We watched Pygamalion last week and I enjoy that movie just as much as I read the play. Though we watched the black and white version, the impact still influence me. I personally think the actors are doing very well in the movie. It is just like what is described in the text. However, just because I watched another version-- "My Fair Lady" which also adapted the story "Pgymalion",thus I couldn't help myself to some comparisons. You know, as an audience, we are always very concerned the characters that can really bring out the chracter traits as described in the text.
In my opinion , the version of Pygmalion in 1938 is a version that full of most details from the text. It is because Geoge Bernard Shaw himself wrote the film script I guess, therefore the settings of the play and the background of the story are appropriate to the time line of the story. However, I still think that Wendy Hiller who acted as Eliza Doolittle is rather conservative. She is not as bold and straight-forward as Eliza in the text. Besides, the romance between Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard, the man who acts as Professor Higgins, did not create the sparkling chemical. As an audience, I cannot really see the slow,developing romance as in "My Fair Lady". Also, I felt like there is no magical Cinderella process here, but a painfully, realistically resisted struggle.This is probably because I see Wendy Hiller acted as quite a disciplined way which somehow seems to me as if Eliza in this movie learnt about "manner" before.
Personally, I like another version more. "My fair Lady" consists of musical performance in the movie which sparkle up the whole movie. Also, I think Audrey Hepburn acted Eliza Doolittle as a truly one at here. For a beautiful actress like Audrey Hepburn to disguise as a nasty, untidy and lack of manner flowergirl, I think she made it successfully. I couldn't even recognise her in that disguise and I couldn't believe she can make it excellently. Throughout the movie, I couldn't take my eyes off from her and that movie still remains as one of my memorable movie even I firstly watched that a few years back. I can feel that chemical that is created between Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison who acted as Professor Higgins here. The relationship between Eliza and Higgins is illustrated clearly by Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. I think both of them are excellent actors and they did better the the earlier.
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I have to agree with Siew Ching that the musical version is a better version of Pygmalion that the black and white movie we watched. This is because the actors chosen for the musical fit their characters better compared to the movie. in the movie, the actress that acted Eliza's part looked a little older that the actual character as Eliza was suppose to be just out of her teens. Henry Higgins in the movie was however too young. From the drama text, i get the vision that he is much older. The only character that fit their parts would be Colonel Pickering and Mr. Doolittle who fit into their parts very well. However, i can see that the movie is closer to the dramatic play compared to the musical.
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