Introduction
“I am what they call in America a ‘movie fan’,” Shaw declared in 1927 (BSC 47). His interest in the cinema dated from its inception, and by 1912 he was writing that, “I, who go to an ordinary theatre with effort and reluctance, cannot keep away from the cinema” (Shaw & Campbell 39). In 1920 he predicted that, “The kinema [sic] will kill the theatres which are doing what the film does better, and bring to life the dying theatre which does what the film cannot do at all” (BSC 25).
As early as 1908, Shaw had been approached to write scenarios for short films — a potentially lucrative offer that he declined on the basis that synchronised dialogue in the cinema was not yet possible.1 Thereafter, he frequently cited this reason for his refusal to allow silent film versions of his plays.2 By the mid-1920s, however, major advances in film and sound technology had occurred, and while vacationing in Italy in October 1926 Shaw himself “participated in a short film interview, with synchronized film and
phonograph” (Dukore, BSC 12). In July 1927 he allowed the British division of American
1 “Take away our dialogue,” Shaw wrote to actor-dramatist Arthur Wing Pinero in December 1908, “and what better are we than — and — (I dare not fill in the names)” (BSC 1). Shaw was opposed to subtitles as a substitute for dialogue “except when the [latter] is so worthless that it is a hindrance instead of a help” (42).
2 In 1929 Shaw told the New York Times that “the only reason” he had not allowed his plays to be adapted during the cinema’s silent period was “because their greatest strength was in their dialogues, in what I had to say” (BSC 59). Privately, however, he often expressed his concern that screen adaptations would ruin the box office earnings of plays that were still being performed. In a 1918 letter to Augustin Hamon, he cited the experience of George Tyler, “(m)y first Pygmalion manager[, who] went bankrupt in America because one of his most expensive productions was met by a film which was advertised ‘Why pay 15f to see So & So when you can see it here for 30c!’” (23). The following year he advised writer William Lestocq “Never [to] let anyone tempt you to have a play of yours filmed until it is stone dead” (24). Nevertheless, Dukore observes that Shaw “frequently flirted” with would-be adapters during the silent period of the cinema. “With one play, The Devil’s Disciple, flirtation became serious, but it stopped short of consummation” (CS 8).
inventor Lee De Forest’s Phonofilm Company to film, as an experiment, the Cathedral Scene (Scene V) from Saint Joan in a London studio. Sybil Thorndike, who had created the title role in 1924, again played Joan; Widgey R. Newman directed. Dukore writes that Shaw’s arrangement with the company was that, “If he considered [the experiment] successful, he would permit the filming of more scenes from the play” (CS 12).
Evidently, Shaw was dissatisfied with the results, for no further scenes were filmed.3 In August 1930, however, he signed an agreement with British International Pictures (B.I.P.) to film his 1905 comedy How He Lied to Her Husband. An adaptation of Arms and the Man (again with B.I.P.) followed in 1932.4
Shaw did not write a formal screenplay for either of these adaptations, although in the case of Arms and the Man, he made many changes to screenwriter Cecil Lewis’s scenario adaptation.5 The fact that both films subsequently failed at the box office did not,
however, dissuade a number of Hollywood and European producers from seeking the screen rights to Pygmalion and other Shaw plays.6 For his part, Shaw considered
Pygmalion a poor candidate for film adaptation. “(I)t is too long,” he told Trebitsch in June 1934, “and the character of Doolittle so important in it and so unsuitable for the
3 It may have been merely the audio quality of the filmed scene that concerned Shaw. The recording system employed by De Forest Phonofilms Inc was an early version of the sound-on-film technique — i.e., the soundtrack was recorded directly on to film — and was soon to be superseded by the sonically superior Fox Movietone and RCA Photophone systems. Film historian Donald Crafton describes the De Forest
Phonofilm as having “poor quality sound reproduction” (419). However, Shaw alludes to the Saint Joan film in a 1929 article as “a successful personal experiment”, arguing that it had proved that his dialogue was “as convincing [on the screen] as when it is spoken on the stage” (BSC 60-61).
4 These were not, however, the first screen adaptations of a Shaw work. In 1921, an unauthorised film version (in Czech) of Cashel Byron’s Profession was released in Czechoslovakia as Román Boxera. Shaw’s novel was not protected by copyright in Czechoslovakia at the time.
5 Both films will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.
6 As early as 1919, would-be adapters had approached Shaw for the licensing rights to film Pygmalion. Bemused by the notion of a silent version of the play, Shaw asked rhetorically (in reference to Eliza Doolittle’s notorious Act III line), “(H)ow how can you film ‘Not ______ likely’?” (BSC 24).
screen” (ST 342).7 Nevertheless, he was prepared to countenance a Pygmalion adaptation provided “that there was to be no sentimental nonsense about Higgins and Eliza being lovers” (342). 8
There was no shortage of potential adapters. “I now have two American firms and one French and one Italian clamoring for [the film adaptation rights to] Pygmalion,” Shaw wrote to Trebitsch in July 1934 (ST 343). These proposals were in addition to a request from Eberhard Klagemann9 for the rights to a German-language film version of the play. The French offer had come first, when Augustin and Henriette Hamon10 approached Shaw with a draft Pygmalion screenplay (in English) by Albert Riéra.11 It was the Hamons’ contention that Riéra’s screenplay could serve as the basis not only for a French-language film version of Pygmalion, but for subsequent adaptations in other languages (Dukore, CS 41). On perusing Riéra’s screenplay, however, Shaw was unimpressed to discover that the former — in addition to rearranging various scenes — had composed a number of new sequences, including a different ending in which it was
7 Shaw does not elaborate as to why he considers the character of Doolittle “unsuitable” for screen adaptation. Moreover, his comments here regarding the supposed inaptness of Pygmalion as a film are contradicted by his insistence in an interview three years later that, “I have no objection on earth to have [sic] my plays filmed. There is nothing I should like better than to have all my plays added to the repertory of the picture theatre” (BSC 123).
8 Underscoring Shaw’s resolve to prevent the film version of Pygmalion from being romanticised was his recent rejection of a screenplay adaptation of his 1897 play The Devil’s Disciple by American novelist Lester Cohen, submitted by the American film studio RKO Radio Pictures Inc. Shaw strongly disliked Cohen's romanticisation of his play, telling RKO producer Kenneth Macgowan that “[Cohen’s] ways are not my ways; and there is no accounting for tastes” (BSC 88).
9 Klagemann (1904–90) was the head of Berlin-based production company Klagemann Films. 10 The Hamons were Shaw’s regular translators of his works into French.
11 Riéra had previously co-written the screenplay for the critically acclaimed French film L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934).
implied that Eliza returns to Higgins.12 Consequently, Shaw rejected the Hamons’ proposal, turning instead to the request from Klagemann.
By now Shaw had concluded that his best means of ensuring a faithful film adaptation of
Pygmalion was to write the screenplay himself (Dukore, CS 43). Therefore, if the Klagemann film were to proceed, he determined, it would need to be on the contractual understanding that no unauthorised deviation from his screenplay was to be permitted. He also reiterated to Trebitsch, who would be responsible for the translation of his
screenplay into German, that the film must emphasise that “Eliza married Freddy . . .” (ST 342).
While negotiations with Klagemann were proceeding, Shaw began adapting Pygmalion
for the screen, completing the task on October 1, 1934. His “Pygmalion: A Scenario”13 was a considerably condensed version of the original play. It also included a number of new scenes, together with a new ending in which an Eliza-Freddy wedding was clearly implied. It was Trebitsch’s translation of this screenplay that was forwarded to
Klagemann when negotiations were successfully concluded in February 1935.14 Under the terms of this agreement, distribution of the film was to be restricted to German- speaking countries15 and for a licensing period of five years (Dukore, CS 44). The following year, Shaw successfully negotiated with producer-director Ludwig Berger of
12 Dukore writes that one of the sequences, which he describes as “seriously wrong”, constituted a new ending in which Eliza, despite having told Higgins to buy his own tie (as she does in the play), “take[s] a tie from a salesman and loosely knot[s] it to judge the effect” (CS 43).
13 In contemporary screen jargon, a scenario usually refers to the outline of the plot and characters of the filmscript, while a screenplay constitutes the actual finished script “containing dialogue and explicit descriptions of significant action” (Blandford et al 207). However, in earlier usage, the term scenario was sometimes employed to denote a screenplay in the modern sense of the word — and this is clearly Shaw’s intended meaning in the case of his Pygmalion “scenario”.
14 In addition to accepting the aforementioned Clause #7, Klagemann agreed to pay Shaw “ten per cent of gross receipts paid by exhibitors” (Dukore, CS 44).
15 Clause #5 also allowed for the film to be shown “[i]n any foreign neighbourhood with a resident [German-] speaking population numerous enough to maintain picture theatres in which it is assumed that the native language of the audience is [German] . . .” (BSC 174).
Filmex Company of Amsterdam for a Dutch-language screen version of Pygmalion, again with the stipulation that his screenplay was to be faithfully followed.16 The German and Dutch film versions were released in September 1935 and February 1937,
respectively.
Prior to seeing either of these films, Shaw had signed an agreement in December 1935 with Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal for an English-language screen adaptation of
Pygmalion.17 More than two years were to pass, however, before Pascal, a relatively inexperienced film-maker,18 was able to raise sufficient funds for the project, which was to be filmed in England. In the meantime, Shaw saw private screenings of the German and the Dutch Pygmalion adaptations.19 According to his secretary, Blanche Patch,20 Shaw liked both movies as films, but “remained annoyed by the tricks they had played with the text” (125).21 “They took the most extraordinary pains, and spent huge sums, in altering it out of all recognition,” he said publicly of the German Pygmalion, which was directed by Erich Engel22 (BSC 125). In his assessment of the German Pygmalion,
16 The Dutch Pygmalion film was limited to Dutch-speaking countries; the remaining terms were the same as those of the German Pygmalion contract.
17 The agreement between Pascal and Shaw was that the film be distributed in English-speaking countries only; however, Shaw subsequently allowed the film to be screened in a subtitled version in non-German and Dutch-speaking countries (GP 20).
18 Prior to signing his contract with Shaw, Pascal (1894–1954)’s principal film credits had been on the German-made Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1931) and Unheimliche Geschichten (1932) for which he had served as co-producer. He subsequently produced the low-budget British films Reasonable Doubt and Café Mascot (both 1936) while seeking financial backing for his Pygmalion.
19 He saw these two films in January 1936 and May 1937, respectively.
20 Patch’s 1951 book of Shavian reminiscences was ghostwritten by Robert Williamson, a journalist acquaintance of Shaw (Gibbs, Life 509 n.17).
21 Neither film is currently available on video or DVD, and, consequently, I have been unable to view either of them. Apart from that of Shaw himself, Dukore’s assessment [in CS] of both movies is the only English- language account of which I am aware. In a 2001 interview, film writer Stanley Kauffmann referred to Dukore as “(t)he only person I know, or know of, who has seen [the two films] . . .” (Pygmalion 244). 22 Engel was a film and theatre director closely associated with the works of Bertolt Brecht. He had previously directed the stage premieres of two of Brecht’s collaborations with composer Kurt Weill: Im
Dukore writes that, as well as ignoring all of Shaw’s new screenplay scenes, the film departs in numerous ways from Shaw’s conception of his characters and themes:
Instead of a conflict between a middle-aged, mother-fixated bully and a class- intimidated eighteen-year-old girl who becomes an independent woman, the German movie portrays a self-reliant woman of the people and a handsome, virile-looking, wealthy professional man. Throughout, it suggests Cinderella and her prince, or to put the matter in terms of pop movies of the 1930’s, the secretary and the boss she will marry. (CS 47)23
Similarly, the Dutch Pygmalion ignores Shaw's screenplay24 and romanticises the
relationship between Eliza and Higgins. Freddy is portrayed as ineffectual, and “offers no competition to the pipe-smoking Higgins, who conveys a very attractive and comfortable virility”. Moreover, the film diminishes both Eliza’s and Doolittle’s “social
transformations[, making them] appear to consist of little more than her donning an expensive party dress and him a suit” (64–65).
Shaw’s discovery that the makers of both the German and Dutch Pygmalion films had defied his wishes by emphasising an Eliza–Higgins romance undoubtedly contributed to his decision to revise the ending of his screenplay in early 1938 for Pascal’s forthcoming adaptation. Confident that Pascal would adhere to his screenplay,25 Shaw altered and
Dickicht der Städte (In the Jungle of Cities) (1923) and Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) (1928).
23 The film’s credits name Shaw as the author of the play, but Heinrich Oberländer and Walter Wasserman as the authors of the screenplay (Dukore, CS 45).
24 Dukore notes that the film credits do not state who wrote the screenplay (CS 64). According to the Internet Movie Database, four writers (including Berger but excluding Shaw) contributed to it.
25 In an interview in February 1938, Shaw stated that the forthcoming film of Pygmalion “will really be my Pygmalion . . .” (BSC 132). Later that month he instructed Pascal to emphasise when promoting the film that Pygmalion is “(a)n all British film made by British methods without interference by American script writers, no spurious dialogue but every word by the author, a revolution in the presentation of drama on the [sic] film” (GP 23).
extended the final sequence in order to make a future Eliza–Freddy marriage explicit. Shaw also revised one of the other new (1934) sequences. Notwithstanding some minor dialogue changes, the 1938 version of Shaw’s screenplay is, in all other respects, identical to the 1934 version. The typed manuscript of the former was completed on March 1, 1938, with Shaw subsequently providing one brief additional scene, apparently at Pascal’s behest.26
Using Shaw’s 1938 screenplay as my chief point of reference,27 I address the following questions in this chapter: (1) how does Shaw respond to the challenge of adapting his play for the cinematic medium? (2) In what respects does Shaw’s screenplay differ from the play in terms of its treatment of Pygmalion’s principal characters and themes? (3) And in particular, how does Shaw address the romanticisation of his play?
A Preamble: Shaw’s Changing Theory of Adaptation — and Two Early Shavian Films
When asked in 1929 why he had not yet allowed a film adaptation to be made of one of his plays, Shaw retorted that he was still waiting to discover “a [movie] producer who also knows his job” (BSC 60). Somewhat perversely, however, it was to Cecil Lewis, a thirty-two-year-old playwright and radio producer who had never previously worked on a film, that he entrusted the task of directing the first complete screen version of one of his plays in 1930. Shaw had known Lewis since 1923, and had closely followed his
unorthodox career.28 Seeking to help the young man, whom he appears to have
26 The source of all subsequent scene and page references, except where otherwise stated, is that of Shaw’s 1938 typed manuscript (HRC SHAW 25.7).
27 The differences between the two 1934 scenes and the 1938 revised versions will be discussed, however. 28 Lewis (1898–1997) was a World War I fighter pilot and Military Cross holder, and later one of the founders of the programme section of the B.B.C., becoming that organisation’s Deputy Director of Programmes at the age of 24. In his obituary for Lewis in The Independent of 29 January 1997, T.H. Bridgewater describes Lewis’s life as an “adventurous” one. Lewis was an impulsive, romantic character, Bridgewater writes, who abandoned “his promising career” with the B.B.C. after a mere two years, “preferring, he said, to live henceforth by his wits”. In 1936 Shaw described Lewis as “a thinker, a master
recognised as a kindred spirit, Shaw made it known that he would allow a production company to film one of his plays provided that Lewis was hired as its director and that the prospective film was to be a “faithful [reproduction] of the Play as written and
designed for ordinary theatrical representation by the Author . . .” (qtd in Costello 32). To Lewis’s surprise, B.I.P.29 came forward and agreed “not to cut or alter the play in any way and to accept an absolutely unknown, untried man as director (me)” (Never 106). The play in question was How He Lied to Her Husband (1905), a one-act comedy with three characters that takes place in a single room.
It was Shaw’s conviction at the time that his plays could be reproduced “on the screen just as they are produced on the stage” (BSC 72).30 Although he had not ruled out writing original screenplays for the cinema, he stated, “I see no reason why The Apple Cart
[1929], for instance, should not be produced exactly as it stands” (60). At the same time, he deplored the efforts of Hollywood producers, whose films, he asserted, were rife with frequent, unnecessary scene changes “and long intervals of silence during which the film is a movie and not a talkie”.31 These same producers had repeatedly told him that faithful
screen reproductions of his plays were “impossible”, he went on to write, since “[their directors] could work only on condition of being allowed to adapt the play to their technique instead of adapting their technique to the play” (72). Consequently, if Hollywood were ever permitted to film his plays, he wrote on another occasion, its producers would “cut half my dialogue, in order to insert dozens of changing pictures
of words, and a bit of a poet” (qtd in Holroyd, Fantasy 106). Lewis, in turn, greatly admired Shaw, later hailing him as “one of the great influences of my life” (Never 87).
29 Film historian Rachael Low describes B.I.P. as “a large studio company run on very commercial lines” (Persuasion 177).
30 Moreover, he stated in 1931, he would not be the first playwright whose works had translated
successfully to the screen. He cited the then recent talking films of veteran actor/playwright George Arliss (1868-1946) for demonstrating “that a good play could be a good play, and good acting good acting, on the screen exactly as on the stage” (BSC 77). Shaw was possibly alluding, among other filmed plays, to the