[THUNDER, HORSE WHINNYING]
[♪ SLOW MUSIC - VOICES IN MARKET]
[♪ UPBEAT MUSIC]
[MAN CALLING OUT IN MARKET]
[THUNDER]
[♪ UPBEAT MUSIC]
[RUMBLE OF THUNDER]
[CRACK OF THUNDER]
[THUNDER CONTINUES]
[TOWN CLOCK CHIMES]
[MAN GROANS] - Here, you're a bit wet!
CLARA: I'm getting chilled to the bone.
What can Freddy be doing all this time? He’s been gone 20 minutes.
[THUNDER CRASHES]
CLARA: Well, haven’t you got a cab?
FREDDY: There’s not one to be had for love or money.
MOTHER: You really are very helpless, Freddy.
Go again and don’t come back until you've found a cab.
I shall simply get soaked for nothing.
And what about us? You selfish pig!
Oh, very well: I'll go, I'll go.
[THUNDER - COLLIDES WITH WOMAN]
LIZA: Nah then, Freddy, look where ya gowin, dear.
FREDDY: Sorry. ELIZA: There’s menners f' yer!
Te-oo bunches o' voylets trod in tha mud.
How do you know that my son's name is Freddy, pray?
Oh, eez your sun, is ee?
Well, if you'd done ya duty by 'im as a mother
ee shoulda known betta than to spoil a poor girl's flowers
and run away without payin'.
Will you pay me for 'em?
Do nothing of the sort, Mother. The idea!
Please allow me, Clara. Have you any pennies?
No. I've nothing smaller than sixpence.
I can give you change for a tenner, kind lady.
Well, give it to me.
Now!
[THUNDER - RAIN]
This is for your flowers.
Oh, thank you kindly, lady.
Make her give you the change. These things are only a penny a bunch.
Do hold your tongue, Clara. You may keep the change.
Thank you, lady.
Now tell me how you know that young gentleman's name.
I didn’t.
I heard you call him by it. Don’t try and deceive me.
Who’s tryin' to deceive ya?
I called him Freddy or Charlie same as you might yourself
if you was talkin' to a stranger and wished to be pleasant.
CLARA: Sixpence thrown away!
Really, mamma, you might have spared Freddy t h a t.
Clara!
[CAR HORN SOUNDS - CLAP OF THUNDER]
Phew!
Oh Sir, is there any sign of it stopping?
Mm? I'm afraid not. It started worse than ever about two minutes ago.
Oh dear! [THUNDER RUMBLES]
If it's worse it's a sign it's nearly over.
So cheer up, Captain and buy a flower off a poor girl.
I'm sorry, I haven’t any change.
I can give you change, Captain.
For a sovereign? I’ve nothing less.
Oh, garn! Do buy a flower off me.
I can change half-a-crown. Here, take this for tuppence.
Now don’t be troublesome, there’s a good girl.
Hang on. Here’s three halfpence, if that’s any use to you.
Thank you, sir.
Here, you be careful, give him a flower for it.
There’s a bloke back here taking down every blessed word you’re saying.
I ain't done nothin’ wrong by speaking to the gentleman.
I’ve a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb.
I'm a respectable girl, so help me,
I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me.
Oh, sir, sir, please don’t let him charge me. You dunno what it means to me.
They’ll take away me character and drive me on the streets for speaking to gentlemen.
[LOUDLY] There! there! Who’s hurting you, you silly girl?
What do you take me for?
BYSTANDER: It's all right, he’s a gentleman, look at his boots.
She thought you was a copper's nark, Sir.
What's a copper's nark?
Well it's a.... Well, it's a copper's nark, in't it.
What else do you call it? It's sort of an informer.
I swear on me Bible oath sir, I never said anything…
Shut up!
Shut up.
Do I look like a policeman?
Then what’d ya take down me words for?
How do I know whether you took me down right?
You just show me what you’ve wrote about me.
What’s that? Ain't proper writing. I can’t read that.
I can. "Cheer ap, Keptin 'n' and baw ya flahr orf a pore gel."
[CROWD LAUGHS] Oh it's because I called him Captain. I’m sure I meant no ‘arm.
Pleasedon’t let him lay a charge agen me for a word like that.
Charge! I make no charge.
Really, sir, if you’re a detective, you need not begin protecting me
against molestation by young women unless I ask.
Anyone can see the girl meant no harm.
MAN: Course they could.
- What business is it of yours? - You mind your own affairs.
- He wants promotion, he does. - Taking down people's words!
- Girl never said a word to him. - What harm if she did?
- He aint a tec. He’s a blooming busybody.
- I tell you, look at his be-oots.
How are all your people down at Selsey?
How'd you know my people come from Selsey?
Never you mind. They did.
And how do you come to be up so far east? You were born in Lisson Grove.
Oh, what harm was there in me leaving Lisson Grove?
[CRYING] It wasn’t fit for a pig to live in and I had to pay four-and-six a week.
Live where you like but stop that noise.
Come, come! He cant touch you.
You have a right to live where you please.
Pipe Lane for instance.
I'd like to go in the house and question with you I would. [LAUGHTER]
[talking very low-spiritedly to herself] I'm a good girl, I am.
Well where do I come from?
Hoxton.
CROWD: Ooooo! Well who said I didn't?
Blimey! You know everything, you do.
Ain't no call to meddle with me, he ain't. [GROUP LAUGHING]
Of course he aint. Don’t you stand it from him.
Now look here. What cause have you got to meddle with people
what never offered to meddle with you?
Let him say what he likes. I don’t want to have no truck with him.
You take us for dirt under your feet, don’t ya?
Catch you taking liberties with a gentleman!
[GROUP TALKING LOUDLY]
Tell him where HE comes from if you want to go into fortune telling.
CROWD: Yeah. Go on.
Cheltenham, Harrow, Cambridge, and India.
Quite right.
[GROUP LAUGHS AND CLAPS]
Dare I ask sir, do you do this for your living in a music hall?
Hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I shall some day.
He’s no gentleman, he's not to interfere with a poor girl.
What on earth is Freddy doing?
I shall get pneumonia if I stay in this draught any longer.
Earls Court.
Will you please keep your impertinent remarks to yourself?
Oh, did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean to. I beg your pardon.
Your mother's Epsom, unmistakably.
How very curious! I was brought up in Largelady Park, near Epsom.
[LAUGHS LOUDLY] What a devil of a name.
Oh excuse me, do you want a cab, do you?
Don’t dare speak to me.
Oh, please, please Clara.
We should be so grateful to you, sir, if you found us a cab.
[PIERCING BLAST OF WHISTLE]
I told you he was a plain-clothes copper.
That ain't a police whistle, it’s a sporting whistle.
ELIZA: He’s no right to take away me character.
Me character is the same to me as any lady's.
I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it
but the rain stopped about two minutes ago.
So it has. Well why didn’t you tell us before?
And us wasting our time listening to your silliness.
I know where you come from. Anwell Asylum. Go back there.
- Hanwell - Oh, thank you teacher.
Following people like that. How would he like heself?
It's quite fine now Clara. We can walk to a motor bus. Come.
But the cab!
Oh! How tiresome.
Poor girl! Hard enough to live without being worrited and chivied.
How do you do it, may I ask?
Simply phonetics. The science of speech.
That’s my profession; also my hobby.
Happy is the man who can make a living from his hobby!
You can spot an Irishman or a Yorkshireman by his brogue.
I can place any man within six miles.
I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.
LIZA: Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!
Is there a living in that?
Oh yes. Quite a fat one.
This is an age of upstarts. Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year
and end in Park Lane with 100,000.
They want to drop Kentish Town but they give themselves away every time they open their mouths.
I can teach them... LIZA: Let him mind his own business ...
Woman, cease this detestable boohooing instantly,
or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.
I’ve a right to be here if I like, same as you.
A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds
has no right to be anywhere - no right to live.
Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech
that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible
and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
LIZA SCREECHES: Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!
Heavens! What a sound!
[HE REPEATS HER SOUNDS] Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!
LIZA LAUGHING: Garn!
You see this creature with her kerbstone English,
the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days;
well, sir, in six months I could pass her off
as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party.
I could even get her a place as lady's maid or shop assistant,
which requires better English. LIZA: What’s that you say?
Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf,
you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns,
you incarnate insult to the English language. ♪ SLOW STIRRING MUSIC
I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba. Can you believe that?
GENTLEMAN: Yes, of course I can. I am myself a student of Indian dialects.
Are you really? Do you know Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit?
I am Colonel Pickering. Who are you?
Henry Higgins, the author of Higgins's Universal Alphabet.
- I came from India to meet you. - I was going to India to meet you.
- Where do you live? - 27A Wimpole St. Come and see me tomorrow.
I'm at the Carlton. Come with me now and let's have a jaw over supper.
Right you are.
Do buy a flower, kind sir. I'm short for me lodging.
I'm sorry, I haven’t any change. Really.
Liar. You said you could change half-a-crown.
Ahhh, you ought to be stuffed with nails, you ought.
Ere, take the whole bloomin' basket for sixpence.
[CHURCH CLOCK STRIKES SECOND QUARTER]
A reminder.
[COINS JINGLING]
Ah-ow-ooh! Aaah-ow-ooh!
Aaaaaah-ow-ooh! Aaaaaaaaaaaah-ow-ooh!!!
FREDDY: Got one at last!
Hallo! Where are the two ladies that were here?
They walked to the bus when the rain stopped.
And left me with a cab on my hands. Damnation!
Never you mind, young man. I'm goin' 'ome in a taxi.
DRIVER: Hold on girl.
Eight pence ain't no object to me, Charlie.
Angel Court, Drury Lane, next to Meiklejohn's oil shop.
And let's see how far she can make her hop it.
Right, in you get.
♪ HAPPY MUSIC
Well, I'm dashed.
♪ HAPPY MUSIC [SOUND OF HORSE AND CARRIAGE]
[TUNING FORK RINGS]
HIGGINS: Well, I think that’s the whole show.
It's really amazing. [VOICE ECHOES] I haven’t taken half of it in, you know.
Would you like to go over any of it again?
No, thanks, not now. I'm quite done up for this morning.
- Harder listening to sounds? - Yes, it's a fearful strain.
You know, I rather fancy myself because I can pronounce 24 distinct vowel sounds
but your 130 beat me.
I couldn't hear a bit of difference between most of them.
Well, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first
but you keep on listening and presently you'll find that they're as different as a from b.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
What is it?
A young woman asks to see you, sir.
A young woman! What does she want?
Well, sir, she says you’ll be very glad to see her
when you know what she’s come about
but she’s quite a common girl, sir, very common indeed.
Oh, I would have sent her away,
only I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines.
I hope I've not done wrong
but really you do see such queer people sometimes - you'll excuse me sir I'm sure.
That's alright Mrs Pearce. Does she an interesting accent?
Oh, something dreadful sir. Really, I don't know how you can take an interest in it.
Let’s have her up. Show her up, Mrs. Pearce.
Very well, sir. It's for you to say.
This is rather a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make records.
We'll set her talking, and I'll take it down in Bell's Visible Speech, then in broad Romic
and then we'll get her on the phonograph
so that you can turn her on as often as you like with the written transcript before you.
This is the young woman, sir.
Why, this is the girl I jotted down last night. She's no use!
I've got all the records I want of the Lisson Grove lingo
and I'm not going to waste another cylinder on it. Be off with you, I don’t want you.
Don’t you be so saucy. You ain't heard what I come for yet.
Did you tell him I come in a taxi?
Nonsense, girl! What do you think a gentleman like Mr. Higgins cares what you came in?
Oh, we a r e proud!
He ain't above givin' lessons, not 'im; I heard 'im say so.
Well, I ain't come here to ask for any compliment
and if me money's not good enough I can go elsewhere.
Good enough for what?
Good enough for you. Now you know, don't you.
I've come to 'ave lessons I am. Pay for 'em too, make no mistake.
Well! What do you expect me to say to you?
Well, if you was a gentleman, you might ask me to sit down.
Pickering, shall we ask this baggage to sit down or shall we throw her out of the window?
Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo! I won't be called a baggage when I've offered to pay like a lady.
Well, what is it you want?
I want to be a lady in a flower shop instead of selling at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.
But they won’t take me less I can talk more genteel.
He said he could teach me. Well, here I am, ready to pay,
not asking any favour and he treats me zif I was dirt.
How can you be such a foolish, ignorant girl
as to think you could afford to pay Mr Higgins?
And why shouldn' I?
I know what lessons cost, same as you, and I'm ready to pay.
- How much? - Now you're talking.
I thought you'd come off it when you saw a chance of gettin' back
a bit what you chucked at me last night.
You'd had a drop in, hadn't ya.
Sit down.
- Well if you're goin' to make a compliment... - [SHOUTS] Sit down!
Sit down girl! Do as you're told.
Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo!
Won’t you sit down?
[COYLY] Don’t mind if I do.
HIGGINS: What’s your name?
Eliza Doolittle.
Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess, They went to the woods to get a bird's nest
They found a nest with four eggs in it
They took one apiece, and left three in it.
Oh, don't be silly.
You mustn't speak to the gentlemen like that.
Well why won't he speak sensible to me?
Come back to business. How much do you propose to pay me for the lessons?
Ah, I know what's right.
A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for 18 pence an hour from a real French gentleman.
Now, you wouldn't have the face to ask the same for teaching me my own language
as you would for French, so I won't give more than a shilling; take it or leave it.
Pickering, if you consider a shilling, not as a simple shilling
but as a percentage of this girl's income,
it works out as fully equivalent to 60 or 70 guineas from a millionaire.
- How so? - Work it out.
A millionaire has about 150 pounds a day. She earns about half a crown.
Who told you I only earn...
She offers me two fifths of her day's income for a lesson.
Two fifths of a millionaire's income would be somewhere about 60 pounds.
It's handsome. By George it's enormous! It's the biggest offer I ever had.
60 pounds. What ya talkin' about? I never offered you 60 pounds.
- Where would I get 60 pounds? - Hold your tongue!
[SOBBING] But I haven't got 60 pounds.
Don't cry you silly girl. Sit down. Nobody's going to touch your money.
Somebody's going to touch you with a broomstick if you don't stop snivelling.
Sit down. [ELIZA SOBBING]
Anyone would think you was me father.
If I decide to teach you I'll be worse than two fathers to you. Here!
What's that for?
To wipe your eyes. To wipe any part of your face that feels moist.
Remember, that is your handkerchief and that is your sleeve.
And don't mistake the one for the other if you wish to be a lady in a shop.
It's no use talking to her like that Mr Higgins. She doesn't understand you.
Besides, you've got it quite wrong. She doesn't do it that way at all.
Here! You give me that handkerchief. He give it to me, not to you.
He did. I think it must be regarded as her property Mrs Pearce.
[MRS PEARCE SIGHS] Serves you right Mr Higgins.
[SOUND OF CARRIAGE OUTSIDE] Higgins, I'm interested.
What about the ambassador's garden party?
I'll say you’re the greatest teacher alive if you can make that good.
And I'll bet you all the expenses of the experiment
that you can’t do it and I'll pay for the lessons.
Oh, you are real good. Thank you, Captain.
It's almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low, so horribly dirty.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!! I ain't dirty.
I washed me face and me hands afore I come, I did.
Well, you're certainly not going to turn her head with flattery Higgins.
Oh, don't say that sir. There's more ways than one of turning a girl's head
and nobody can do it better than Mr Higgins,
though he may not always mean it.
I do hope sir you won't encourage him to do anything foolish.
What is life but a series of inspired follies?
The difficulty is to find them to do.
Never lose a chance. It doesn't come every day.
I shall make a duchess of this draggle-tailed guttersnipe.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-oo-oo!!!
Yes, in six months, in three if she has a good ear and a quick tongue.
I'll take her anywhere and pass her off as anything.
We'll start today, now! This moment! Take her away and clean her, Mrs. Pearce.
Monkey Brand if it won't come off any other way.
- Is there a good fire in the kitchen? - Yes, but...
Take all her clothes off and burn them. Ring up Whitelys or somebody for new ones.
Wrap her up in brown paper til they come.
You’re no gentleman, you’re not, to talk of such things.
I'm a good girl I am, and I know what the like of you are, I do.
We want none of your Lisson Grove prudery here, young woman.
You’ve got to learn to behave like a duchess.
Take her away, Mrs. Pearce. If she gives you any trouble, wallop her.
No, I'll call the police I will.
But I have no place to put her.
Put her in the dustbin.
-Ohhhh. - Come Higgins, be reasonable.
You must be reasonable Mr Higgins.
Really you must. You can't walk over everybody like this.
[CALMLY] I....walk over everybody?
My dear Mrs Pearce, my dear Pickering,
I never had the slightest intention of walking over anybody.
All I propose is that we should be kind to this poor girl.
who was happy to prepare and to fit herself for her new station in life.
If I did not express myself clearly
it was because I did not wish to hurt her delicacy or yours.
Well, did you ever hear anything like that sir?
Never Mrs Pearce, never.
What's the matter?
Well, the matter is that you can't take a girl up like that
as if you were picking up a pebble off the beach.
Why not?
Why not? But you don't know anything about her.
What about her parents? She might be married.
Ahhh, garn.
HIGGINS: As the girl very properly says, "Garn."
Married indeed! Don't you know a woman of that class
looks a worn out drudge of fifty a year after she's married.
Who'd marry me?
By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men
shooting themselves for your sake before I've done with you.
Nonsense sir, you mustn't talk to her like that.
I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is.
I don’t want no balmies teaching me.
Oh, indeed! Mad, am I?
Very well, Mrs. Pearce, you needn’t order the new clothes. Throw her out.
No! You've no right to touch me.
Now you know what comes of being saucy. This way, please.
I didn’t want no clothes. I wouldn’t have took ‘em. I can buy me own clothes.
You’re an ungrateful wicked girl.
This is my return for offering to take you from the gutter
and dress you beautifully and make a lady of you.
Stop, Mr. Higgins. I won't allow it. It's you that’s being wicked.
Go home to your parents, girl and tell them to take better care of you.
I ain’t got no parents.
They told me I was big enough to earn me own livin' and turned me out.
But where’s your mother?
I ain’t got no mother. Her that turned me out was me sixth stepmother.
But I done without 'er. And I'm a good girl, I am.
Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about?
The girl doesn’t belong to anybody, is no use to anybody but me.
You can adopt her, Mrs. Pearce. I'm sure a daughter will be a great amusement to you.
Now don’t make any more fuss. Take her downstairs and...
But what’s to become of her?
Is she to be paid anything? Do be sensible, sir.
I'll pay her whatever is necessary. Put it down in the housekeeper's book.
What on earth will she want with money?
She'll only drink if you give her money.
It's a lie. Nobody ever saw the sign of liquor on me.
Oh sir, you're a gentleman, don't let him speak to me like that.
Does it occur to you, Higgins, that the girl has some feelings?
Oh no, I don’t think so.
Not any feelings that we need bother about. Have you, Eliza?
I got me feelings same as anyone else.
- You see the difficulty? - Eh? What difficulty?
Getting her to talk grammar. The mere pronunciation is easy enough.
But I don’t want to talk grammar. I want to talk like a lady in a shop.
Will you please keep to the point, Mr Higgins.
What’s to become of the girl when you’ve finished your teaching?
What’s to become of her if I leave her in the gutter? Answer me that, Mrs. Pearce.
Well, that’s her own business, not yours, Mr. Higgins.
Well, when I’ve finished with her, we can throw her back into the gutter,
then it will be her own business again, so that’s all right.
Oh, you’ve no feeling heart in you; you don’t care for nothin' but yourself.
Ere! I’ve had enough of this. I'm goin'. You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, you ought.
Have some chocolates, Eliza.
How do I know what might be in ‘em?
I’ve heard of girls being drugged by the like of you.
Pledge of good faith, Eliza. I eat one half...
... you eat the other. - No!
You shall have boxes of them, barrels of them, every day.
You shall live on them. Eh?
I wouldn’t have ate it, only I'm too lady-like to take it out of my mouth.
Listen, Eliza, I think you said you came in a taxi.
Well, what if I did? I’ve as good a right to take a taxi as anyone else.
You have indeed Eliza, and in future you shall have as many taxis as you want.
You shall go up and down and round the town in a taxi. Think of that, Eliza.
Mr. Higgins! You’re tempting the girl. She should think of the future.
Nonsense! At her age?
Time enough to think of the future when you've no future to think of.
No Eliza. Think of chocolates, and taxis, and gold, and diamonds.
No. I don’t want no gold and no diamonds. I'm a good girl, I am.
You shall remain so, Eliza, under the care of Mrs. Pearce.
And you shall marry an officer in the Guards, with a beautiful moustache,
the son of a marquis, who will disinherit him for marrying you,
but will relent when he sees your beauty and goodness.
Excuse me, Higgins, but I really must interfere. Mrs. Pearce is quite right.
If this girl is to put herself in your hands for six months for an experiment in teaching,
she must understand thoroughly what she’s doing.
How can she? She’s incapable of understanding anything.
Besides, do any of us understand what we are doing? If we did, would we ever do it?
Very clever, but not to the present point. Miss Doolittle...
Ah-ah-ow-oo!
There! That’s all you'll get from Eliza. Ah-ah-ow-oo!
No use explaining. As a military man you ought to know that.
Give her her orders. That’s enough for her.
Eliza, you are to live here for the next six months, learning how to speak beautifully,
like a lady in a florist's shop.
If you’re good and do whatever you’re told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom,
and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis.
If you’re naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles,
and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick.
At the end of six months you shall go to Buckingham Palace in a carriage,
beautifully dressed.
If the King finds out that you’re not a lady,
you will be taken by the police to the Tower of London,
where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls.
If you are not found out, you shall have a present of seven-and-sixpence
to start life with as a lady in a shop.
[SHOUTING] If you refuse this offer you will be a most ungrateful, wicked girl
and the angels will weep for you.
Now are you satisfied, Pickering?
Can I put it more plainly and fairly, Mrs. Pearce?
Well, I think perhaps you’d better let me speak to the girl properly in private.
Of course I know you don’t mean her any harm,
but when you get what you call interested in people's accents,
you never think or care what may happen to them or you.
Come with me, Eliza.
That’s all right, Mrs Pearce. Thank-you. Bundle her off to the bath-room.
You’re a great bully, you are. I won’t stay here if I don’t like.
And I won’t let nobody wallop me.
I never asked to go to Bucknam Pellis, I didn’t.
And I never been in trouble with the police, not me. I'm a good girl.
Don’t answer back, girl. You don’t understand the gentleman.
Well, what I say is right.
I won’t go near the king, not if I'm going to have my head cut off.
If I'd known what I was lettin' meself in for, I wouldn’t have come here.
I always been a good girl and I never offered to say a word to you.
I have got my feelings the same as anybody else.
Excuse the straight question Higgins but,
are you a man of good character where women are concerned?
Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?
Yes, very frequently.
Well, I haven't.
I find the moment I let a woman make friends with me,
she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious and a damn nuisance.
I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman,
I become selfish and tyrranical.
Women upset everything!
When you let them into your life, you'll find that the woman is driving at one thing,
while you're driving at another.
So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor and likely to remain so.
Come Higgins, you know what I mean.
If I'm to be in this business I shall feel responsible for the girl
and I hope it is understood that no advantage be taken of her position.
What? That thing!
Sacred, I assure you. You see, she will be a pupil
and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred.
I've taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English,
the best looking women in the world.
I'm seasoned. They might as well be blocks of wood.
I might as well be a block of wood! [PICKERING LAUGHS - MRS PEARCE COUGHS]
Well, is it alright Mrs Pearce?
I just wish to trouble you with a word if I may Mr Higgins.
Certainly. Come in.
Don't burn that Mrs Pearce. I'll keep it as a curiosity.
What do you wish to say to me?
Oh, am I in the way?
Not at all sir.
Mr Higgins, will you please be very particular what you say before the girl.
Of course. I'm always particular about what I say. Why do you say this to me?
No sir, you're not at all particular when you've mislaid anything
or when you're getting a little impatient.
Now it doesn't matter before me. I am used to it.
But you really must not swear before the girl.
Swear? I never swear. I detest the habit. Whatever the devil do you mean?
That's what I mean sir. You swear a great deal too much.
Now I don't mind your damning and blasting
but there is a certain word I must ask you not to use.
The girl used it herself when she began to enjoy the bath.
It begins with the same letter as bath.
Now she knows no better. She learnt it at her mother's knee
but she must not hear it from your lips.
I cannot charge myself with having ever uttered it Mrs Pearce.
Except perhaps in moments of extreme and justifiable excitement.
Only this morning sir you applied it to your boots, to the butter and to the brown bread.
Oh that! Mere alliteration Mrs Pearce. Natural to apply it.
[PICKERING GIGGLES]
Well, whatever you choose to call it, I beg you not to let the girl hear you repeat it.
Oh very well. Very well. Is that all?
No sir. We shall have to be very particular with this girl as to her personal cleanliness.
Certainly. Quite right. Most important.
I mean not to be slovenly in her dress or untidy in leaving things about.
Just so. I was about to draw your attention to that.
You see, it's these little things that matter Pickering.
Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.
This is true of personal habits as it is of money.
Yes sir. Then might I ask you not to come down to breakfast in your dressing gown?
Or at any rate not to use it as a napkin to the extent that you do sir.
And if you would be so good as not to eat everything off the same plate.
It would set a better example to the girl.
You know you nearly choked yourself on a fish bone in the jam only last week.
I may do these things sometimes in absence of mind but surely I don't do them habitually.
By the way, my dressing gown smells most damnably of benzine.
No doubt it does sir but if you will wipe your fingers...
[SHOUTS] Oh very well, very well, I'll wipe them in my hair in future.
I hope you're not offended Mr Higgins.
[QUIETLY] Not at all. Not at all.
You're quite right. I shall be particularly careful before the girl.
Is that all?
No sir.
Might she use some of those Japanese dresses you brought back from abroad?
I really can’t put her back into her old things.
Certainly. Anything you like. Is that all? [SOUND OF CARRIAGE OUTSIDE]
Thank you sir. That's all.
[HORSE NEIGHING OUTSIDE]
You know, Pickering, that woman has the most extraordinary ideas about me.
Here I am, a shy, diffident sort of man,
I've never been able to feel really grown up and tremendous like other chaps
and yet she is firmly persuaded that I'm an arbitrary, overbearing, bossy kind of person.
I can't account for it. [KNOCK AT DOOR]
If you please sir, the trouble's beginning already.
There’s a dustman downstairs, Alfred Doolittle, asks to see you.
He says you have his daughter here.
PICKERING: Phew! I say! HIGGINS: Send the blackguard up!
Very well sir.
PICKERING: Well he may not be a blackguard Higgins.
Nonsense! Of course he's a blackguard.
Well, whether he is or not, I think we’re going to have some trouble from him.
I think not. If there’s any trouble to be had, he shall have it with me, not I with him.
And we'll surely get something interesting from him.
- About the girl? - No, I mean his dialect.
Oh.
Doolittle, sir.
Professor Higgins?
Here. Good morning. Sit down!
Good morning, Governor. I come about a very serious matter, Governor.
Born in Hounslow. Mother Welsh, I should think.
What do you want, Doolittle?
I want my daughter, that’s what I want. See?
Of course you do. You’re her father, aren’t you?
You don’t suppose anybody else wants her, do you?
I'm glad to see you have some spark of family feeling left.
She’s upstairs. Take her away at once.
What!
Take her away. You don’t suppose I'm going to keep your daughter for you, do you?
Now, look here, Governor. Is this reasonable?
Is it fairity to take advantage of a man like this?
The girl belongs to me. You got her. Where do I come in?
How dare you come here and try to blackmail me! You sent her here on purpose.
No, Governor.
Of course you did. How else could you possibly know that she is here?
Don’t take a man up like that, Governor.
The police'll take you up. This is a plant, a plot to extort money from me by threats.
I shall telephone for the police.
Have I asked for a brass farthing?
I leave it to the gentleman here, have I said a word about money?
What else did you come for?
Well I'll tell you if you let me get a word in.
I'm willing to tell ya. I'm wanting to tell ya.
I'm waiting to tell ya.
Pickering, this chap has a certain natural gift of rhetoric.
Observe the rhythm of his native woodnotes wild.
I'm willing to tell you. I'm wanting to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you.
Sentimental rhetoric. That's the Welsh strain in him.
It also accounts for his mendacity and dishonesty.
Oh please Higgins, I'm West Country myself.
Now how did you know the girl was here if you didn't send her?
Well, it was like this governor.
The girl took a boy in a taxi to give him a jaunt. Son of the landlady he is.
Well, she sent him back for her luggage when she heard you was willing for her to stop here.
I met the lad on the corner of Longacre and Endle Street.
How much luggage?
Musical instrument, a few pictures, tribe of jewellery and a birdcage.
She said she didn't want no clothes.
Well, what was I to think from that, I ask you Governor?
As a parent, what was I to think?
So you came to save her from worse than death, is that it?
Just so. That's right, Governor.
Well why did you bring her luggage if you intended to take her away?
Have I said a word about taking her away? Have I now?
You’re going to take her away, double quick.
Don’t say that, Governor. I'm not the man to stand in my girl's light.
Here’s a career opening up for her, as you might say.
Mrs. Pearce, this is Eliza's father. He has come to take her away. Give her to him.
There’s a misunderstanding. Listen to me.
But he can’t take her away, Mr. Higgins, how can he? You told me to burn her clothes.
That’s right. I can’t carry her through the streets like a bloomin' monkey, can I?
I put it to ya.
You have put it to me that you want your daughter. Take your daughter.
If she has no clothes, go out and buy her some.
Where’s the clothes she come in? Did I burn them or did your missus here?
I am the housekeeper, if you please. I have sent for some clothes for your girl.
When they come you can take her away. YOU can wait in the kitchen.
This way, please.
Listen Governor. You and me is men of the world, ain’t we?
Oh! Men of the world, are we? You’d better go, Mrs. Pearce.
I think so, indeed, sir.
The floor is yours, Mr. Doolittle.
I thank you, Governor.
Well, the truth is, Governor, I’ve sort of taken a fancy to you,
and if you want the girl, I'm not as set on having her back home again
but what I might not be open to an arrangement.
Regarded in the light of a young woman, she’s a fine handsome girl
but as my daughter she ain’t worth her keep.
So I tell you straight, all I want is me rights as a father
and you’re the last man alive to expect me to give her up for nothing.
I can see you’re one of the straight sort.
I mean, what’s a five pound note to you?
And what’s Eliza to me?
I think you ought to know, Doolittle, that Mr. Higgins's intentions are entirely honourable.
Of course they are, Governor. If I thought they weren’t, I’d ask fifty.
[REVOLTED] Do you mean to say that you would sell your daughter for £50?
Not in a general way I wouldn’t,
but to oblige a gentleman like you I'd do a good deal, I do assure you.
Have you no morals, man?
[UNABASHED] Can’t afford ‘em, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.
Not that I mean any harm, mind you,
but if Eliza's gonna make a bit out of this, why not me too?
I don’t know what to do, Pickering.
There can be no doubt that as a question of morals
it's a positive crime to give this chap a farthing.
And yet I feel a certain rough justice in his claim.
That’s right, Governor. That’s what I say. A father's heart, as it were.
Well, yes I know how you feel but it hardly seems right.
Don’t say that, Governor. Don’t look at it that way.
What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I?
I'm one of the undeserving poor, that’s what I am.
Think what that means to a man.
It means he’s up against middle class morality all the time.
Well, I don’t need less than a deserving man, I need more.
I don’t eat less hearty than him and I drink a lot more.
Therefore, I put it to you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me.
I'm playing straight with you. I ain’t pretending to be deserving.
I'm undeserving and I mean to go on being undeserving.
I like it and that’s the truth.
Would you take advantage of a man's nature
to do him out of the price of his own daughter
what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow
till she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen?
I mean, is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to ya and I leave it to ya.
Pickering, if we were to take this chap in hand for 3 months
he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.
Oh what do you say to that Doolittle?
Not me Governor. Thank you kindly.
I've heard all the preachers and prime ministers.
From a thinking man, a gain from politics or religion or social reform,
same as all the other amusements
and I tell you it's a dog's life any way you look at it.
No, undeserving poverty is my line.
I suppose we must give him a fiver.
He'll only make a bad use of it, I'm afraid.
Not me, Governor, so help me I won’t.
Nah, don’t you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it.
There won’t be a penny of it left by Mundy.
I'll have to go back to work same as if I'd never had it.
Just one last spree for meself and the missus,
giving pleasure to ourselves, employment to others,
and satisfaction to you to know that your money ain’t been been throwed away.
You couldn’t spend it better.
This is irresistible. Let’s give him ten.
Ah! No, no, no, no Governor. No no. She wouldn’t have the heart to spend ten.
Probably I shouldn’t neither.
Ten pounds is a lot of money. It makes a man feel prudent like,
and then goodbye to happiness.
No, just give me what I ask for, not a penny more, and not a penny less.
Why don't you marry that missus of yours?
Tell her so, Governor. Tell her so.
I'm willing. I'm the one who suffers by it.
I got no hold on 'er.
I'm a slave to that woman Governor, just because I'm not her lawful husband.
And she knows it too! Catch her marrying me?
[WHISPERS] You take my advice Governor.
You marry Eliza while she's young and don't know no better.
If you don't you'll be sorry forever after.
If you do, she'll be sorry forever after
but better her than you because you're a man, she's only a woman.
Don't know how to be happy anyhow.
Pickering, if we listen to this chap another minute we shall have no convictions left.
Five pounds I think you said.
That's right Governor.
Sure you won’t take ten?
Not now, Governor. Some other time.
There you go.
Thank you, Governor. Good morning Gentlemen.
Oh, beg pardon, miss.
Garn! Don’t you know your own daughter?
Blimey! It's Eliza!
- This! - By Jove!
[GIGGLES] Don't I look silly?
Silly.
Now, Mr Higgins, don't say anything to make the girl conceited about herself.
Oh, quite right Mrs Pearce. Yes, damn silly.
MRS PEARCE: Please, sir! HIGGINS: Extremely silly.
I shall look alright with me hat on.
Here, watch.
A new fashion by George! It ought to look horrible.
I never thought she'd clean up as good looking as that.
She’s a real credit to me, ain’t she?
I tell ya, it's easy to clean up here.
Hot and cold water on tap there is; just as much as you like.
And woolly towels there is
and the towel was so hot it burns your fingers.
[♪ GENTLE MUSIC] And soft brushes to scrub yourself with
and a wooden bowl of soap that smells like primroses.
Now I know why ladies is so clean.
Washing's a treat for 'em.
Wish they could see what it is for the likes of me.
She ain't accustomed to it, that's all
but she'll soon pick up your free-and-easy ways.
I'm a good girl I am, and I won’t pick up no free-and-easy ways.
Eliza, if you say again that you are a good girl, your father shall take you home.
Not him. You don’t know me father.
All he come here for was to touch you for some money to get drunk on.
Why else would you want money for? To put into the plate in church, I suppose.
Don’t you give me any of your lip my girl
and don’t you let me hear you giving this gentleman any of your lip
or you’ll hear about it from me later, see?
Have you any further advice to give your daughter before you go, Mr Doolittle?
Your blessing, for instance.
Not me Governor, I ain’t such a mug as to put up my children to all I know myself.
Hard enough to hold 'em in without that.
If you want Eliza's mind improved, you do it yourself with a strap.
Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning maam.
Oooh. [CLOCK CHIMING]
You won’t see him again in a hurry.
I don’t want to, Eliza. Do you?
No, not me. I don’t want never to see him again, I don’t.
He’s a disgrace to me, he is. collecting dust at a workman's trade.
What is his trade Eliza?
Talking money out of other people's pockets into his own.
Ain’t you going to call me Miss Doolittle any more?
Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Doolittle. It was a slip of the tongue.
I don’t mind; only it sounded so genteel.
I should just like to take a taxi down the corner of Tottenham Court Road
and get out and tell it to wait there for me,
just to put the girls in their place a bit.
I wouldn’t speak to them, you know.
You better wait till we’ve got you something really fashionable.
Oh, well if I'm to have fashionable clothes, I'll wait.
I should like to have some.
Mrs Pearce told me you're going to give me some to wear in bed at night;
different to what I wear in the daytime.
Mm hmm.
Well it do seem a terrible waste of money when you could get something to show.
Besides, I never could fancy changing into cold things on a winter's night.
Now, Eliza, the things have come for you to try on.
Ah-ow-oo-ooh!
Don’t rush about like that, girl.
Pickering, we have taken on a stiff job.
Higgins, we have. [BOTH LAUGH]
Ahyee, beyee. Say 'a cup of tea'.
A cup of tea.
[RECORDED VOICE]
[SOUND OF TUNING FORK]
Ahyee
Eeee
[REPEATING VOWELS, RECORDING]
Two ghosts sat on posts.
Two ghosts sat on posts drinking toasts to their hosts.
Hosts.
[ ♪ MUSIC, ELIZA'S RECORDED VOICE PLAYING]
Shallow depression...
in the west of these islands...
A, E, Ah, Oh, U.
A, E, Ah, O, U.
[PICKERING GIVES FAN WAVING INSTRUCTIONS]
Red leather, yellow leather.
[RECORDING] Red leather, yellow leather.
Sit up!
Shallow depression in the west of these islands.
It is likely to move slowly.
HIGGINS: In an easterly direction.
In an easterly direction.
[RECORDED VOICE, MUSIC, ELIZA REPEATING PHRASES]
A cup of tea.
Shallow depression in the west of these islands
is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction.
[SHOUTS]
[BABBLING SOUNDS]
[♪ HAPPY MUSIC]
Two ghosts who sat on posts drinking toasts to their hosts.
Good girl.
Cup
of
tea
tea. [LAUGHS HAPPILY]
[♪ HAPPY MUSIC]
[♪ SLOW PEACEFUL MUSIC]
Henry! It is my home day. You promised not to come.
Oh bother.
Go home at once.
I know, I came here on purpose.
Yes, but you mustn't. I'm serious dear.
You offend all my friends. They stop coming whenever they meet you.
Nonsense! I know I have no small talk but people don't mind.
[MOTHER LAUGHS] Oh don't they! Small talk indeed.
What about your large talk? Really dear, you mustn't stay.
I must. I have a job for you. A phonetic job.
It's no use dear. I can't get round your vowels.
Well it isn't a phonetic job.
You said it was.
But not your part of it. You see...
I've picked up a girl.
Does that mean that some girl has picked you up?
Not at all. I don't mean a love affair.
- What a pity. - Why?
Well, you never fall in love with anyone under 45.
When will you discover that there are some rather attractive young women about?
I can't be bothered with young women.
My idea of a loveable woman is somebody as like you as possible.
I shall never get into the way of really liking young women;
some habits lie too deep to be changed.
Besides, they're all idiots!
You know what you would do if you really loved me Henry.
Oh bother! What? Marry I suppose.
No! Stop fidgeting.
And take your hands out of your pockets.
That's a good boy. [MOTHER GIGGLES]
Now, tell me about the girl.
She's coming to see you.
I don't remember asking her.
You didn't. I asked her. If you'd known her you wouldn't have asked her.
Indeed. Why?
Well, it's like this. You see, she's a common flower girl.
I picked her off a kerbstone.
And invited her to my home!
It'll be alright. I've taught her to speak properly
and she has strict orders as to her behaviour.
She's to keep to two subjects. The weather and everybody's health.
"Fine day" and "How do you do?" you know. That will be safe.
Safe? To talk about our health? About our insides? Perhaps about our outsides.
How could you be so silly Henry?
But she must talk about something.
Oh, she'll be alright Mother. Don't you fuss.
Pickering is in it with me.
You see, I’ve a sort of bet on that I'll pass her off as a duchess in six months.
I shall win my bet. She has a quick ear and she’s easier to teach
than my middle-class pupils because she’s had to learn a complete new language.
She speaks English almost as you speak French.
Well, that is satisfactory, at all events.
It is and it isn’t.
What does that mean?
You see, I’ve got her pronunciation all right
but you have to consider not only how a girl pronounces,
but what she pronounces and that’s where the whole thing…
PARLOUR-MAID: Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill.
How do you do?
My son Henry.
Your celebrated son! I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.
Delighted.
How do you do?
I’ve seen you somewhere before.
I haven’t the ghost of a notion where but I remember your voice.
[DREARILY] It doesn’t matter. You’d better sit down.
I'm sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners. You mustn’t mind him.
- I don’t. - Not at all.
Oh, have I been rude? I didn’t mean to be.
Colonel Pickering.
How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?
So glad you’ve come. Do you know Mrs. Eynsford Hill?
MRS. HIGGINS: Miss Eynsford Hill.
Has Henry told you what we’ve come for?
No, we were interrupted, damn it!
- Henry, really! - Are we in the way?
No, no. You couldn’t have come more fortunately.
We want you to meet a friend of ours.
Yes, by George! We could do with two or three people.
You’ll do as well as anybody else.
PARLOUR-MAID: Mr. Eynsford Hill.
Good Lord of Heaven! Another of them?
Ahdedo?
So good of you to come. [Introducing] Colonel Pickering.
Ahdedo?
I don’t think you've met my son, Professor Higgins.
Ahdedo?
I'll take my oath I’ve seen you somewhere before. Where was it?
I don’t think so.
It don’t matter, anyhow. You better sit down.
Well, here we all are.
[NERVOUSLY] MRS EYNSFORD HILL: Yes.
What the devil are we going to talk about until Eliza comes?
Henry, you are the life and soul of the Royal Society's soirées
but you are really rather trying on more commonplace occasions.
Am I? Sorry.
I suppose I am, you know. [Uproariously] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
I sympathise. I haven't any small talk.
If people would only be frank and say what they really think.
Lord forbid!
CLARA: But why?
Well what they think they ought to think is bad enough,
Lord knows whether they'd really think would upset the whole show.
Do you think it would be really agreeable if I were to say what I really think?
Is it so very cynical?
Cynical? Who the Dickins said it was cynical? I mean it wouldn't be decent!
MRS EYNSFORD HILL: Oh I'm sure you don't mean that Mr Higgins.
You see, we're all savages more or less.
We're supposed to be civilised and cultured and to know all about poetry and philosophy
and art and science but how many of us know even the meaning of these words?
What do you know of poetry? What do you know of science?
What does he know of art or science or anything else?
Who the devil do you imagine I know of philosophy?
Or of manners, Henry.
THE PARLOR-MAID: Miss Doolittle.
[QUIETLY] Here she is, Mother.
[♪ INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
How do you do, Mrs. Higgins? Mr. Higgins told me I might come.
Yes, quite right. I'm very glad indeed to see you.
How do you do, Miss Doolittle?
Colonel Pickering, is it not?
I feel sure that we have met before, Miss Doolittle. I remember your eyes.
How do you do?
My daughter Clara.
How do you do?
I’ve certainly had the pleasure.
My son Freddy.
How do you do?
[SHOUTS] By George, yes, it all comes back to me!
[QUIETLY] Covent Garden!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a damnable thing!
Oh Henry, Henry, really! No no. Don’t sit on my desk, you’ll break it.
Oh, sorry.
[CRASHING SOUND]
[WHIMSICAL SOUND EFFECTS]
Will it ah, rain, do you think?
The shallow depression in the west of these islands
is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction.
There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation.
[FREDDY LAUGHS]
How awfully funny!
What is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right.
[LAUGHS] Oh, killing.
I'm sure I hope it won’t turn cold.
There is so much influenza about.
It runs right through our whole family regularly every spring.
[DARKLY] My aunt died of influenza. So they said.
But it's my belief they done the old woman in.
Done her in?
Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza?
She come through diphtheria right enough the year before.
I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was.
They all thought she was dead but my father, he kept ladling gin down her throat
til she came to so sudden, she bit the bowl off the spoon.
[CHUCKLING QUIETLY]
Dear me!
What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza?
And what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me?
Somebody pinched it and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.
MRS EYNSFORD HILL: What does ‘doing her in’ mean?
Oh, that’s the new small talk. To ‘do someone in’ means to kill them.
Ooh, you surely don’t believe your aunt was killed?
Do I not? Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.
But it can’t have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that.
It might have killed her.
Not her. Gin was Mother's milk to her.
Besides, he'd poured so much down his own throat, he knew the good of it.
Do you mean that he drank?
Drank! My word! Something chronic.
How dreadful for you!
Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see.
But then he did not keep it up regular.
On the burst, as you might say, from time to time.
And always more agreeable when he’d had a drop in.
There’s lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with.
You see, it's like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience,
it always takes him when he's sober and then it makes him low-spirited.
A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy.
[FREDDY LAUGHS]
Here! What are you sniggering at?
It’s the new small talk. You do it so awfully well.
If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at?
Have I said anything I oughtn’t?
Not at all, Miss Doolittle.
Well that's a mercy, anyhow. What I ...
[HIGGINS COUGHS AND SPLUTTERS]
I must go.
So pleased to have met you Mrs Higgins.
- Good-bye. - Good-bye.
- Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. - Good-bye, Miss Doolittle.
Good-bye, all.
Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so...
Walk! Not bloody likely.
I am going in a taxi.
[PICKERING CHUCKLES QUIETLY]
Well, I really can't get used to the new ways.
Oh it's alright Mama. Quite right.
People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old fashioned.
I daresay I am very OLD fashioned but I do hope you won't begin using that expression Clara.
Don't you agree Colonel Pickering?
Oh don't ask me. I've been away in India for several years
and manners have changed so much that sometimes I don't know
whether I'm at a respectable dinner table or in a ship's forecastle.
Nobody means anything by it. And it's so quaint.
Gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find...
After that I think it's time for us to go.
Oh, yes, we have three at homes to go to still.
- Goodbye. - Goodbye Mrs Higgins.
Goodbye Colonel Pickering.
Goodbye Professor Higgins.
Goodbye. Don't forget to try on the new small talk at the three at homes.
Don't be nervous. Pitch in strong.
I will. Goodbye.
Such nonsense all this early Victorian prudery.
Such damn nonsense.
Such bloody nonsense. [LAUGHTER] MOTHER: Clara!
Well, I ask you.
HIGGINS: Such bloody nonsense.
- Good-bye. - Good-bye.
Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again?
Yes, I should, most awfully.
Well, you know my days.
Yes. Thanks awfully. Good-bye.
Good-bye.
MRS. EYNSFORD HILL: Good-bye, Mr. Higgins.
Good-bye. Good-bye.
Oh, it's no use. I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word.
Don’t. It's not compulsory, you know. You’ll get on quite well without it.
- Good-bye. - Good-bye.
You mustn't mind Clara. We are so poor and she gets to so few parties poor child.
She doesn't quite know.
But the boy is nice. Don't you think so?
Oh quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see you.
- Oh thank you dear. Bye. - Bye.
Well Mummy, is Eliza presentable?
You silly boy, of course she’s not presentable.
She is a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's
but if you suppose for one moment she doesn’t give herself away
with every sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her.
But don't you think something might be done,
I mean, something to eliminate the sanguinary element of our conversation?
Not as long as she is in Henry's hands.
Do you mean my language is improper?
No dearest, it would be quite proper, say, on a canal barge
but it would not be proper for her at a garden party.
Well, I must say!
Come Higgins. You must learn to know yourself.
I haven't heard language like yours since we used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park.
Well, if you say so. I suppose I don't always talk like a bishop.
Colonel Pickering, will you tell me the exact state of things at Wimpole Street?
Oh, well, I've come to live there with Henry.
We work together on my Indian Dialects. We thought it was more convenient...
Yes, quite, I know all about that. It's an excellent arrangement.
But where does this girl live?
With us, of course. Where should she live?
But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what is she?
Oh, I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Higgins.
Well, dashed if I do! She’s useful.
She knows where my things are and remembers my appointments and so forth.
Besides, I’ve had to work at that girl for months to get her to her present pitch.
I'm worn out thinking about it and watching her lips and her teeth and her tongue,
not to mention her soul, which is the quaintest of the lot.
Well, you certainly are a pretty pair of babies, playing with your live doll.
Playing! The hardest job I ever tackled; make no mistake about that, Mother.
But you have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being
and turn her into quite a different human being by creating a new speech for her.
It's filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.
I assure you, Mrs. Higgins, we take Eliza very seriously.
Why, every week, every day almost, there's some new changes.
Yes, by George, the hardest job I ever tackled.
She regularly fills our whole lives, doesn’t she, Pick?
- Oh, we're always talking Eliza. - Teaching Eliza.
- Dressing Eliza. - What!
Inventing new Elizas.
[SPEAKING OVER EACH OTHER ABOUT EVERYTHING THEY DO WITH ELIZA]]
[CLOCK CHIMING]
Shoosh! Shoosh! Shoosh!
- I beg your pardon. - Sorry.
But when Pickering starts shouting nobody can get a word in edgeways.
Be quiet, Henry.
Colonel Pickering, don’t you realize that when Eliza walked into Wimpole Street,
something walked in with her?
Her father did. But Henry soon got rid of him.
It would have been more to the point if her mother had.
But as her mother didn’t, something else did.
But what?
A problem.
Oh, I see. You mean the problem of how to pass her off as a lady.
I'll solve that problem. I’ve half solved it already.
[SHOUTING] No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures.
The problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.
I don’t see anything in that.
She can go her way with all the advantages I have given her.
The advantages of that poor woman who was here just now!
The manners and habits that disqualify a fine lady from earning her own living
without giving her a fine lady's income!
Is that what you mean?
Oh, that will be all right, Mrs. Higgins.
We'll find her some light employment.
Yes, she’s happy enough. Don’t you worry about her. Good-bye.
No use bothering now. The thing’s done. Bye bye Mummy.
There are plenty of openings. We'll do what’s best. Good-bye.
Let's take her to 'the Shakespeare exhibition at Earls Court.
Yes, lets. Her remarks will be delicious.
[LAUGHING] She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home.
Ha ha ha ha. Ripping!
Oh, men! Men!! Men!!!
[MUSIC, SOUND OF HORSES' HOOVES]
[♪ SLOW MUSIC]
[CLOCK TICKING LOUDLY]
[ DOORS OPENING AND CLOSING]
[♪ SLOW MUSIC]
HIGGINS: I say, Pick, lock up, will you. I shan’t be going out again.
PICKERING: Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don’t want anything more, do we?
HIGGINS: Lord no!
PICKERING: Oh, I say, Mrs Pearce will row
if we leave these things lying all over the drawing room.
Oh, chuck 'em over the banisters into the hall. She'll find them there in the morning.
She'll think we were drunk.
PICKERING: We are, slightly. Oh, are there any letters?
- I didn't look. [GIGGLES] - Oh, I'll look.
[YAWNS LOUDLY]
I wonder where the devil my slippers are!
[HIGGINS HUMS AND SINGS TO HIMSELF]
Only circulars, and this coroneted billet-doux for you.
Money lender. [HIGGINS CHUCKLES TO HIMSELF]
[PICKERING LAUGHS]
[HIGGINS CONTINUES SINGING]
HIGGINS: [YAWNING] Oh Lord! What an evening!
What a crew! What a silly tomfoolery!
Oh! They’re there, are they?
PICKERING: Well, I feel a bit tired. It's been a long day.
The garden party, a dinner party, then the reception! Rather too much of a good thing.
But you won your bet, Higgins. Eliza did the trick, and something to spare, eh?
[HIGGINS LAUGHS] Thank GOD it's over!
PICKERING: Were you nervous at the garden party? I was.
Eliza didn’t seem a bit nervous.
HIGGINS: Oh, she wasn’t nervous. I knew she'd be all right.
No, it's the strain of putting the job through all these months that has told on me.
It was interesting enough at first, while we were at the phonetics
but after that I got deadly sick of it.
If I hadn’t backed myself to do it
I should have chucked the whole thing up months ago.
Silly notion. The whole thing has been a bore.
When I saw we were going to win hands down,
I felt like a bear in a cage, I tell you Pickering. Never again for me.
No more artificial duchesses. The whole thing has been simple purgatory.
PICKERING: Still, it was a great success. An enormous success.
You know, I was quite frightened once or twice, Eliza was doing it so well.
You see, a lot of the real people can't do it at all.
HIGGINS: Yes, that’s what makes me mad,
when silly people don’t know their own silly business.
However, it's over and done with
and now I can go to bed at last without dreading tomorrow.
PICKERING: I think I’ll turn in too.
Still, it's been a great occasion and a triumph for you. Good-night.
Good-night.
[HIGGINS HUMMING - SINGING]
Oh, Eliza...
put out the lights will you?
And tell Mrs. Pearce I shan't take coffee in the morning. Make me tea.
[♪ SAD DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[SOBBING]
HIGGINS: [shouting] What the devil have I done with my slippers?
There are your slippers.
And there. Take your slippers and may you never have a day's luck with them!
What on earth! What’s the matter? Get up!
Anything wrong?
No. No,nothing’s wrong with you. I’ve won your bet for you, haven’t I?
That’s enough for you. I don’t matter, I suppose.
You! Y ou won my bet! Presumptuous insect! I won it.
What did you throw those slippers at me for?
Because I wanted to smash your face. I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute.
Why don’t you throw me back where you found me... in the gutter?
You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you?
The creature is nervous, after all.
[ELIZA SCREAMS]
Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you show your temper to me!
Sit down and be quiet.
[SOBBING] Oh, what’s to become of me? What’s to become of me?
How the devil do I know what’s to become of you?
What does it matter what becomes of you?
You don’t care. I know you don’t care. You wouldn’t care if I was dead.
I'm nothing to you, not so much as them slippers.
THOSE slippers!
Those slippers. I didn’t think it made any difference now.
Why have you begun going on like this?
May I ask whether you complain of your treatment here?
No.
Has anyone treated you badly? Mrs. Pearce? Colonel Pickering? Any of the servants?
No.
You don’t presume to pretend that I have treated you badly.
No.
[He moderates his tone]. I am very glad to hear it.
Perhaps you’re tired after the strain of the day.
Like a glass of champagne?
No....... Thank you.
[GENTLY] This has been coming on you for some days.
I suppose it was natural for you to be anxious about the garden party.
But that’s all over now.
There’s nothing more to worry about.
No. There’s nothing more for YOU to worry about.
Oh God! I wish I was dead.
Why? In heaven's name, why?
Listen to me, Eliza, all this irritation is purely subjective.
I don’t understand. I'm too ignorant.
It's only imagination. Low spirits and nothing else.
Nobody's hurting you. Nothing's wrong.
You go to bed like a good girl and sleep it off.
Have a little cry and say your prayers; that will make you comfortable.
I heard YOUR prayers. "Thank God it's all over!"
Well, don’t you thank God it's all over?
Now you are free and can do what you like.
What am I fit for? What have you left me fit for?
Where am I to go? What am I to do? What is to become of me?
Oh, that’s what’s worrying you, is it?
I shouldn’t bother about it if I were you,
though I hadn’t quite realized that you were going away.
You might marry, you know.
You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel.
Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!) and you’re not bad-looking;
It's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes.
Not now, of course, because now you’re crying and looking as ugly as the very devil,
but when you’re all right and quite yourself, you’re what I would call attractive.
I daresay my mother could think of some chap or other who would do very well.
We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.
What do you mean?
I sold flowers. I didn’t sell myself.
Now that you have made a lady of me I'm not fit to sell anything else.
I wish you had left me where you found me.
Tosh, Eliza, don’t insult human relations
by bringing all this cant about buying and selling into it.
You needn’t marry the chap if you don’t like him.
And what else am I to do?
Lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist shop?
Pickering could set you up in one; he has plenty of money.
Come...
You'll be alright.
I must wobble off to bed. I'm devilish sleepy.
Ah, by the way, I came down for something. I forget what it was.
Your slippers.
Oh yes, of course. You shied them at me.
Before you go, sir…
Eh?
Do my clothes belong to me or to Colonel Pickering?
[SHOUTS] What the devil use would they be to Pickering?
He might want them for the next girl you pick up to experiment on.
Is that the way you feel towards us?
I don’t want to hear anything more about that.
All I want to know is whether anything belongs to me. My own clothes were burnt.
Why need you start bothering about it in the middle of the night?
I want to know what I may take away with me.
I don’t want to be accused of stealing.
Stealing! You shouldn’t have said that, Eliza. That shows a want of feeling.
I'm sorry. I'm only a common ignorant girl. In my station I have to be careful.
There can’t be any feelings between the like of you and the like of me.
You may take the whole damned houseful if you like.
Except the jewels. They’re hired. Will that satisfy you?
Stop, please.
Will you take these to your room and keep them safe?
I don’t want to run the risk of their being missing.
Hand them over.
If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweller,
I'd ram them down your ungrateful throat.
This ring isn't the jeweller's. It's the one you bought me in Brighton.
I don’t want it now.
Ah! Don’t hit me! [RING HITS THE FLOOR]
Hit you! Infamous creature.
It is you who have hit me. You have wounded me to the heart.
I'm glad. I’ve got a little of my own back, anyhow.
You have caused me to lose my temper,
a thing that has hardly ever happened to me before.
I prefer to say nothing more about it now. I am going to bed.
You’d better leave a note for Mrs. Pearce about the coffee for she won't be told by me.
Damn Mrs. Pearce and damn the coffee and damn you;
and damn my own folly in having lavished my hard-earned knowledge
and the treasure of my intimacy and regard on a heartless guttersnipe.
[♪ DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[DEEP VOICE] Damn Mrs Pearce, and damn the coffee and damn you.
[♪ DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[♪ MUSIC]
[BIRDS TWEETING]
Mr Henry, maam, is downstairs with Colonel Pickering.
Well, show them up.
They're using the telephone maam. Telephoning to the police I think.
What?
Mr Henry is in a state, maam, I thought I'd better tell you.
If you had told me Mr. Henry was not in a state it would be more surprising.
Well, tell them to come up when they've finished with the police.
Yes maam.
I suppose he's lost something.
Ooh...
Sara...
Go upstairs and tell Miss Doolittle that Mr. Henry and the Colonel are here.
Ask her not to come downstairs until I send for her.
Yes maam.
Look here, Mother, here's a confounded thing!
Good morning. What is it?
Eliza's bolted.
Oh, you must have frightened her.
Frightened her! Nonsense!
She was left last night, as usual, to turn out the lights and all that
and instead of going to bed she changed her clothes and went right off.
Her bed wasn’t slept in. What am I to do?
Do without, I'm afraid, Dear. The girl has a perfect right to leave if she chooses.
But I can’t find anything. I don’t know what my appointments are! I'm…
Morning, Mrs. Higgins. Has Henry told you?
What did that ass of an inspector have to say? Did you offer a reward?
You don't mean to say you set the police after Eliza!
Of course! What are the police for? What else could we do?
The inspector made a lot of diffidence.
Do you know I really think he suspected us of some improper purpose.
Well of course he did!
What right had you to go to the police and give them the girl's name as if she were a thief.
Or a lost umbrella or something. Really!
But we want to find her.
Yes, we can't just let her go like that Mrs Higgins. What were we to do?
You have no more sense either of you than two children. Why couldn't...
Mr. Henry, a gentleman wants to see you, very particular.
He’s been sent on from Wimpole Street.
Oh, bother! I can’t see anybody now. Who is it?
A Mr. Doolittle, sir.
Doolittle! Do you mean the dustman?
Dustman! Oh no, sir, a gentleman.
By George, Pick, it's some relative of hers that she’s gone to.
Somebody we know nothing about. Send him up, quick.
Yes, sir.
Genteel relatives! Now we shall hear something.
Do you know any of her people?
Only her father; the fellow we told you about.
Mr. Doolittle.
See here! Do you see this? You done this.
Done what, man?
This, I tell ya. Look at it. Look at this hat. Look at this coat.
Has Eliza been buying you clothes?
Eliza! Not she. Why would she buy me clothes?
Good-morning, Mr. Doolittle. Won’t you sit down?
Asking your pardon, maam. Thank you.
Oh! I'm that full of everything that's happened to me,
I can't think of anything else.
What has happened to you?
I shouldn’t mind if it had only happened to me.
Anything might happen to anybody and only providence to blame as you might say.
But this is something that you done to me, yes, you, Henry Higgins.
Have you found Eliza?
Have you lost her?
Yes.
You have all the luck, you have.
No, I ain’t found her but she'll find me quick enough now after what you've done to me.
But what has my son done to you, Mr. Doolittle?
Done to me! He ruined me. Destroyed me happiness.
Tied me up and delivered me into the hands of middle class morality.
You’re drunk. You’re raving. You’re mad.
I gave you five pounds. After that I had two conversations with you,
at half-a-crown an hour. I haven’t seen you since.
Oh! Drunk, am I? Mad, am I? Tell me this.
Did you or did you not write a letter to some old geezer in America
what was giving five millions to found Moral Reform Societies all over the world,
and wanted you to invent a universal language for him?
Oh that! Ezra D. Wannafella! He’s dead.
Yes, he’s dead and I'm done for.
And did you or did you not write to him to say
that the most original moralist at present in England,
was, to the best of your knowledge, one Alfred Doolittle, a common dustman.
After your last visit I recall making some silly joke of the kind.
You may well call it a silly joke.
It put the lid on me right enough.
Just gave him the chance he wanted to show that Americans is not like us,
that they recognize and respect merit in every class of life, however humble.
Them words is in his blooming will, in which, Henry Higgins,
thanks to your silly joking, he leaves me a share in his Predigested Cheese Trust
worth 3000 a year on condition that I lecture for his
Wannafella Moral Reform League as often as he asks me, up to six times a year.
The devil he does! Wow! What a lark!
Well it’s a safe thing for you, Doolittle. They won’t ask you twice.
It ain’t the lecturing I mind. I'll lecture them blue in the face.
It's making a gentleman of me that I object to.
Who asked 'em to make a gentleman of me?
I was happy. I was free. I used to touch everyone I wanted for money
when I wanted it, same as I touched you, Enry Iggins.
Now everyone touches me.
The doctors, they used to shove me out of hospital
before I could hardly stand on me legs, and nothing to pay.
Now they finds out that I'm not a healthy man
and can’t live unless they call on me twice a day.
A year ago I hadn’t a relative in the world
except two or three that wouldn’t speak to me.
Now I’ve got fifty, and not a decent week's wages among the lot of them.
And the next one to touch me will be you Enry Iggins.
Yes, I'll have to learn to speak middle class language from you,
instead of speaking proper English.
That’s where you’ll come in and I daresay that’s what you done it for.
But my dear Mr Doolittle, no-one can force you to accept this bequest.
You can repudiate it. Isn't that so Colonel Pickering.
I believe so.
That's the tragedy of it maam.
It's easy to say chuck it. But I haven't the nerve.
Which of us has? We're all intimidated. Intimidated, that's the word, maam.
What is there for me if I chuck it but the workhouse in me old age.
If I was one of the deserving poor and had put by a bit, then I could chuck it,
but as one of the undeserving poor,
there's nothing between me and a pauper's uniform but this blasted 3000 a year
which shunts me to the middle class.
Oh, pardon the expression maam
but you'd use it yourself if you had my provocation.
They've got you every way you turn.
It's a choice between the Skilly of the work house
and the Char Bydis of the middle class
and I ain't the nerve for the work house.
That's what your son has brought me to.
Well, I am very glad you're not going to do anything foolish Mr Doolittle
for this solves the problem of Eliza's future.
You can provide for her now.
Yes maam, I gotta provide for everyone now out of the 3000 a year.
Nonsense! He can’t provide for her. He shan’t provide for her.
She doesn’t belong to him. I paid him five pounds for her.
Doolittle, either you’re an honest man or you’re a rogue.
A little of both, Henry, like the rest of us, a little of both.
Well, you took the money for the girl and you've no right to take her as well.
Henry, don’t be absurd!
If you want to know where Eliza is, she is upstairs.
Upstairs!!! Then I'll jolly well soon fetch her downstairs.
MRS. HIGGINS: [shouts] Be quiet, Henry. Sit down.
- But Mummy, I.... - Sit down, dear, and listen to me.
Oh very well, very well, very well.
But I think you might have told us this half an hour ago.
Eliza came to me this morning. She told me of the brutal way you two treated her.
What!
My dear Mrs. Higgins, she’s been telling you stories. We didn’t treat her brutally.
We hardly spoke to her and we parted on particularly good terms.
Did you bully her after I went to bed?
Just the other way about. She threw my slippers in my face.
She behaved in the most outrageous way.
I never gave her the slightest provocation.
The slippers came bang into my face the moment I entered the room before I uttered word
and used perfectly awful language.
Why, what did we do to her?
I think I know pretty well what you did.
The girl is naturally rather affectionate I think. Isn't that so Mr Doolittle.
Very tender hearted maam. Takes after me.
That is just so.
She had become attached to both of you.
She worked very hard for you, Henry.
Well it seems when the great day of trial arrived
and she did this wonderful thing for you without making a single mistake,
you two sat there and never said a word to her,
but talked together about how glad you were it was all over
and how bored you'd been with the whole thing.
I think you were surprised when she threw your slippers at you!
I should have thrown the fire irons at you.
All we said is that we were tired and wanted to go to bed, didn't we Pick.
- That was all. - Quite sure?
Absolutely, really that was all.
You didn't thank her, or pet her, or admire her, or tell her how splendid she'd been?
But she knew all that. We didn’t make speeches, if that’s what you mean.
I...I suppose we were a bit inconsiderate.
Is she very angry?
Well, I'm afraid she won't come back to Wimpole Street,
especially now that Mr. Doolittle is able to keep up the position you have thrust on her,
but she says she is quite willing to meet you on friendly terms
and to let bygones be bygones.
Is she, by George?!
If you promise to behave yourself, Henry, I will ask her to come down.
If not, go home, for you have taken up quite enough of my time.
Oh, all right. Very well. You behave yourself, Pick.
Let us put on our best Sunday manners for this creature that we picked from the mud.
Now Enry Iggins, you have some consideration for my feelings as a middle-class man.
Remember your promise, Henry.
Mr Doolittle, would you mind stepping outside just for a moment?
I don't want Eliza to have the shock of your news
until she has made it up with these two gentlemen. Would you mind?
As you wish, maam. Anything to help Henry and to keep her off my hands.
MRS. HIGGINS: Ask Miss Doolittle to come down, please.
Yes, maam.
- Now, Henry, be good. - I am behaving myself perfectly.
He is doing his best, Mrs. Higgins.
[SHOUTS] Where the devil is that girl? Are we to wait here all morning?
How do you do, Professor Higgins? Are you quite well?
[STUTTERS] Quite well. - But of course you are, you're never ill.
Colonel Pickering, so glad to see you again. Quite chilly this morning, isn't it?
Don’t you dare try those tricks on me. I taught them to you and I'm not taken in.
Don’t be a fool. Get up and come home.
Very nicely put, indeed, Henry. No woman could resist such an invitation.
You let her alone, Mother. Let her speak for herself.
You will jolly soon see whether she has an idea that I haven’t put into her head
or a word that I haven’t put into her mouth.
I tell you I have created this thing out of the squashed cabbage leaves
of Covent Garden and now she pretends to play the fine lady with me.
Yes, dear, but you’ll sit down, won't you?
Will you drop me altogether now that the experiment is over, Colonel Pickering?
Oh don’t. You mustn’t think of it as an experiment. It shocks me, somehow.
Oh, I'm only a squashed cabbage leaf. PICKERING: No.
…but I owe so much to you that I should be very unhappy if you forgot me.
It's really very kind of you to say so, Miss Doolittle.
It's not because you paid for my dresses.
I know you are generous to everybody with money.
But it was from you that I learnt really nice manners
and that is what makes one a lady, isn’t it?
You see it was so... so very difficult for me
with the example of Professor Higgins always before me.
I was brought up to be just like him, unable to control myself,
and using bad language on the slightest provocation.
And I should never have known that ladies and gentlemen
didn’t behave like that if you hadn’t been there.
Well, you ...
Still, he taught you how to speak and I couldn't have done that, you know.
Of course. That is his profession.
Damnation!
It was just like learning to dance in the fashionable way.
There was nothing more than that in it.
But do you know what began my real education?
What?
Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street.
That was the beginning of self-respect for me.
And there were a hundred little things that you never noticed,
because they came naturally to you.
Things about standing up and taking off your hat and opening doors.
[LAUGHS] Oh, that was nothing.
Oh, yes it was. Things that showed you thought and felt about me
as if I were something better than, than a scullery-maid;
although I know you would have been just the same to a scullery-maid
if she had been let into the drawing-room.
YOU never took off your boots in the dining room when I was there.
Oh you mustn’t mind Higgins. He takes his boots off all over the place.
[LAUGHS] Oh, I know. I am not blaming him. It is his way, isn’t it?
But it made such a difference to me that you didn’t do it.
You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up,
(the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so forth),
the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves,
but how she’s treated.
I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins,
because he always treats me as a flower girl, and he always will;
but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady,
and you always will. [STRANGE SOUND IN BACKGROUND]
Please don’t grind your teeth, Henry.
PICKERING: It's really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.
I should like you to call me Eliza now, if you would.
Thank you, Eliza, of course.
And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss Doolittle.
I'll see you damned first.
Henry! Henry!
Why don't you slang back at him? Don't stand for it. It'll do him good.
I can't. I could have done it once but I can't go back to it now.
Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me
and I tried to get back into the old way with her and it was no use.
You told me you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country
it picks up the language in a few weeks and forgets its own.
Well, I'm a child in your country.
I've forgotten my own language and can speak nothing but yours.
That's the real break-off with the corner of Tottenham Court Road
and leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.
Oh, oh, but you’re coming back to Wimpole Street, aren’t you?
I mean, w w well, you will forgive Higgins?
[QUIETLY] Forgive! Will she, by George! Let her go.
Let her see how she can be without us.
She will relapse into the gutter in three weeks without me at her elbow.
You won’t relapse, will you Eliza?
No. Never again. I’ve learnt my lesson.
I don’t believe I could utter one of the old sounds if I tried.
[GASPS]
A-a-a-a-a-ah-ow-ooh!
Ahaaaa! Just so. A-a-a-a-ahowooh! A-a-a-a-ahowooh! A-a-a-a-ahowooh!
Victory! Victory!
Can you blame the girl? Oh, don’t look at me like that, Eliza. It ain't my fault.
I've come into some money.
You must have touched a millionaire this time.
I have. But I'm dressed something special today.
I'm going to St. George's, Hanover Square. Your stepmother is going to marry me.
You’re going to let yourself down to marry that low common woman!
He ought to, Eliza. Why did she change her mind?
Intimidated, Governor. Intimidated. Middle class morality claims its victim.
Won’t you put on your hat, Liza, and come and see me turned off?
Well if the Colonel says I must, I'll demean myself.
And get insulted for my pains, like enough.
Don’t be afraid Liza, she 'ardly comes to words with anyone now, poor woman!
Respectability has broke all the spirit out of her.
Be kind to them, Eliza. Make the best of it.
Well, just to show there’s no ill feeling. I'll be back in a moment.
I’m er, uncommon nervous about the ceremony, Colonel.
I wish you’d come and see me through it.
See you... but you’ve been through it before, man. You were married to Eliza’s mother.
Who told you that, Colonel?
Well, nobody told me. But I concluded that naturally…
No, that ain’t the natural way, Colonel, that's only the middle class way.
Don’t say a word to Eliza. She don’t know.
I always had a certain delicacy about telling her.
Quite right. We'll leave it like that, if you don’t mind.
And you’ll come to the church and see me through it?
With pleasure, as far as a bachelor can.
May I come, Mr. Doolittle? I should be very sorry to miss your wedding.
I should indeed be honoured by your condescension, maam;
and my poor old woman would take it as a tremendous compliment.
She’s been feeling very low, thinking of the happy days that are no more.
Well, I'll order the carriage and get ready. I shan’t be more than fifteen minutes.
Eliza, I'm coming to the church to see your father married.
You had better come with me and the Colonel can go ahead with the bridegroom.
Bridegroom! What a word!
Before I go, Eliza, do forgive Higgins and come back to us.
I don’t think Dad would allow me. Would you, Dad?
They played you off very cunning, Liza, those two sportsmen.
If there had only been one of them, you could have nailed him see,
but there was two and one of them chaperoned the other, as you might say.
It was very artful of you, Colonel, but I’ll bear you no malice.
I should have done the same myself.
So long, Henry. See you in St. George's, Eliza.
Do stay with us, Eliza.
[♪ DISCORDANT MUSIC]
[QUIETLY] Well, Eliza, you’ve had a bit of your own back, as you call it.
Have you had enough?
And are you going to be sensible?
Or do you want any more?
You want me back only to pick up your slippers and put up with your tempers
and fetch and carry for you.
I haven’t said that I want you back at all.
Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about?
About you, not about me.
If you come back I shall treat you just as I have always treated you.
I can’t change my nature and I don’t intend to change my manners.
My manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering's.
That’s not true. He treats a flower girl as if she was a duchess.
And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.
I see, the same to everybody.
Just so.
Like Father. [HIGGINS GIGGLES]
Without accepting the comparison at all point,
it is true that your father is not a snob and that he will be quite at home
in whatever station of life his eccentric destiny may call him.
The great secret Eliza is not having bad manners or good manners
or any particular sort of manners,
but having the same manner for all human souls; in short,
behaving as though you were in heaven where there are no third class carriages
and one soul is as good as another.
Amen. You are a born preacher.
The question is not whether I treat you badly,
but whether you have ever seen me treat anyone else better.
I don’t care how you treat me.
I don’t mind your swearing at me.
I should mind a black eye. I’ve had one before this.
But I won’t be passed over.
Then get out of my way for I won't stop for you.
You talk of me as though I were a motor bus.
And so you are a motor bus, all bounce and go,
and no consideration for anyone.
But I can do without you, don't think I can't.
I know you can. I told you you could.
I know you did you brute. You wanted to get rid of me.
Liar!
Thank-you.
You never asked yourself I suppose whether I could do without you.
[♪ GENTLE MUSIC]
Don't you try and get round me.
You'll have to do without me.
I can do without anybody. I have my own soul,
my own spark of divine fire.
But...
[♪ EMOTIONAL MUSIC]
I shall miss you Eliza.
[♪ SLOW GENTLE MUSIC]
I've learned something from your idiotic notions.
I confess that humbly and gratefully.
I have grown accustomed to your voice and appearance.
I like them rather.
Well you have both of them on your gramophone and in your book of photographs.
When you get lonely without me you can turn the machine on;
it's got no feelings to hurt.
I can't turn your soul on.
Leave me those feelings and you can take away the voice and the appearance. They are not you.
You are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl
as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her.
Mrs Pearce warned me.
Time and again she has wanted to leave you
and you always got round her at the last minute.
And you don't care a bit for her.
And you don't care a bit for me.
I care for life. For humanity.
And you're a part of it that has come my way and been built into my house.
What more can you or anybody else ask?
I won't care for anyone that doesn't care for me.
Commercial principles Eliza, like selling violets isn't it.
Don't sneer at me.
I have never sneered in my life!
Sneering doesn't become either the human soul or the human face.
I am expressing my righteous contempt for commercialism.
I don't and won't trade in affection.
You call me a brute because you couldn't buy a claim on me
by fetching my slippers and fetching my spectacles.
You were a fool. I think a woman fetching a man's slippers is a disgusting sight.
Did I ever fetch your slippers?
I think a good deal more of you after throwing them in my face.
No use slaving for me then saying you want to be cared for. Who cares for a slave?
If you come back, come back for the sake of good fellowship for you'll get nothing else.
And if you dare set up your little dog's tricks of fetching and carrying slippers
against my creation of a duchess Eliza, I'll slam the door in your silly face.
What did you do it for if you didn't care for me?
Why? Because it was my job.
You never thought of the trouble it would make for me?
Would the world ever have been made if its maker was afraid of making trouble?
Making life means making trouble.
I'm no preacher. I don't notice things like that.
I notice that you don't notice me.
Eliza, you're an idiot.
I waste the treasures of my Miltonic mind by spreading them before you once and for all.
Understand that I go my way and do my work
without caring tuppence what happens to either of us.
So you can come back or go to the devil which you choose.
What am I to come back for?
Why? For the fun of it. That's why I took you on.
And you may throw me out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want.
Yes, or you may walk out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want me to.
- And live with my stepmother. - Yes, or sell flowers.
Oh, if only I could go back to my flower basket,
I should be independent of both you and Father and all the world.
Why did you take my independence from me?
Why did I give it up? I'm a slave now for all my fine clothes.
Not a bit. I can adopt you as my daughter and settle money on if you like.
Or would you rather marry Pickering?
I wouldn't marry you if you asked me.
I don't suppose Pickering would; he's a confirmed an old bachelor as I am.
That's not what I want and don't you think it.
I've always had chaps enough wanting me that way.
Freddy Hill writes me twice and three times a day. Sheets and sheets.
Damn his impudence.
He has a right to if he likes poor lad and he does love me.
You've no right to encourage him.
Every girl has a right to be loved.
What, by fools like that?
Freddy is not a fool and if he's weak and poor and wants me,
maybe he'd make me happier than my betters that bully me and don't want me.
Can he make anything of you? That's the point.
Perhaps I could make something of him.
But I never thought of it as making anything of one another,
and you never think of anything else.
I only want to be natural.
In short, you want me to be as infatuated about you as Freddy. Is that it?
No I don't.
That's not the sort of feeling I want from you at all.
Don't you be too sure of yourself or of me.
I could have been a bad girl if I'd liked.
I've seen more of some things than you for all your learning.
Girls like me can drag gentlemen down to make love to them easy enough
and they wish each other dead the next minute.
Of course they do. Then what in thunder are we quarrelling about?
I want a little kindness.
I know I'm a common, ignorant girl and you a book learned gentleman,
but I'm not dirt under your feet.
What I done...
What I did... what I did was not for the dresses and the taxis,
I did it because we were pleasant together and I come...
I... I came to care for you.
Not to want you to make love to me
and not forgetting the difference between us,
but more friendly like.
Oh of course. That's how I feel.
And how Pickering feels.
Eliza you're a fool.
Oh that's not a proper answer to give me.
That's all you'll get until you stop being a common idiot.
If you can't stand the coldness of my sort of life and the strain of it,
go back to the gutter.
Work till you're more a brute than a human being
and then cuddle and squabble and drink till you fall asleep.
Oh it's a fine life, the life of a gutter. It's real, it's warm, it's violent.
You can feel it through the thickest skin. You can taste it and smell it
without any training or any work;
not like science and literature and music and philosophy and art.
You find me cold, selfish, unfeeling, don't you.
Very well. Be off with you to the sort of people you like.
Marry some sentimental hog with plenty of money
and a thick pair of lips to kiss you with and a thick pair of boots to kick you with.
If you can't appreciate what you've got, you better get what you could appreciate.
Oh, you are a cruel tyrant.
I can't talk to you.
You turn everything against me. I'm always in the wrong.
But you know very well all the time, you’re nothing but a bully.
You know I can’t go back to the gutter, as you call it,
and that I have no real friends in the world except you and the Colonel.
And you know I couldn’t bear to live with a low common man after you two.
And it is wicked and cruel of you to insult me by pretending that I could.
You think that I must go back to Wimpole Street
because I have no place else to go but Father's.
But don’t you be too sure that you have me under your feet
to be trampled on and talked down.
I'll marry Freddy, I will, as soon as I’m able to support him.
Freddy!!! That young fool!
The poor devil who couldn’t get a job as an errand boy
even if he had the guts to try for it!
[SHOUTING] Woman, do you not understand that I have made you a consort for a king?
Freddy loves me - that makes him king enough for me.
I don’t want him to work; he wasn’t brought up to it as I was.
I'll go and be a teacher.
What’ll you teach, in heaven's name?
What you taught me. I'll teach phonetics.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I'll offer myself as an assistant to that hairy-faced Hungarian.
What! That humbug!
That toadying ignoramus! Teach him my methods!
You dare take one step in his direction and I'll wring your neck. Do you hear?
[ELIZA SHRIEKS AND GASPS]
Ahh! Wring away. What do I care?
I knew you’d strike me some day.
Aha! Now I know how to deal with you.
What a fool I was not to think of it before!
You can’t take away the knowledge that you gave me.
And you said I had a finer ear than you.
And I can be civil and kind to people, which is more than you can.
"Ahhhh! That’s done you, Enry Iggins, it has."
Now I don’t care that [snaps fingers] for your bullying and your big talk.
I'll advertise it in the papers that your duchess is only a flower girl that you taught,
and that she'll teach anyone to be a duchess
just the same in six months for a thousand guineas.
Oh, when I think of myself crawling under your feet
and being trampled on and called names,
when all the time I had only to lift up my finger to be as good as you,
I could just kick myself.
You damned impudent slut, you!
But it's better than snivelling.
Better than fetching slippers and finding spectacles.
By George, Eliza, I said I'd make a woman of you and I have.
I like you like this.
Yes, you turn round and make up to me
now that I'm not afraid of you, and can do without you.
Of course I do, you silly girl.
Five minutes ago you were millstone round my neck.
Now you’re a tower of strength, a consort battleship.
You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together
instead of only two men and a silly girl.
The carriage is waiting, Eliza. Are you ready?
Quite. Is the Professor coming?
Certainly not. He can’t behave himself in church.
He makes remarks out loud all the time about the clergyman's pronunciation.
Then I shall not see you again, Professor.
Good bye.
Good-bye, dear.
Good-bye, Mother.
Oh, by the way, Eliza, order a ham and a Stilton cheese, will you?
And buy me a pair of reindeer gloves, number eight,
and a tie to match that new suit of mine.
Number eights are too small for you if you want them lined with lamb’s wool.
You have three new ties which you've forgotten in the drawer of your washstand.
Colonel Pickering prefers double Gloucester to Stilton
and you don’t notice the difference.
I telephoned Mrs Pearce this morning not to forget the ham.
What you are to do without me I cannot imagine.
I'm afraid you've spoiled that girl Henry.
I should be uneasy about you and her
if you were less fond of Colonel Pickering.
Pickering! Nonsense.
She's going to marry Freddy. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Freddy! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
[♪ UPBEAT HAPPY MUSIC]