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How to write a novel or play - II

Posted by deepakmorris on September 7, 2016 at 3:05 PM

Let's go from "Pygmalion" to "My Fair Lady" to "Miss Congeniality" now:

I've already explained how Shaw took the legend of Pygmalion and turned it into a successful play and then movie, "My Fair Lady".

The morphing doesn't end there.

In the year 2000, Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford and Caryn Lucas wrote the screenplay of "Miss Congeniality", which was then made into the film of the same name, with Sandra Bullock in the title role.

It featured a transformation - FBI hard-candy agent Bullock being forced to be all goody-goody and mouth stock phrases like "World Peace", after being subjected to a bikini wax and other indignities in order to prevent a crime.

Since it would be creepy to have Bullock's trainer, Michael Caine (far, far older than she), fall in love with her, Caine was turned into a (probably) gay man and the one to fall in love with her was her "handler" in the FBI.

But it's still "raw --> then polished --> then romantic angle" and that's what Pygmalion can be boiled down to! And that's how Pygmalion can inspire a thousand more plays / movies!

Categories: theatre, script, drama