A slum-born flower girl, Eliza, is poor and humble. She subsidizes her alcoholic father by selling flowers on the street every day.
On a rainy night, at the mouth of the theater where she sells her flowers, she bumps into Higgins and Pickering, two bachelorish men. Higgins sees her as a vulgar, dirty, degrading woman of English culture and threatens that he can have her at the Ambassadors' Ball like a duchess in six months. Pickering, in turn, takes that bet. So for six months Higgins provides a brutal training program, and Eliza perseveres through the pain to change her fate, little by little. Language, dress, demeanor, temperament. Eventually, at the Ambassador's Ball, she accepts the Prince's invitation and becomes the jewel of the ball. At the end of the ball, Higgins and Pickering congratulate, cheer and compliment each other. Behind the victory celebration, Eliza says nothing and collapses on the couch after everyone leaves, crying bitterly.
She had finally realized that even after changing her attire and appearance, she was and always would be a humble flower girl in Higgins' eyes. After six months of hard work, she had only won Higgins a victory that belonged to him alone.
Six months turned out to be nothing but empty words. She had won nothing but her dignity.
She ran away from home.
Higgins panicked and he and Pickering searched the city for her. Finally at his mother's house he meets her, but still can't let go of his manliness.
He returns home alone anyway, only to find that everything about Eliza has become a habit. He walked to her practice room, he turned on the phonograph in the living room and it was full of the sounds of their first conversation. He sat down and listened quietly, filled with memories.
And she, quietly, had stood behind him.
The Chinese translation is My Fair Lady. Another translation is Pygmalion.
And George Gucco is the Pygmalion of American cinema.
His movies portrayed goddesses, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Fairly, Joan Crawford, were glowing screen goddesses under his lens. So in his movie, the woman is the protagonist, even if he likes to arrange the temperament of these women around the mature actor as the escort, but the woman is the unquestionable protagonist. And Audrey Hepburn is perfect.