言語学の教授ヘンリー・ヒギンズが、「コックニー訛りの花売り娘イライザ・ドゥーリトルを、たった6か月の訓練でまるで王女のように仕立て上げてみせる」と豪語したことから、ジョージ・ピカリング大佐はその賭けに乗ることに。ヒギンズ教授がイライザの父親である塵芥収集人アルフレッドと金銭的な取り決めを交わした後、イライザは教授の家に住み込み、本格的な訓練を開始する。だが、変わっていくのは快活な若い女性イライザだけではなかった――。
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Even though it was made some 25 years, or so, before "My Fair Lady" it still takes a few minutes before you get used to the fact that it has no singing... Once that has been established, we can enjoy a witty and pithy observation of class and superficiality that raises both smiles and heckles in equal measure. Leslie Howard is great as the somewhat snobbish phonetics expert ("Prof. Higgins") who bets his pal "Col. Pickering" (Scott Sunderland) that he can take the gutturally linguistic flower girl "Eliza" (Wendy Hiller) and pass her off as a duchess to the highest of society. Hiller is super, too. She takes the role of the reluctant, naive but strong willed and savvy street seller by the scruff of the neck and before long we see that the Professor has more than met his match! His housekeeper "Mrs. Pearce" (Jean Cadell) has a go at umpiring now and again and there is a scene stealing performance from Esme Percy as the even more pompous "Count Karpathy" who is the one person "Higgins" fears may be able to rumble his deception. Right from the raucous and hilarious bathing scene, it sets off at quite a pace swiping relentlessly at the British societal system - ribbing snobs and workers alike as Bernard Shaw's story is transferred to celluloid in a way that (hopefully) the author would have appreciated too. I can't say I liked the ending of the play and I don't really much care for the ending here, either - but boy, it's one hell of a journey demonstrating creative skill at just about every turn.
