to being there. R.M. (Harper Audio offers a Caedmon full cast performance with Michael Redgrave et al.) (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
(15 votes)
2.
George Bernard Shaw's play, PYGMALION, which takes its title from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a statue of his own making, was a hit on the London stage in 1912. The transition to film was co-directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard, who also stars as Henry Higgins, the vainglorious snob who claims he can turn a guttersnipe into a Lady. Wendy Hiller is smart and witty, giving as good as she gets, as Eliza Doolittle, the flower girl Higgins takes from the street and tries to pass off as a Duchess. Hiller and Howard play off each other with a delightful spark. The play opens up well for the screen, as evidenced in the dreamy sequence when Eliza attends a society party, a scene smoothly edited by the young David Lean.
Shaw wrote the film script himself, ensuring that his original setting in the more innocent time before WWI, didn't feel dated in the dark days of 1938. Other writers were brought in to lighten Shaw's view of the class conflict between Higgins and Eliza, and to lessen the amount of brow beating Higgins employs. Still, compared with the musical version, MY FAIR LADY, there is no magical Cinderella process here, but a painfully, realistically resisted struggle mixed with a slowly developing romance.
(15 votes)
3.
Cranky Professor Henry Higgins (Leslie Howard) takes a bet that he can turn Cockney guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) into a “proper lady” in a mere six months in this delightful comedy of bad manners based on the play by George Bernard Shaw.
(15 votes)
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