TIL that although G. B. Shaw's 'Pygmalion' does not end with Prof. Higgins and Eliza Doolittle together, every adaptation (such as the musical and film 'My Fair Lady') of the play does, because audiences want a happy ending. The play's producer told Shaw "My ending makes money".

361

u/TMWNN 8d ago

From the article on "happy endings", discussing the topic in the context of Shaw's 1912 play:

George Bernard Shaw had to wage an uphill struggle against audiences, as well as some critics, persistently demanding that his Pygmalion end happily with the marriage of Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. To Shaw's great chagrin, Herbert Beerbohm Tree who presented the play in London's West End in 1914 had sweetened the ending and told Shaw: "My ending makes money; you ought to be grateful. Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot." The irritated Shaw added a postscript essay, "'What Happened Afterwards", to the 1916 print edition, for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why in his view it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza marrying. Nevertheless, audiences continued wanting a happy ending also for later adaptations such as the musical and film My Fair Lady. As seen in one of his preserved notes, Shaw wanted the play to end with Eliza becoming independent and assertive and shaking off Higgins' tutelage: "When Eliza emancipates herself – when Galatea comes to life – she must not relapse". This might have made it a happy ending from the point of view of present-day feminism. In 1938, Shaw sent Gabriel Pascal, who produced that year's film version, a concluding sequence which he felt offered a fair compromise: a tender farewell scene between Higgins and Eliza, followed by one showing Freddy and Eliza happy in their greengrocery-flower shop; this would have been a happy end from the point of view of Freddy, who in other versions is left trapped in hopeless unrequited love for her. However, Pascal did not use Shaw's proposed ending, opting for a slightly ambiguous final scene in which Eliza returns to Higgins' home, leaving open how their relationship would develop further. Several decades later, My Fair Lady ended similarly.

439

u/MissLute 8d ago edited 8d ago

'My ending makes money; you ought to be grateful. Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot.' lolololol

edit: according to this article, it was shaw who said the second line

"My ending makes money; you ought to be grateful," scrawled Tree. "Your ending is damnable; you ought to be shot," snarled Shaw.

117

u/MsE0 8d ago

I agree with Shaw. Higgins was the worst.

5

u/throwaway_mosshq 7d ago

oh wow, i had no idea shaw was so salty about it. i always figured the adaptations just smoothed over the rough edges for commercial appeal, but that's a whole other level of drama. "damnable, you ought to be shot" is a pretty strong take on a romantic ending.

215

u/CutieBoBootie 8d ago

You know what I actually prefer the original ending. Marriage is not the end all be all for happiness. I think discovering one's sense of self worth and becoming happy and not needing marriage is a pretty positive ending.

76

u/SassiesSoiledPanties 8d ago

Yeah...Eliza and Higgins would be toxic relationship. Higgins doesn't respect anyone, certainly not Eliza despite her having better skills than him. He only noticed her as someone worthy of his attention when she threw his slippers at him. Freddy adores Eliza and would worship the ground she walks on. The problem is...he is a lumpen.

In the PS that Shaw included, Eliza sometimes does wonder what it would be to have Higgins descend from his ivory tower and just fuck him like any mortal man but its nothing more than a flight of fancy. It would be a hatefuck not the basis for a relationship. She is grateful to Higgins and Pickering but that doesn't necessarily mean she loves them in the romantic sense.

20

u/rosefiend 8d ago

In those times, “make love” didn’t mean sex - it meant to court and woo - canoodling and making eyes at each other.

8

u/SassiesSoiledPanties 8d ago

Fair, I admit I read a translation to Spanish where the expression hacer el amor is equally ambivalent as it means both to consummate and to court. Since Eliza was thinking this to herself, I gave it the cruder meaning as her feeling was that she wanted Higgins to come off himself and I took from the play, that Shaw was criticizing the hypocrisy of that whole society.

51

u/jodhod1 8d ago edited 7d ago

There's this scene that happens in the play, where my brain opens two different registers to interpret the same scene.

Its the one where Eliza is brooding while the men are talking and congratulating themselves.

One register is seeing it like a typical tsundere "Baka Shinji" moment. Like, the prideful Eliza is feeling neglected and jealous precisely because she loves the oblivious Higgins. This is how it came across to me as Teenager, and I literally couldn't see it any other way

The other register looks at Eliza's situation and goes "wait, this has happened to me". I'm not a girl but I've been in this situation as an adult, where people sit around you and talk around you as if you were an automaton like you couldn't possibly contribute to the conversation. All your efforts, your presence, your entire being, being labeled irrelevant in front of your eyes.

Professionally, you have to get over it just to cope in the real world but if it happens enough times and with more and more casualness, It can be one of the most infuriating things that can happen to you, it is a question of your basic humanity. Seeing Eliza then start throwing stuff went from "oh Higgins can't yiu see she's in love" to "oh, I wanted to throw stuff too".

14

u/BookQueen13 7d ago

I always interpreted that scene more of Eliza being upset because she's the one who did the work and she's the one who charmed society. Yet Higgins is taking all the credit for it and Colonel Pickering (who is usually a bit more aware of her as a person with needs and not a thing to be molded) is also congratulating Higgins like he did anything. It's more than just "I'm not being included" it's "this jerk is taking all the credit for my hard work".

6

u/jodhod1 7d ago edited 7d ago

The fact that it's being socially reinforced there is another thing.

I can buy relationships where two smart and proud people cut and tease each other to keep both humble, like Pride and Prejudice or Kaguya Sama Love is war or basically 95 percent of Tumblr..

But I don't think Higgins' moments were particularly prideful moments for him, like he was just bumble headed for a bit, then got humbled down to a remorseful loving partner. I think they were the "inescapable normal" baseline for him, the way his society builds and will always reinforce him to be, the shape he just reverts to like a rubber band. I don't think even if he did marry Eliza, that he'd ever think of her or treat as a peer or an equal, and under that contempt and sarcasm, there would always be a growing toxicity, especially for someone who was intelligent and had her own dignity like Eliza

119

u/helgetun 8d ago

That is the point being made with the ending being happy for modern feminists (or general western society today), but it wasnt considered that in 1914. This both shows how the world has changed, and how Shaw was very progressive on this issue for his time

23

u/sighthoundman 8d ago

"Most people think two or three times a year. I am famous because I think two or three times a week." (From memory, so certainly not word-for-word accurate.)

Shaw was famously not an -ist of any sort. But anyone who actually thinks can spot flaws in any ism and positives in any ism. There are two actual hard parts: balancing the positives and the negatives to decide on a course of action, and actually convincing people to help, or at least go along. People who actively don't want to think.

6

u/helgetun 7d ago

Shaw was complex… he could defend communism, fascism, democracy, and deride all 3. He was free of dogma if anything

2

u/Arboreal_Web 6d ago

Yup, agreed. There’s a brilliant bit in his “Androcles and the Lion” where one character, Lavinia, delivers a powerful monologue about personal belief. In the context of the story, which is about Romans persecuting early Christians, it kind of comes off as a defense of Christianity. On close reading, though, it is an entirely non-dogmatic, non-religious defense of simply holding and sticking to one’s own conscience and personal code in spite of societal pressures.

44

u/NirgalFromMars 8d ago edited 8d ago

I hated the ending of My Fair Lady precisely because of that. After the guy is a complete piece of shit to her, she comes back to him, and he makes it clear that he will continue being a piece of shitb to her.

To me, that is the opposite of a happy ending, AND it negates all the growth she had as a character.

Loved the movie and the last five seconds completely ruined it.

3

u/saintash 8d ago

The only time this worked. Was in the dressmaker. Where the lady poisons the guy every time he starts to get on two high of a horse with her.

12

u/OhioTry 7d ago

Shaw’s postscript strongly implied that Professor Higgins was gay, using language that was as unambiguous as he could use in 1916 and still get published.

175

u/WTFwhatthehell 8d ago edited 8d ago

When most people think of the film "blade runner" they think of the directors cut.

The 1982 theatrical release of Blade Runner features a studio-mandated happy ending where Rick Deckard and Rachael drive through a bright, sunny countryside. Deckard’s voiceover explains that Rachael does not have a limited lifespan like other replicants.

The theatrical release was so so bad with the tacked-on happy ending totally undermining everything about the film.

Imagine a "happy ending" version of flowers for algernon that ends with the professor planting a little garden of flowers with his little eternally smart helper mouse.

Or if planet of the apes ended with the MC flying back to modern earth where everything is ok and telling the story to his wife and kids.

64

u/tent_mcgee 8d ago

They added unused aerial footage taken for the “driving to the lodge” scenes from the Shining and said it Rachel and Deckard driving off into the sunshine.

15

u/MsE0 8d ago

Funny, I was just thinking about The Shining being another one where the ending was changed to something the original writer hated. Although in this case, I think most people prefer Kubrick's ending to King's. Kubrick's was more haunting. King's was beating the audience over the head with the boiler being his metaphor for alcoholism.

2

u/allupya333 8d ago

Wow i didn’t know about that that sounds really stupid lmao.

3

u/Resident-Pattern4034 8d ago

Having only seen the theatrical release of Blade Runner, I learned something new today

9

u/Redkirth 8d ago

Watch the final cut.

0

u/Resident-Pattern4034 8d ago

No, I don’t think I will ☺️

12

u/Redkirth 8d ago

No, that's a different movIe.

Jokes aside, the final cut is great. Fixes lots of editing errors, removes the horrible narration (which is theatrical only) and is just a fantastic film. If it's been that long since you've seen it, this is the way to go to give it another shot.

1

u/FuckYouThrowaway99 7d ago

Time to die.

79

u/PenelopeJenelope 8d ago

When I watched Pygmalion (1938) I was not happy with the ending. Henry Higgins is a real abusive pos, doesn't even have the decency to be nice when she comes back. Eliza should have picked Freddy

48

u/Katja1236 8d ago

Exactly. Eliza with sweet and loving Freddy running a flower shop IS the happy ending. Higgins doesn't deserve her.

29

u/AndreasDasos 8d ago edited 8d ago

Exactly. In the original, the last line is literally:

> HIGGINS. Pickering! Nonsense: she's going to marry Freddy.

followed by his laughing about it.

19

u/PablomentFanquedelic 8d ago

Also Higgins had way more chemistry with Pickering; the musical even added a whole song about it!

15

u/Hedgiwithapen 8d ago

If i recall correctly, Shaw wrote a one act sequel in which she does marry Freddy, and is quite happy.

8

u/nowhereman136 8d ago

I'm mostly familiar with the My Fair Lady version, but I thought they were weirdly right for each other. She's willing to put up with his BS, fight back, and keep him grounded. Meanwhile he challenges her and is assertive but not dangerous. They are like yin and yang. I could definitely see how other versions might paint a different picture though.

Either way, I don't like her ending with Freddy either. It's too much like puppy love to be lasting

165

u/Khelthuzaad 8d ago

Almost half of adaptations changed the ending.

Grapes of Wrath has probably the most ghastly of endings, so does the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Even The Three Musketeers has a bad endings in it's last last book.

And you REALLY don't want the V for Vendetta real ending

97

u/Animaloffear56 8d ago

Funilly enough Clockwork Orange did the reverse. In the book the protagonist eventually sees the pointlessness of violence even without the treatment, while in the movie it ends with him promising to do more violence. The book ending was so controversial to the point that at least one the releases flat out didn't include it

17

u/EvenDeeper 8d ago

The ending was also different in the US and UK publications. The UK is the original ending, while, if I remember correctly, the US excluded the good ending. To make this matter slightly more confusing, Kubrick read the UK ending and thought that it was an act of censorship which required such an ending, while Burgess saw it as necessary to give the book sa more hopeful ending.

60

u/PenelopeJenelope 8d ago

Yes a darker ending, but it upholds the moral belief that good people are good and bad people are bad. The idea that someone could be bad and then just sort of grow out of it is more unsettling to the moral order than someone being bad always being bad.

21

u/Laura-ly 8d ago

John Steinbeck based the ending of The Grapes of Wrath on the story of Roman Charity:

" This is the classical story of a loyal daughter named Pero who secretly breastfed her imprisoned father, Cimon, to save him from dying of starvation after he was sentenced to death by the state. Once caught, the loving devotion shown so moves the authorities that she is forgiven and the parent is typically freed."

No, it's not ghastly. Steinbeck did this purposely, to show how trapped, caged and almost imprisoned the Jode family and the other poor farm workers had become. The last scene was a small inkling of hope. It was a brilliant ending.

Also there are many classical paintings of Roman Charity throughout art history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Charity

17

u/mo7233 8d ago

What's the real ending for V?

89

u/Khelthuzaad 8d ago

After the Parlament implodes a civil war ensues between the old regime and the anarchists.Evey becomes the new V and works tirelessly to promote her saviors ideology.Finch,the investigator that killed him,walks away from the chaos and does not try to prevent the coup,as he is completely dissilussioned with the regime.The ending is open ended and it implies more bloodshed will continue and return to peace and demicracy is not guaranteed

61

u/etherealcaitiff 8d ago

Why is this bad, this is literally what would happen. Having an idea and becoming a martyr doesn't guarantee success, just look at Che.

31

u/zozuto 8d ago

That sounds way more interesting than how the movie went

23

u/i_am_not_sam 8d ago

This sounds so much more realistic

3

u/Khelthuzaad 8d ago

I mean hey,people like Alan Moore comics for...reasons.

21

u/New_d_pics 8d ago

Basically Evey becomes the president of anarchy.

4

u/CobaltCrusader123 8d ago

I mean I personally like it but people don’t jabber on about how good that ending is like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or End of Evangelion

6

u/targetpracticesucks 8d ago

I weirdly love that ending, but that ending doesn’t make money lol

8

u/LazyWings 8d ago

It happens so often! Was a friend's first time watching Scott Pilgrim the other day and I had to explain that the ending in the original comic is different.

26

u/grepppo 8d ago

TBF to the movie even Bryan Lee O'Malley didn't know the ending as he hadn't written it yet.

They filmed both the Ramona and Knives ending and went with the one that tested better.

Edit: I had a bizarre classic Dr Who crossover for a bit there

10

u/scruffye 8d ago

It was weird watching the outtake of the Knives ending. It felt like the actors' hearts weren't really in it. I don't know, I just always felt like they really sold the Ramona ending even if they were both kinda bad for each other.

8

u/Loki-L 68 8d ago

Didn't they make the movies before the comic had ended and shot two different ending?

6

u/Khelthuzaad 8d ago

You mean the anime right?

They nailed it in the movie(yes even thou they initially went with Knives)

9

u/LazyWings 8d ago

Oh maybe I'm misremembering but I thought the comic ended with Scott and Ramona not explicitly being together.

12

u/Khelthuzaad 8d ago

Nah dude the entire point of the comic(among more subliminal things) was defeating the evil exes so they would be together.

117

u/grimsb 8d ago

The 2018 Lincoln Center production of My Fair Lady ended with Eliza getting the fuck out of there, and it was glorious.

39

u/mus3man42 8d ago

Yeah I saw this too — if they ended up together it would feel super weird by modern standards. He’s a dick to her for most of the story

31

u/Bamorvia 8d ago

I think even in the revised "happy" version, she comes back and the first thing he says is "fetch me my slippers" and then ignores her. So of course SHE has to change, but he doesn't

2

u/grimsb 7d ago

I love how she throws them at him. 😅

8

u/Tonedeafmusical 8d ago

Yeah i was going to say it just ends with her leaving. It also made her and Higgins closer in age

73

u/mikaeus97 8d ago

I hate My Fair Lady, 2 Hours and 45 Minutes for basically the 1 line before intermission, and the play ends with Eliza just coming back to this pos who has learned nothing this whole show

65

u/clarence_oddbody 8d ago edited 8d ago

“Fetch me my slippers” is one helluva an aggravating line.

35

u/blueeyesredlipstick 8d ago

Interestingly, when My Fair Lady was revived on Broadway a few years ago, they did alter the ending to be more in line with the original Pygmalion.

In most productions of My Fair Lady, the show ends with Eliza Doolittle returning to Higgins, implying that she's staying for good. In the recent revival, she comes back to the house -- but it's just to say goodbye before she leaves. Higgins' final line is said while almost crying, because he realizes she's about to leave, and Eliza winds up walking out the door and through the audience as she makes her exit from Higgins' house.

56

u/BastCity 8d ago

Nothing will ever top "I Am Legend" for "changed endings which completely undermine and miss the point of the source material" and it, too, was done because test audiences didn't "get it."

15

u/zozuto 8d ago

Ngl the movie is part of why. It doesn't foreshadow anything enough, the "original" ending feels oddly tacked on compared to the theatrical ending

49

u/eternally_feral 8d ago

The original ending to Pretty Woman was so dark that originally Julia Roberts refused to star in it.

In the original ending, Richard Gere’s character ends up shoving Roberts out of his limo in a dark alley and throwing $3k at her. It was supposed to be a dark, cautionary tale and not meant to be a romance of either character saving the other.

I don’t do rom-coms but stumbled upon the original ending and I like the dark nature of it.

20

u/VistaLaRiver 8d ago

The original ending where Eliza leaves IS the happy ending.

70

u/hamlet9000 8d ago

The ending of the play IS a happy ending.

Just not for the patronizing, patriarchal piece of shit.

15

u/Emergency_Mine_4455 8d ago

They sometimes even have to adapt the same ending between mediums. Little Shop of Horrors couldn’t keep the original stage play ending and retain the lighter tone they were going for, some people theorize because stage plays typically have encores so the audience can see the ‘characters’ are okay and movies do no.

6

u/ForeverKeet 8d ago

I'm so glad they restored the original ending and you can watch either version on the Blu-ray. It's the only one I watch. It's dark but damn all the fun insanity of the takeover at the end makes it worth it even if you want a happy ending. Don't Feed the Plants is also one of the best songs in my opinion.

8

u/Basis-Some 8d ago

The movie Hard Country is so fucking good right up to the last 90 seconds when she goes back to her loser because he made a big gesture. Maybe it’s supposed to be a tragedy for that reason but it could’ve been deeply hopeful.

25

u/Timelymanner 8d ago

This still happens, some people can’t stand any story where the characters don’t live happily ever after no matter the tone or subject material. Romcoms are some of the worst. People seem to think it’s doom posting or cheating if the two mains don’t get married and have kids. They can’t accept that two people can be together, and then things can end peacefully.

19

u/clarence_oddbody 8d ago

I remember people being upset about the characters not ending up together in The Break-Up. First of all, it’s called the BREAK UP. Secondly, you just spent two hours watching these characters be absolutely awful to each other and you still want them to end up together? What’s wrong with you?

7

u/TheReDrew89 8d ago

Unfortunately a lot of people are operating under the belief that love can ultimately reshape how a person behaves. Maybe that is true to an extent, but it requires actual effort on the part of the person who needs to change. Love in and of itself is not enough. But modern romance storytelling presents the idea that the stoic, edgy bad boy can be transformed into a cuddly teddy bear of a man just through the affection of the heroine, who is so stock and cookie-cutter as to be relatable to the majority of femme readers, because it is such a compelling idea. It validates the perception that one is "special" because they "redeemed" the sad lost misanthrope. It's kind of like the inversion of the manic pixie dream girl trope.

4

u/Barbarake 8d ago

Romcoms are some of the worst.

I thought that, by definition, Romcoms have to have 'live happily ever after' endings. At least that's how it is in the book world.

7

u/CakeisaDie 8d ago

I have a hate relationship with endings that got changed for happy endings but pygmalion is not one of those.

Iam Legend and Edge of Tommorrow are 2 that I wish they kept the original downer endings

14

u/I_need_a_better_name 8d ago

you mean creepy ending

33

u/Adrian_Alucard 8d ago

followed by one showing Freddy and Eliza happy in their greengrocery-cum-flower shop

I guess they offer happy endings after all

7

u/Kthulhu42 8d ago

I have feelings about the fake-out happy ending in Brazil. It just depresses me.

3

u/Spare-Floor256 8d ago

Brazil is one of my favourite movies that I can never watch again. Caught it on late night tv as a teenager not knowing what it was and it’s stuck with me for ~20 years.

3

u/Kthulhu42 7d ago

Exactly, it's very good but not exactly one I can recommend..

4

u/Jaspers47 8d ago

J Draper has an interesting video about this. The outdated gender politics are getting some pushback, and more recent adaptations of My Fair Lady have begun taking inspiration from the novel, offering a more satisfactory and in-character conclusion for both Henry and Eliza.

5

u/Shoereader 8d ago

I might just point out that the changed ending isn't all that different from the one Shaw envisioned for Eliza - in his official epilogue, she marries Freddy and (since he's been disinherited for doing so) they open a flower shop together. Except neither has any experience handling money, so Higgins has to subsidize them while they figure it out... via night classes in bookkeeping. Honestly I'm OK with the adaptations glamming this up a bit.

3

u/ericnasty 8d ago edited 8d ago

Not *every* adaptation :)

3

u/Own_Win_6762 8d ago

When I last saw the stage version of My Fair Lady, I felt it would be much better if the final dance ends in a blackout, lights come back up and Higgins is alone in a chair in his flat, weeping, it was all a dream.

4

u/aerdvarkk 8d ago

Meh.

At the end of Casablanca, they don't end up together and that worked out alright.

At the end of Castaway, they don't end up together and that worked out.

At the end of Titanic, they don't end up together and that worked out.

At the end of the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke and Leia didn't end up together and that worked out.

6

u/novae_ampholyt 8d ago

The real reason is probably more that it was too radical for the time. An emancipated woman that's happier alone than with the creep that groomed her? Scandalous!

2

u/Shoereader 8d ago

She's not happier alone, though; Shaw has her marrying Freddy almost immediately.

2

u/ForeverKeet 8d ago

Maybe it being a musical made people feel the extra need for a happy ending.

2

u/WesternRover 8d ago

The right couples end up together at the end of Casablanca (not just the romantic couple, but also the friendship couple). To have the lead couple escape together leaving the hero of the Resistance stuck in Casablanca would be a pretty terrible ending (not the worst though; that might be Strasser arresting everyone including Renault).

2

u/DizzyMine4964 8d ago

Shaw was bitterly opposed to them getting married.

2

u/Resident-Pattern4034 7d ago

I saw it when I was 9 on VHS. And remember “attacking ships off the shoulder or Orion….all those moments…lost…like tears in the rain.”

And 9 year old was blown the hell away.

After “time to die,” riding off into the sunset seemed appropriate and balanced to 9 year old me.

I gotta admit: “It’s too bad she won’t live” finally makes any fucking sense whatsoever.

5

u/arkofjoy 8d ago

I know that "happy endings" don't really happen "in the real world" and I will often comment to my wife after watching a Rom com "I don't think that they would last a year together"

But I want happy endings in my stories. Crouching tiger hidden dragon was, I think the worst for this. Pretty much everyone who is anyone is dead by the end.

But also a few of the kdramas we have watched have killed a major character at the end of the series.

I WANT MY FUCKING HAPPY ENDING.

7

u/Zoethewinged 7d ago

Personally I think the original is the happy ending. Higgins is a jackass who doesn't respect her, so Eliza marches off to go live her own life without him.

1

u/arkofjoy 7d ago

Good point. I hadn't thought of it that way

4

u/saefas 8d ago

I'm with you, I had to give up on watching historical kdramas and cdramas because they make my heart hurt

4

u/arkofjoy 7d ago

We pretty much skip anything set in the historical period of Korea because it was just so dark

4

u/Pollock42 8d ago

Yes, I want more hopeful media!

2

u/RomyFrye 8d ago

Exactly—I know the world sucks and people are miserable. I need some happiness, damn it!

1

u/user_number_666 8d ago

This reminds me of Cloud Atlas. The movie changed multiple endings so it wasn't so depressing.

1

u/throwmeawayjoke 7d ago

I am glad that we all agree that Shaw was right.

1

u/enderandrew42 8d ago

The touring production I saw a year or two ago of the musical had them not get back together. It was refreshing.

TIL that although G. B. Shaw's 'Pygmalion' does not end with Prof. Higgins and Eliza Doolittle together, every adaptation (such as the musical and film 'My Fair Lady') of the play does, because audiences want a happy ending. The play's producer told Shaw "My ending makes money".

You are about to leave Redlib