FILMS & PLAYERS

Southland Times, Issue 24597, 20 November 1941, Page 8

FILMS & PLAYERS

Shaw’s “Major Barbara” Comes To State And Civic

The film version of Bernard Shaw’s famous play, “Major - Barbara,” will begin its Invercargill season on Friday, screening at the State and Civic Theatres. Hitler and the United States arsenal policy have not rendered obsolete Shaw’s attack on the armament manufacturer Undershaft, but have invested the old Shavian play with a new interest and a new meaning. Audiences are carried away by the intense sincerity of Undershaft’s daughter Barbara (brilliantly played by Wendy Hiller) when she resigns from the Salvation Army because it has accepted money gifts from a whisky-maker and from her own father, but audiences also know that without the armament industries of Britain and America the democratic armies today would be powerless. Wendy Hiller plays Barbara sensitively and with an extraordinary

depth of feeling; Rex Harrison is good as Cusins; and Robert Morley contributes strongly to the success of the film by his portrayal of Undershaft in an aura of omniscience. But rich honours also go to those in subsidiary characters. Robert Newton is specially good as Bill Walker, written somewhat larger than in the play and made bigger by acting that is pungent and exciting. As the General, Dame Sybil Thorndike is so effective at the Albert Hall rally as to look like a piece of newsreel, even to the admonitory shake of the finger and the (almost) break in the voice at a tense moment.

“Major Barbara” is a tribute to the steadiness of an England under fire. Itself a great war event, this picture gathers new importance from our stirring times, offers laughter and tears, and ranks distinctly as one of those great film dramas which no picturegoer should miss.