It’s hard to come by really good renditions of Shaw’s work – more so in India, and those faithful to him must resort to movies to satisfy our thirst to see remarkable characters engaging in verbal jousting the way only Shaw could have written. Most movies adapted from critically acclaimed works of literature are utter failures – but that’s to be expected because a Novel is not a screenplay. It’s a different medium of expression that requires different artists to get right.
That’s where Shaw and Shakespeare come in – their works are screenplays! It takes some great amount of skill to screw up a screenplay meant for a stage when adapted for a movie, as I would imagine making movies is a lot easier due to the ability to do an infinite number of re-takes.
My Fair Lady was good – in fact it was great. And yet, Pygmalion is a movie even I, a self-proclaimed fanatic of Bernard Shaw, was unaware of. The acting is much better than Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. Colonnel Pickering looks like a real Colonnel. I am unfamiliar with the actors involved in this movie but damn is it good! As I found out later, Shaw won his only Oscar for the screenplay for this movie.
If you’re looking for intellectually stimulating dialogue riddled with sarcasam and sattire, you’re going to love this movie. Though some scenes from the play are cut and new ones added, it doesn’t remove the essence of the play. I do wish the dialog at Mrs. Higgins place between Henry and Mrs. Eynsford-Hills and Ms. Clara Eynsford-Hills would have been kept there – it shows us the true character of Henry at that point when he turns down the advances of Clara. Perhaps a dialogue not very popular, but one of my favourite few lines in the play, second only to Alfred Doolittle’s dialogues.
The one disappointment perhaps, is that this movie is where My Fair Lady borrows it’s ending from – with Eliza coming back to Higgins and he sensing her presense declares, “Where are my slippers, Eliza?”
What I wouldn’t give to see just one rendition of Pygmalion with Julie Andrews playing Eliza Doolittle!
