But didn't Shaw romanticize the ending for the Hiller/Howard movie version that he adapted? IIRC, it was definitely more in line with MFL than the original play.

I don't remember -- it's been so long since I saw the film, and it was a tape from a crappy print with lots of sound distortion, so my memory of it is very fuzzy. But the essay at the end of an earlier edition of the play is seared on my memory.

If he went and pussied out on the ending to please the movie people, I'm'a dig him up and kick his dead ass.

Yeah, but even in the first production of the play, the actors added a bit of business with flowers which implied that Eliza ends upo with Higgins. It made Shaw apoplectic, but despite his treatise on the economic sense of Eliza ending up with Freddy and opening a flower shop, I always thought she ended up with Higgins. I think he can learn to see her as the wonderful thing that she is--after all, if a lovely man like Pickering can be Higgins' friend, there must be something to him

I'd personally rather see her end up with Pickering. I love Higgins as a character, but as an actual human being he'd be fairly odious. He doesn't deserve her. IMO, anyhow. YHigginsMV.

If I recall correctly (and I admit I get the stories confused in my mind), the undeserving depiction of Higgins is more accurate for the Pygmalion version than the MFL version. They changed more than the ending for the musical - they made Higgins himself more likeable, more deserving of the ending they gave him.

Basically, "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" makes me incredibly emotional, and shows me a Higgins that can appreciate Eliza.

And with that, I'm done defending it.

Into the Woods is good, too. Discuss. Or don't, since there's no movie version, alas. Why don't we have a musicals thread?

since there's no movie version, alas.

There is the version PBS broadcast lo these many years ago.

Which is actually available on DVD. Original cast, on a stage, and all, right? I have it. It's fabulous. Available for several of the Sondheim musicals. I have Sweeney Todd, too (though I haven't watched it yet), and Sunday in the Park with George is on my wishlist for this holiday.

I need to see Sweeney and George. I adore Into the Woods. With that one, I think there are defiantely effects you get from the music that you'd be hard-pressed to convey without. Which sort of makes sense, as there is that larger-than-life-ness about the whole thing (however human the characters may be)

The 1938 version of Pygmalian is available on dvd. . . a Criterion edition.

When I was in high school, friend A had a copy of Into the Woods on videotape. He went to friend B's house (which was the communal hangout) and started to watch it. When he got to the end of act 1, he thought it was over. So he stopped the VCR off and went to do other things.

Friend B came home later and found a tape in his VCR all cued up. He watched act 2, without knowing there'd been an act 1.

Later, friend A and friend B had a very confusing conversation, because they agreed that they'd both liked this musical, but they had very different ideas about what had happened in it.

Heh. Yeah, that would happen. My high school actually did a performance of just the first act that went quite swimmingly. Convinced me to check out the whole thing - before that, Sondheim was a name to me, not a god.

ETA Re: Sweeney

I intend to see the new production of Sweeney (which has been getting some seriously RAVE reviews) early next year. I'm very, very excited.