Major Barbara

"Major Barbara (1941: **1/2). A lot of talent has gone into this film version of Shaw's play about a Salvation Army lass who is disillusioned when her Mission accepts a fat check from her father, a wealthy munitions manufacturer of wartime supplies. I happened to have the play on hand and referred back to it as I wasn't sure Shaw's meanings survived the rather tedious verbosity of the movie, which sags despite a great cast (Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, etc.). Shaw seems to be saying that when religion and capitalism fight it out, capitalism will always win as it provides jobs and shelter for the poor, whereas all religion can do is to concentrate on saving their souls. To Shaw, a man's soul is best saved when his belly is full and his future is secured. Ultimately, the girl decides it's better to labor in her father's vast factory, where she can save souls while working within the system. I believe Shaw was something of a Utopian Socialist. He called this play a "Discussion in Four Acts" and that's pretty much what the movie seemed to be.

GBS's great play of war, commerce and religion filmed, as if on the stage, by Gabriel Pascal; (it's at its least effective in the scenes where he 'opens it up'). So what we have, fundamentally, is filmed theater, a rendition on celluloid of a 'performance', much in the same way that Anthony Asquith's version of "The Importance of Being Earnest" was filmed theater, although this is in no way as definitive as that was. Still, what's to complain about when the cast includes Wendy Hiller's high-minded, free-spirited Major Barbara; Rex Harrison's cavalier 'Dolly', oscillating between cynicism and idealism; Robert Morley's unctuous Undershaft, too young for the part but carrying it off splendidly and in support the likes of Robert Newton,Marie Lohr, Sybil Thorndike, Emlyn Williams and Kathleen Harrison. There is even a young Deborah Kerr for star spotters. Of course, as it stands, it may appear something of a dinosaur, both as play and film and some of the speeches have the tone of pamphleteering but it's also very funny and often highly entertaining and one is glad Pascal had the temerity to make it in the first place.

Love Wendy Hiller. Robert Morley could not have been much older than his early thirties!

This film is an extraordinary historical document! I haven't seen its political philosophy expressed or epitomized anywhere so well as in the movie's final act. The fact that it was filmed in London during The Blitz bombing of 1940 helps provide the production with the behind the scenes gravity or, as Robert Morley's character says , the "anxiety" to make its ideological sentiments, which could easily ring hollow, seem credible. In fact, somehow the movie's Fabian Democratic Socialism manages to surpass even Ayn Rand in its view of man as the measure of all things, thanks to the cagey implication that technological "progress" is the fulfillment of Christian ethics and that the elite are our saviors. "You may be a devil, but sometimes God speaks through you."

This and HG Wells' Things to Come are like comedic and tragic bookends for the Utopian vision of technology as Heaven on Earth, of the industrialist as saint. Here, like a freshly minted coin, before it was cynical or retro, before the appearance of Its antipode, the cinematic Dystopian Hells of the second part of the Twentieth Century, we see the vision of "modernism" in all its glory. Heaven is the "Future" and a secular Holy city of Jerusalem descends from Heaven as the modern industrialized city. This vision of a socialist utopia ruled by an enlightened elite has played a bigger role in our history than is generally acknowledged. It is not acknowledged because the system was successfully implemented, after which it was inconvenient to talk about its existence. Particularly because it was necessary to sustain a false narrative to "steer the 'democracy' from behind the scenes". Predictably this has became leading by deception. This need for deception may have been may anticipated by Fabian social architects like George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells as a necessary evil. I would guess that the way such systemic lying leads to corruption may not have been part of the ideology.

Did our self-appointed elite "fallen angels" get lost somewhere along the way and became drunk with unprecedented power and, rather than thinking "God speaks" through them, get seduced into deifying themselves? Or were they themselves manipulated all along by others who had always deified themselves? I'm sure some of our current leaders still believe in this vision, the ones who are not gangsters, Satanists, or both.

To his credit Brad Byrd took a stab at addressing this situation in Tomorrowland.

I happen to like this film. It is almost as good as "Pygmalion", the previous Shaw - Pascal collaboration, but that film had Leslie Howard in it as Higgins, and as co-director. Here, although Wendy Hiller is back, Howard is not involved and Rex Harrison is the romantic lead (and the philosophic lead is Robert Morley, as the man of wealth Andrew (or, as Shaw says, "St. Andrew") Undershaft). It has a grand cast supporting these three, including Mary Lohr, Deborah Kerr, Emlyn Wiliams, and Robert Newton (for once showing what a terrific actor he was when not drunk). The best parts are when Newton tries to be stoical and get knocked down to show he can take what he gives out to weaker types. He does get under the skin of Torin Thatcher (as a reformed boxing champ, named Todger Fairchild), only to have Thatcher humiliate him by forcing him to pray.

Shaw the comic dramatist is always a treat. Shaw the self-created man with all the answers is another problem. "Major Barbara" is a look at how money is made by ways that are spiritually appalling (armaments and booze for example), but which guarantee jobs and hope to people who can't get them from the world of religion. One probably can agree with this point of view, but the constant pushing of Undershaft's point of view - nobody ever trounces him in an argument - is annoying. He seems omnipotent in this play (as Shaw, no doubt, wanted him to be). I once suggested that it would have been delightful if after one of his speeches he had actually had coughed blood (to show he was mortal). But Shaw never would have done that to St. Andrew.

Yet he did do something within a decade after writing "Major Barbara" that was inconsistent. Shaw probably never willingly discussed it with anyone. Undershaft rules his armaments firm with a total control. He dictates to the government on policies he needs. The stockholders don't seem to exist. But in 1916 Shaw's optimism about dictatorial capitalists had faded. World War I shattered him a bit, and he wrote "Heartbreak House". In it is the character of "Boss Mangam", a powerful business tycoon like Undershaft, who proves to have feet of clay. It seems the great tycoon has to satisfy those stockholders or his empire is taken from him. The same, of course, has to be true of "St. Andrew" Undershaft as well. He probably is his largest shareholder, but he never says he is sole shareholder. Undershaft was quite content and pontifical in 1907 when he describes his religion of cannons and prosperity for all who listen to him. But that was peacetime. Somehow, in 1916, "St. Andrew" would probably have found it harder to be as glib about his doctrines as he had been.

This movie is a George Bernard Shaw vehicle. As such it is very heavy handed. But of course that's what we love about Shaw. Isn't it?

No one yet has mentioned the cinematography. I'm no student on this topic, but the scenes where Undershaft gives a tour of his factory and his vision of paradise are truly awe inspiring. There's nothing subtle in it, it is quite vivid for its time. And I think black & white is perfect here. If it were done today in color, I'm sure it would lose something. As someone else said they're not sure why the movie is a comedy. Intentional (as a comedy) or not, t could be this scene.

I haven't seen the movie in years, it is this one scene that lives on in memory above all others.