Major Barbara

George Bernard Shaw, genius and Nobel Prize winner, is sadly out of fashion these days. How does one explain this? Perhaps because the theatre now lacks those with the talent and technique required to speak his dialogue and bring his characters to life or perhaps because the attention span of the average theatre goer is getting shorter. The fact that students at RADA recently wished to take down his bust because of his interest in Eugenics, is yet another nail in his coffin.

Film adaptations of his plays are a mixed bag, to put it mildly and some are too risible to mention. The greatest is indisputably the 'Pygmalion' of Anthony Asquith. The superlative editing on that film is courtesy of David Lean who fulfils that role once more in 'Major Barbara' and also acts as assistant director to Gabriel Pascal. How much influence Lean and fellow assistant Harold French had on the film is unknown but one thing is certain: Pascal is no Asquith!

The title character is another of Shaw's strong females and she is played by Wendy Hiller who had already excelled as Eliza Doolittle. To portray a character who is intensely 'moral' without being self-righteous is no easy task and Miss Hiller manages to pull it off. Rex Harrison is Cusins, her devoted admirer, who is based on classical scholar/humanist Gilbert Murray. This part marks the start of Harrison's long association with the works of Shaw culminating in his Tony Award in 1984 as Captain Shotover in 'Heartbreak House'.

David Tree had beautifully played Freddie in 1938 as a harmless twit and does so again here as Cholly Lomax. Marie Lohr is suitably imperious as Lady Britomart. This is not exactly Emlyn Williams' finest hour and his Cockney accent is atrocious. His portrayal epitomises the film's rather patronising attitude towards the 'lower orders' whilst Robert Newton is simply stupendous as malcontent Bill Walker and little wonder that Lean would later cast him as Bill Sykes.

In Shaw's plays there is invariably a Shavian 'realist', some might say 'cynic', whose voice is that of Shaw himself and whose function it is to utter incisive and unpalatable truths about the human condition. In this we have the fascinating Andrew Undershaft, known affectionately as the 'Prince of Darkness'. He is a self-made man who has made his millions as a munitions manufacturer and who regards 'poverty' as the greatest of all crimes. Although a little too young for the part he is played superbly by Robert Morley. One of his best scenes is with his son Stephen, played by Walter Hudd, who was in fact eleven years older than Morley. He advises him that as a man who knows nothing but who thinks he knows everything, a career in Politics beckons!

The play also takes a swipe at religion, which didn't exactly increase its popularity in the United States.

Undershaft declares that 'being a millionaire is my religion' and Barbara herself realises that she must pursue her religious aims through the capitalists 'whose hands stretch everywhere'.

Shaw was born in 1856 and it is marvellous to think that he was still around in 1941 to 'collaborate' on the script.

Lean's editing is again exemplary and the production design of Vincent Korda, especially that of Undershaft's 'Death Factory', is magnificent.

Fine score by one of our greatest composers, William Walton.

Although this film misses the Asquith touch it is, all-in-all, a very satisfactory version of Shaw's morality tale in which it is not the love of money but the lack of it that is the root of all evil. The happy Hollywood-style ending is not exactly what the playwright had in mind but is obviously there so as to send wartime audiences out of the cinema wearing a smile.

"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.

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.

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.

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.