Pygmalion

Synopsis: The snobbish & intellectual Professor of languages, Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend that he can take a London flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, from the gutters and pass her off as a society lady. However he discovers that this involves dealing with a human being with ideas of her own.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Production: Criterion Collection
  Won 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 5 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.9
Rotten Tomatoes:
94%
NOT RATED
Year:
1938
89 min
2,332 Views


So long, ducks.

See you in Piccadilly.

So long, 'Liza.

Be good.

Why?

- They found a tarantula in

one last week. - A What-a-tula?

A tarantula.

It's like a spider.

It's got six legs,

and it stings you With its tail.

What does it do

With its mouth?

Eats the bananas, man.

- Looks like rain.

- Yeah. A bit stormy, ain't it?

What can Freddy be doing

all this time?

He really ought to have

got us a taxi by now.

Taxi!

Taxi!

Taxi!

You won't get a taxi now, what with

the rain and the theater traffic.

Oh. Oh, here he is.

There's not a taxi to be had

for love or money.

- You haven't tried at all.

- You really are helpless, Freddy.

Go again, and don't come back

until you have found one.

I shall simply get

soaked for nothing.

What about us,

you selfish pig?

Oh, very well.

I'll go, I'll go.

Sorry.

Now then, Freddy,

look where you're goin', do ya?

Oh, all my violets

trod in the mud.

What did you

do that for?

As if I haven't got

enough to do.

How do you know that

my son's name is Freddy?

Oh, he's your son,

is he?

Well, if you'd done your duty

by him as a mother should,

he'd knoWbetter than to spoil a poor

girl's floWers and run aWay Without payin'.

- Well, uh, there's a shill-

sixpence for you. - Oh.

Thank ya kindly, lady.

- NoW Will you tell me hoW you knoW the young man's name?

- I don't.

But I heard you call him Freddy.

Now don't you try and deceive me.

Who's tryin'

to deceive you?

I calls him Freddy or Charlie,

same as you might yourself...

if you Was talkin' to a stranger

and Wished to be pleasant.

Come along, Mother.

Sixpence thrown away.

Oh, cheer up, Captain.

If it's raining worse,

it's a sign it's nearly over.

Come on, buy a flower

off a poor girl.

- Sorry, I haven't any change.

- Garn, Captain. I can change half a crown.

Now don't be troublesome.

There's a good girl.

Here's a tuppence,

if that's any use to you.

- Taxi!

- Oh, thank you, Captain.

Be careful.

Give him a flower for it.

There's a bloke over there takin' down

every blessed word you're saying.

But I ain't done nothin' wrong

by speakin' to the gentleman.

- I'm a good girl, I am, so help me.

- What's she hollerin' about?

But I never spoke to him except

to ask him to buy a flower off me.

- What's the good of fussin'?

- What's the row?

What'd she do?

There's a "tec" takin' her down.

Him over there.

What you wanna take down

what I say for?

You ust show me

what you wrote.

How do I know if you

took me down right?

Why, what's that?

That ain't

proper writin'.

I can't read that.

"Cheer up, Captain,

and buy a flower off a poor girl. "

It's because

I called him "Captain. "

Oh, but I meant

no harm.

Oh, sir,

don't let him charge me.

You don't know

what it means to me.

They'll take away my character and drive me

on the streets for speakin' to a gentleman.

Charge?

I make no charge.

Really, sir, you needn't start

protecting me from molestation.

Anyone can see

the girl meant no harm.

- Just mind your own business!

- Takin' down people's words!

What harm

did she do?

Who's hurting you, you silly girl?

What do you take me for?

It's all right.

He ain't a copper.

He's a gentleman.

Look at his boots!

Gentleman? Ha!

He's a busybody, that's what he is.

- How are all your people down in Selsey?

- What?

And how do you come to be so far east?

You were born in Lisson Grove.

Oh. And what harm is in

my leaving Lisson Grove?

It wasn't fit for

a pig to live in,

and I had to pay

four and six a week.

Live where you like, but for

heaven's sake, stop making that noise.

No one's going to harm you. You have a

perfect right to live where you please.

Park Lane, for instance.

I'm a good girl, I am.

Here. Do you know

where I come from?

Hoxton.

Well, who said I didn't?

Blimey, you know everything,

you do.

Where's your Warrant?

Catch her tryin' to take

liberties with a gentleman.

Yes. Tell him where he comes from

if you want to go fortunetellin'.

Go on.

- Yes, go on, tell him.

- All right.

Cheltenham, Harrow,

Cambridge,

India.

- Quite right.

- Stupendous.

He's no gentleman, he ain't,

to interfere with a poor girl.

What can Freddy be doing? I should get

pneumonia if I stay in this draft any longer.

- Earls Court.

- Will you keep your impertinent remarks to yourself?

Did I say that out loud?

I'm so sorry.

- Your mother's Epsom, unmistakably.

- Well, how very curious.

I was brought up

in Large Lady Park, near Epsom.

That's a devil

of a name, isn't-

Oh, excuse me.

Are you looking for a cab?

- Don't you dare speak to me.

- Please, Clara.

Yes, we should be so grateful to you

if you could find us a cab.

I don't know whether you've noticed it,

but it stopped raining.

So it has.

Clara, we'll walk to a bus.

The cab-

Oh, how tiresome.

- I can tell where you come from.

- Can you?

Hanwell Insane Asylum.

Hanwell Insane.

Oh, thank you, teacher.

Oh, ho.

May I ask, sir, do you do this

for a living in a music hall?

I have thought of doing so.

Perhaps I shall someday.

Then how on Earth

do you do it?

Simply phonetics, the science of speech.

That's my profession.

- Is it?

- It's also my hobby.

You can spot a Yorkshireman

or an Irishman by his brogue.

But I can place any man

within six miles.

- I can place him within

two miles in London.

Sometimes, as in the case of this girl,

within two streets.

Let him mind

his own business...

and leave a poor girl

to mind her own business.

Woman, cease this detestable

boohooing instantly.

I've a right to be here

if I like, same as you.

A woman who utters such depressing and

disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere.

- Oh- - Remember that you're

a human being with a soul...

and the divine gift

of articulate speech,

and that your language is the language

of Milton, Shakespeare and the Bible.

Don't sit there crooning

like a bilious pigeon.

- Oh!

- "Ow"!

Heavens,

what a sound.

You see this creature

with her curbstone English?

The English that Will keep her

in the gutter for the rest of her days?

In three months I could

pass her off as a duchess...

- at an ambassador's reception.

- No, no, no.

I could even get her a job as a lady's maid or

a shop assistant, Which requires better English.

You mean,

you could make me-

Yes, you squashed

cabbage leaf.

You disgrace to the noble

architecture of these columns.

You incarnate insult

to the English language.

I could pass you off

as the Queen of Sheba.

Garn! You don't believe that,

do you, Captain?

Well, everything

is possible.

- I myself am a student of Indian dialects.

- Are you?

Have you ever heard of Colonel

Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit?

- I am Colonel Pickering.

- No!

- Yes. Who are you?

- Henry Higgins.

- No.

- Yes. Author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet.

- I came to India to meet you.

- And I was ust going all the way to India to meet you.

- Where are you staying?

- The Carlton.

No, you're not.

You're staying at 27-A Wimpole Street.

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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to Shakespeare among British dramatists; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word "Shavian" has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. more…

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