MAJOR BARBARA (1941) B/W 121m dir: Gabriel Pascal

w/Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Emlyn Williams, Robert Newton, Sybil Thorndike, Deborah Kerr, David Tree, Penelope Dudley Ward, Marie Lohr, Walter Hudd, Marie Ault, Stanley Holloway, Donald Calthrop, Cathleen Cordell, Torin Thatcher

From The Movie Guide: "What price salvation? One of [George Bernard] Shaw's most amusing comedies, excitingly performed by a brilliant cast, though Shaw's monologues sometimes get boggy with verbiage and the direction (mostly by Pascal) isn't very spritely. Hiller plays the idealistic title character, a major in the Salvation Army who despises her munitions magnate father (Morley). Adolphus Cusins (Harrison), a young professor of Greek history and literature, is hopelessly in love with the major, but she's too busy saving souls. Pop Undershaft believes that benevolent industrial management, not charity and moral uplift, is the way to help the poor. He sets out to show that intellectual Cusins and spiritual Barbara can both be bought, with surprising consequences.

"Shaw's 1905 social comedy was brought to the screen by Pascal, who had talked the curmudgeonly playwright into allowing him in 1938 to film (with great success) PYGMALION, starring Hiller and Leslie Howard. MAJOR BARBARA, however, was not as well received by audiences, who found it too sophisticated and couldn't relate to its eccentric Fabian socialism. The cast is uniformly marvelous, with the dry radiance of Hiller (reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn's, but uniquely her own) firing scene after scene. Harrison has a great way with flip dialogue, yet still manages to convey his passion for Barbara. Newton is delightfully wicked as a money-grubbing slum dweller. The rest of the cast reads like a who's who of British character actors; they keep the rather stodgy, unimaginative direction constantly on the go. Special mention must go to the touching Kerr, just starting her career, and the wonderful Morley. (You almost have to look twice to recognize him behind that beard.) The 32-year-old actor is not only convincing as the father of the 28-year-old Hiller but also a worthy and likable mouthpiece for many of Shaw's ideas. Valuable as a fine performance of an important and delightful play, MAJOR BARBARA makes for bracingly intelligent cinema."

From the Turner Classic Movies website (www.tcm.com) this article about the film by James Steffen: "Gabriel Pascal's film adaptation of Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (1941) remains the strongest adaptation of a Shaw play after Pygmalion (1938), thanks to the director's close collaboration with Shaw and to its outstanding cast.

"The play was originally staged in 1905 at the Royal Court Theatre in London, with Annie Russell in the title role, Louis Calvert as Undershaft, and Granville Barker as Cusins. A comedy of ideas in the same vein as Shaw's Man and Superman (1903) and John Bull's Other Island (1905), Major Barbara pits the title character, an idealist member of the Salvation Army, against her father Andrew Undershaft, a wealthy arms manufacturer. Besides making a religion out of wealth, Mr. Undershaft regards poverty as a disease that should be eradicated, not as an opportunity for salvation. In his rambling 1906 Preface Shaw even refers to Undershaft as the 'hero' of the play, despite his own Fabian Socialist beliefs. In fact, one working title for the play was Andrew Undershaft's Profession, playfully alluding to Shaw's banned play Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893). At the same time, Shaw also clearly admires the passionate conviction of the Salvationists to a certain extent.

"Some of Shaw's other plays such as Pygmalion are more frequently revived today, but Major Barbara nonetheless stands out as an example of how Shaw can create witty dialogue and full-blooded characters around a conflict of ideas or world views. Act II in particular is brilliantly structured around Barbara's attempt to save the dissolute Bill Walker, culminating in a crisis in faith precipitated by her father arriving to make a large donation to the church. Running about three hours uncut, the play presents a considerable challenge for actors, especially the part of Andrew Undershaft. After the play's premiere, Shaw complained about the difficulty Louis Calvert had delivering Undershaft's lengthy speeches.
According to Gabriel Pascal's ex-wife Valerie, Pascal met Shaw during the mid-1920s while swimming nude at the French Riviera. Impressed by Pascal's knowledge of his plays, Shaw later granted him permission to film Pygmalion, which became a remarkable success and even earned Shaw an Oscar® for Best Screenplay. This time, unlike Pygmalion, Pascal served as both director and producer in order to retain more control over the finished product. However, his tendency to run over budget and his overly generous profit-sharing deals with financiers meant that he personally earned very little money from Major Barbara, as was the case with Pygmalion.

"For the film adaptation, at Pascal's suggestion Shaw cut many pages of dialogue from the play and added new scenes such as: the prologue in which Cusins first meets Barbara, Bill Walker's failed attempt to fight with Todger Fairmile, and Cusin's drunken spree at Undershaft's house. Shaw didn't always agree with Pascal's proposed changes--in particular he objected to having Bill Walker reappear at the very end--though for the most part the finished film reflects his intentions and thus should be understood as a legitimate variation on the play.

"In addition to Wendy Hiller, Marie Lohr and David Tree were carried over from the cast of the film version of Pygmalion to play Lady Britomart and Charles 'Cholly' Lomax, respectively. Pascal and Shaw originally wanted John Mills to play Cusins, then Maurice Evans and Alec Guinness. However, the outbreak of war complicated their plans and they eventually went with Rex Harrison. For the part of Bill Walker, they first considered Ralph Richardson and John Clement before settling on Robert Newton. Shaw wrote the part as a tour-de-force of Cockney slang, using non-standard spelling to indicate the pronunciation: 'Aw'm nao gin drinker, you oald lawr; bat wen Aw want to give my girl a bloomin' good awdin Aw lawk to ev a bit o devil in me: see?' It might seem that Newton didn't push the accent as far as the written dialogue indicates, but his memorable incarnation of Walker threatens to steal Act II and anticipates his unforgettable, menacing turn as Sikes in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948). Shaw himself was pleased with the performance.

"Ultimately, Major Barbara took six months to shoot, from June to December of 1940. From July to October of that year, the country was literally under siege from Germany during the Battle of Britain. Because of the war, the film was shot at Denham Studios rather than Pinewood Studios, and at a reduced budget. An even greater challenge was finding good quality film stock, since American Kodak stock could no longer be imported. To make matters worse, Donald Calthrop passed away on July 15, before his part as Peter Shirley was finished shooting, requiring Pascal to redistribute some of the lines and to use a stand-in for the remaining shots that required Shirley's presence. Fortunately, the finished product hardly betrays these difficulties."