If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There is many of real-life exciting historic stories about the Salvation Army that screenwriters Marjorie Deans and Anatole de Grunwald could had adapted to the big screen, such as the war between them, and the Skeleton Army during the late 19th century, but instead, they chose to brought in, a very preachy and wordy fictional story of battle of wits between Major Barbara (Wendy Hiller) of the Salvation Army versus her father, Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley), a wealth weapon manufacturer to life. Don't get me wrong, the film does a good job, showing the complexity and struggles of what does it means to save a man's soul. However, this adaptation of author George Bernard Shaw's stage play of the same name is not that entertaining in the sense of providing humor. It doesn't easily provoke laughter like 1913's 'Pygmalion', does, through quick spitting mixer of posh & cockney accents and quirky character development, instead the film's large number of dialogue, slow the film, down to the point that it can make the audience, uneasy & bored, as they wait for the punchline that rarely comes, from the very long rich and detail rants & speeches that are sometimes 1% unrelated to the 99% flight of the masses. It doesn't help that some of the scenes of dialogue were certainly wasn't needed. Did we really need the subplot sequences of Andrew helping out, his other children!? In my opinion, I thought the film should had focus more on Undershaft, putting doubt in Major Barbara's beliefs. Why, because I love the devil's apprentice subplot with Undershaft looking at Greek scholar/Barbara's fiancée Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison) as an heir to his business, even if parts of it, doesn't make sense, like the new heir, must be an orphan, because they would be better fit to run a business empire like his. Huh!? Anyways, the reasons, I love his conflict, is because it serves as a great conflict of temptation, for Harrison's character to choose between, a life of righteous or a life of comfortable with Barbara. It adds tension, in a film lacking some. However, the movie spent more time wasting, listening to speeches from Snobby Williams (Emlyn Williams) a minor character, on the virtues of work. Don't get me wrong, Williams does great acting, but couldn't his character be cut or combine with Bill Walker (Robert Newton)? At least, the scenes with Bill Walker seem to play a big part of the main plot with Barbara trying to save his soul. With Snobby Williams. It felt yet, another filler. Another problem with the dialogue sequences is the fact that the English language is little too hard to understand at times, due to the complexity of the meaning of the words, that is being used. Some of the references/slangs/sayings from both the aristocracy and working class, are even dated by 1940s standards. As a modern viewer, it makes the film, a little more challenging, than it has to be. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humor such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience. Not for the general audience. There is a number of other factors that prevents, this movie from being a perfect masterpiece. One is the fact that this movie was made during World War 2, in London during The Blitz bombing of 1940. Because of that, the film does feel a bit over-propaganda, in trying it's hardest to make the stubbornness of all pacifists into believing that; the war production is just. Honestly, if this movie was made, during peacetime, where people would be more, likely to think, I would probably, would be less criticize of it, however, since it wasn't. I don't like, Shaw's ideas of pushing accepting dictatorship style capitalism into the public eye, during a time of unrested. Even the way, the movie is shot, director Gabriel Pascal makes the Salvation Army marching in the streets and making speeches in grand halls in quasi-military fashion, look more the dramatics of fascism more than normal corporate social responsibility. Its borderline, disturbing. It's doesn't help, that all the actors, act like they were in a cult, being brainwash into a bigger cult of personality. It's weird, that producer, Gabriel Pascal would chose this play to adapted, in the first place, seeing how Shaw's admirations of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini & Joseph Stalin at the time, were against everything that the United Kingdom, stood for. Thank God, Shaw's optimism on that Machiavelli method of running the country, was quickly shattered by the heinous action of his once highly supported political admirers. By war's end, he was demanding a peace conference, between the nations. Nevertheless, the film still stands on the conflicting message that Mephistophelean capitalism is alright, as long as we approach it with cautious and stick to our beliefs, even if, it's underline our principles, for the greater good. In my opinion, while I have mixed feelings about that, I do felt that it was a strong ending. However, the way, they approach it, was cheap, fake and perplexing. The 'everything will be alright' end to the film was not the right tone. I would rather take the depressing bittersweet approach, to the climax, than what we got here. This was not a happy ending, so it shouldn't be portray like that. Regardless, the acting throughout the movie was amazing, with everybody playing a great part. Mad props goes to Wendy Hiller, Robert Newton and Robert Morley for standing out the most. Also, mad thanks to cinematographer Ronald Neame and his crew on making the movie, look so beautiful. There were so many powerful shots, throughout the film. My favorite has to be, Barbara with the children, looking at the war factory in the distance. Very moving. It's surprising, that they got this film complete on time, with all the air raids. Overall: While, 'Major Barbara' has flaws, its one film worth saving.

As with many of George Bernard Shaw's plays, "Major Barbara" is essentially a political and social debate in dramatic form. At its heart is the conflict between the title character Barbara Undershaft, a Major in the Salvation Army, and her father Andrew Undershaft, a wealthy industrialist. (The family surname was derived from the church of St Andrew Undershaft in the city of London). Barbara is young and idealistic, deeply religious, a Christian socialist and a pacifist. Andrew is elderly, cynical, a freethinker in matters of religion, an apologist for capitalism and a man whose money has been made in the armaments industry. The crisis comes when the Salvation Army accepts a large donation from Andrew, much to Barbara's disgust as she despises her father and regards his money as morally tainted.Shaw's play was written in 1905, but the action of this film takes place at a more uncertain date. Some of the costumes would indeed suggest the late Victorian or Edwardian period, but the design of the motor cars, the Art Deco styling of Undershaft's factories and the Modernist accommodation provided for his workers all suggest that the story has been updated to the 1920s or 1930s. Although the film was shot in 1940, however, and premiered in 1941, the one decade in which we can be sure it is not set is the 1940s. There is no reference in the film to the war which was being waged at the time. Although Shaw always regarded himself as a socialist, he enjoyed a good argument as much as anyone, and he often gives a surprisingly generous hearing in his plays to capitalists and right-wingers, as he does to Andrew here. The film-makers clearly realised, however, that to start making points about the Nazi threat and about how Britain needed a strong arms industry to counter it would be to upset the balance of Shaw's play by loading the dice too much in Andrew's favour. So the action takes place in peacetime and no mention is made of any external threats to national security. (The scriptwriters also resisted the temptation to change the Christian name of Barbara's fiancé, Adolphus; audiences in 1941 must have been surprised to see the name "Adolf", even in Latinised form, given to a gentle, mild-mannered academic).Barbara regards the Salvation Army as hypocritical for accepting her father's money, but Shaw did not necessarily expect his audiences and readers to agree with her. Andrew's argument is that the charity doled out by the Salvation Army to the poor of London's East End is an inadequate answer to the problem of poverty; what the poor need is work, and as an employer he is in a position to provide it. Even Barbara, for all her moral scruples about the nature of her father's business, has to admit that he is an enlightened employer who looks after his workers' welfare and provides them with a steady income, even if he does so for self-interested motives. Andrew realises that a contented worker is a more productive worker, and one who is less likely to look for work elsewhere.Shaw's plays often involve the head more than the heart, and some of them work better on the printed page than they do on the stage. "Major Barbara", however, works well as a drama precisely because it involves a battle of the heart (represented by the intelligent but passionate Barbara) versus the head (represented by the cynically rationalistic Andrew and, to some extent, by Adolphus, an intellectual student of Greek literature). What makes the film work so well is that both main roles are so well played, the lovely Wendy Hiller (something of a specialist in Shavian drama) bringing out the full ardour of Barbara's crusading zeal and Robert Morley as Andrew putting up a robust defence of capital and of enlightened self-interest. They receive good support from Rex Harrison as Adolphus and Robert Newton as the Cockney thug Bill Walker who is later redeemed when he finds work at Andrew's factory; Newton was later to find fame playing another thuggish Cockney named Bill, Bill Sykes in David Lean's "Oliver Twist". (Not all the acting is as good; the Welsh-born Emlyn Williams shows us that it is not just Americans who find it difficult to put on a convincing Cockney accent).During his long lifetime, and in the years immediately following his death, Shaw enjoyed a very high reputation; he was sometimes even described as Britain's second-greatest playwright after Shakespeare. Today his place in the canon of English literature is perhaps rather less exalted than it was in 1941, and this may explain why this film is not particularly well-known nowadays. The themes of many of his plays, however, have remained relevant; "Major Barbara" is essentially a dramatisation of the perennial debate between idealism and pragmatism. With the exception of "My Fair Lady" (which owes most of its appeal to the music of Lerner and Loewe and to the charm of Audrey Hepburn) this must be my favourite Shavian film. It deserves to be remembered as a classic of the British cinema. 9/10

No doubt influenced by the success of Pygmalion producer/director Gaby Pascal followed up three years later with a second GBS polemic masquerading as a play, in this case that old chestnut God versus Mammon best out of three, Major Barbara. Wendy Hiller had scored a personal triumph as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion so here she is again as the eponymous Salvation Army lass whose father happens conveniently to be a munitions manufacturer. One of the problems with Shaw in this vein is that he tended to animate cyphers rather than create flesh-and-blood characters and here a group of actors from stage and screen do what they can with what they are given to work with. There's little discernible chemistry between Hiller and Rex Harrison, Robert Morley pays homage to Charles Laughton, Emlyn Williams phones it in and it's left to stage actress Marie Lohr to provide a touch of class. Elsewhere Bobby Newton offers a prototype Bill Sikes (possibly encouraged by Editor David Lean who also gets a co-director credit. Stanley Holloway gets a strangely long opening sequence for an uncredited role and in her film debut Deborah Kerr gives little indication of the durable career to come. A curio more than anything else.

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.