Word: pascal
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...More significant, it pleased its own author. Heretofore adamant in refusing to sell cinema rights of his plays (with the exception of two shorts: How He Lied to Her Husband, Arms and the Man), Bernard Shaw not only helped write the script for Pygmalion but agreed to let Producer Pascal film all his other plays. Producer Pascal will soon start work on Caesar and Cleopatra...
...Producer Pascal acquired possession of the world's richest mine of entertainment material would be as good a story as how the heroine of Pygmalion acquired the poise of a duchess but for the fact that it is utterly implausible. A squat, fervent, irascible Transylvanian, ex-farmer, cavalry officer and economist. Producer Pascal's best previous contribution to cinema was Franz Lehar's Frederica. His reward for the ripple of applause which it aroused in 1932 was a succession of minor jobs producing shorts...
...after spending six months in Hollywood doing nothing, Pascal left in disgust. He arrived in London and out of a clear sky called Playwright Shaw, whom he had never met. Pascal said he wanted to produce Shaw's plays...
When Playwright Shaw asked Pascal how much money he had, Pascal replied: "Fifteen shillings and sixpence-but I owe a pound." As much delighted with this effrontery as with Pascal's obvious admiration for his work, Playwright Shaw gave him a pound to pay his debts, agreed to the experiment. With Shaw's approval for his project he had little trouble getting as much as he needed. He assembled about $250,000-less than Hollywood spends on most quickies. He hired Screenwriters W. P. Lipscomb and Cecil Lewis to write a scenario, rented a studio...
...whose work pleased everyone was 26-year-old Wendy Hiller. Famed as the star of Love on the Dole, whose coauthor, Ronald Gow, she married in 1937, Wendy Hiller plays Eliza with a minimum of frills, and complete sincerity. To her, as much as to Playwright Shaw and Producer Pascal, goes the credit for making Pygmalion come to life on the screen more completely than it ever did upon the stage...