Major Barbara **** (1941, Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Robert Newton, Marie Lohr, Emlyn Williams, Sybil Thorndike, Deborah Kerr) – Classic Movie Review 7428

Major Barbara is the pick of producer-director Gabriel Pascal’s attempts to bring George Bernard Shaw to the movies, with Wendy Hiller starring nobly as the Salvation Army girl Major Barbara Undershaft, who quits when they take money from her arms maker father, Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley).

Rex Harrison plays Adolphus Cusins, the professor who joins the army to be with Major Barbara, to whom he proposes marriage.

Resounding acting from a great British vintage cast really makes Shaw’s fine play, mixing witty comedy with tart social and political comment, zing on screen. It is Deborah Kerr’s début (as Jenny Hill). It runs 135 minutes, long but not over-long, but the cut version runs 115 minutes.

Also in the cast are Robert Newton, Marie Lohr, Emlyn Williams, Sybil Thorndike, Deborah Kerr, David Tree, Penelope Dudley-Ward, Walter Hudd, Marie Ault, Donald Calthrop, Felix Aylmer, Cathleen Cordell, Stanley Holloway, Torin Thatcher, Kathleen Harrison, Mary Morris, Ronald Squire, O B Clarence and Edward Rigby.

Major Barbara is directed by Gabriel Pascal, Harold French (uncredited) and David Lean (uncredited), runs 135 minutes, is made by Gabriel Pascal Productions, is released by Rank and United Artists, is written by George Bernard Shaw (screenplay), Marjorie Deans (uncredited), Anatole de Grunwald (uncredited) and Gabriel Pascal (uncredited), based on the original play by George Bernard Shaw, is shot in black and white by Ronald Neame, is produced by Gabriel Pascal, is scored by William Walton, and is designed by Vincent Korda and John Bryan.

It was made at Denham Studios, Buckinghamshire, at the height of World War Two and filming went on during the Nazi air attacks on London. Pascal placed a spotter on the studio roof to blow a horn when he saw German planes coming. Nobody had told Hiller, who was left abandoned and bewildered when the spotter sounded his horn during a rehearsal and everybody quit the set. The Salvation Army rally scene is filmed at the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington, London.

Pascal is also known for his work on Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Pygmalion (1938).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7428

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