Classic Hollywood of the 1930's: Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw's original play opened in London on 11 April 1914.

The first British film to use the word "bloody" in its dialogue.

The play originally ended with Eliza going off to marry Freddy. George Bernard Shaw wrote a "sequel", actually a body of text documenting what happens after Eliza marries Freddy.

Wendy Hiller was personally chosen to play the part of Eliza Doolittle by author George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw wrote the ballroom scene especially for this movie.

Although he expressed indifference to the Academy Award he won for writing this movie, his friend Mary Pickford reported that George Bernard Shaw proudly displayed his Oscar in his home, and showed it off to his visitors.

The property buyer is manning one of the market stalls at the beginning - Baden Siddall.

When Shaw died in 1950, his home in Ayot St Lawrence became a museum. One of the artefacts in it is his Oscar, which initially had become so tarnished that the curator assumed it had no value and had been using it as a door stop. That situation has since been rectified.

In British prints, Leslie Howard utters the word "damn". In American prints he says either "hang" or "confounded". This was a year before David O. Selznick famously tussled with the Hays Office over permission for Clark Gable to say "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" at the end of Gone with the Wind (1939)

Wilfrid Lawson was only 38 when he played Eliza Doolittle's father.

Charles Laughton was Shaw's first choice to play Professor Henry Higgins.

The new character that George Bernard Shaw wrote for the ball scene - the Hungarian Karpathy - was modeled on producer Gabriel Pascal.

The original Broadway production of "Pgymalion" opened at the Park Theater opening October 12, 1914 and ran for 72 performances. The play premiered in a German translation at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913 and in English at His Majesty's Theatre in London on April 11, 1914 and starred 'Mrs Patrick Campbell'.

George Bernard Shaw had previously rejected an offer from Samuel Goldwyn for the screen rights to his plays. He was more impressed with Gabriel Pascal's integrity as a producer, thus beginning a partnership that yielded adaptations of Pygmalion (1938), Major Barbara (1941), Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Androcles and the Lion (1952).

First film of Stephen Murray.

George Bernard Shaw is one of only two people to have won both the Academy Award and the Nobel Prize. Former Vice President Al Gore is the other. Al Gore won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and also a Nobel Peace Prize.

Moyna MacGill is the only performer to appear in both this film (Woman Bystander) and its musical remake, My Fair Lady (1964) (Lady Boxington). Both films were also photographed by Harry Stradling Sr.

Cast of Pygmalion

Wendy Hiller - Eliza Doolittle
Leslie Howard - Prof. Henry Higgins
Wilfred Lawson - Alfred Doolittle
Marie Lohr - Mrs. Higgins
Scott Sunderland - Col. Pickering

Jean Cadell - Mrs. Pearce

David Tree - Freddy Eynsford-Hill
Violet Vanbrugh - Ambassadress

Iris Hoey - Ysabel; Viola Tree - Perfide

Cathleen Nesbitt - Old Lady

O.B. Clarence - Vicar

Esme Percy - Count Aristid Karpathy

Frank Atkinson

Ivor Barnard - Bystander

Irene Browne - Duchess

Kate Cutler - Grand old lady