Enjoy the brilliant work of Bernard Shaw in these two classic movies.

Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) is a lavish, expensive production with a dream cast including Vivien Leigh, Stewart Granger, Claude Rains, Flora Robson and Stanley Holloway, while Major Barbara (1941), edited by David Lean, stars Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Robert Newton, Sybil Thorndyke and Deborah Kerr.

Bernard Shaw, arguably the most important playwright of the 20th century and a seminal intellectual figure of his age, famously rebuffed offer after offer from Hollywood. Finally he teamed up with producer/director Gabriel Pascal (see top left) and they made Pygmalion(1938), starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, and later these two films.

Shaw, the only person to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and an Oscar, adapted his plays for film.