Major Barbara Page #7

Synopsis: A young and idealistic woman, who has adopted the Salvation Army and whose father is an armament industrialist, will save more souls directing her father's business. A comedy with social commentary.
Genre: Comedy
Production: Criterion Collection
  1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
7.0
Rotten Tomatoes:
86%
APPROVED
Year:
1941
121 min
353 Views


I've seen it hurting you

when you went against it.

If you was my girl and took the

words out of my mouth like that...

I'd give you something

you'd feel hurting, I would.

You take my tip, mate.

Stop her jaw, or you'll

die afore your time.

Wore out, that's what you'll be.

Wore out.

- I wonder.

- Dolly!

Yes, my dear, it's very

wearing being in love with you.

If it lasts, I quite

think I shall die young.

Should you mind?

Not in the least.

- Well.

- Oh, Papa! We've not forgotten you.

- We're ready, miss.

- Yes, I'm coming, Snobby.

Now, Dolly, explain the place to Papa...

and don't get up to

any mischief, you two.

[Man] Whoa.

Once the rowdiest pub in the

district. Barbara has converted it.

- She's quite original in her methods.

- Barbara Undershaft would be.

Her inspiration comes

from within herself.

It's the Undershaft inheritance.

I shall hand on my torch to my daughter.

She shall make my converts

and preach my gospel.

- What, money and gunpowder?

- Yes, money and gunpowder.

Freedom and power, command

of life and command of death.

This is extremely

interesting, Mr. Undershaft.

- Of course, you know you're mad.

- And you?

Oh, mad as a hatter.

You're welcome to my secret,

now I've discovered yours.

I'm astonished. Can a

madman make a cannon?

Would anyone else but

a madman make them?

And now, question for question.

Can a sane woman make a man of

a waster, or a woman of a worm?

Are there two mad people, or

three, in this shelter today?

You mean Barbara is as mad as we are?

My dear professor, let's call

things by their proper names.

I am a millionaire. You're a Greek

scholar. Barbara is a savior of souls.

What have we three to do with the

common mob of slaves and idolaters?

Take care. Barbara's in love

with the common people. So am I.

Have you never felt the

romance of that love?

- Romance?

- ## [Notes, Chord]

Have you ever been in love

with poverty, like St. Francis?

You ever been in love

with dirt, like St. Simeon?

Have you ever been in love

with disease and suffering...

like our nurses and philanthropists?

Such passions are unnatural.

This love of the common people...

may please an earl's granddaughter

and a university professor...

but I've been a poor

man and a common man...

and it has no romance for me.

Leave it to the poor to pretend

that poverty is a blessing.

We know better than that.

We three must stand together

above the common people...

and help their children

to climb up beside us.

Barbara must belong to us,

not to the Salvation Army.

Well, I can only say that if you think you

can get her away from the Salvation Army...

by talking to her as you've been talking

to me, then you don't know Barbara.

My friend, I never

ask for what I can buy.

Do I understand you to imply

that you can buy Barbara?

No, but I can buy the Salvation Army.

Tell that to Barbara, if you dare.

I've hardly ever seen them so much moved

as they were by your confession, Mr. Price.

I could almost be glad of me past wickedness

if it'd help to keep others straight.

Oh, it will, Snobby. It will.

Oh, Father. We've just had

the most wonderful experience.

Snobby Price drew our

biggest crowd for months.

Jenny. How much?

Four and 10 pence, Major.

Oh, Snobby. If you'd given your

poor mother just one more kick...

we should have got the

whole five shillings.

If she heard you say that,

miss, she'd be sorry I didn't.

Oh, what a joy it will be to

her when she hears I'm saved.

Shall I contribute the

odd tuppence, Barbara?

The millionaire's mite, hmm?

How did you make that tuppence?

As usual, my dear. By selling

cannons, torpedoes and submarines.

Put it back in your pocket.

You can't buy your salvation here

for tuppence. You must work it out.

Isn't tuppence enough? I could

afford a little more, if you press me.

Two million millions

would not be enough.

Your kind of money's

no use. Take it away.

Dolly, you must write another

letter to the papers for me.

- Oh! - I know you don't like it,

but it must be done.

- [Rhone Ringing]

- I'll get it.

The general says we've got to close

this shelter if we can't get more money.

I've forced the collections at the

meetings until I'm ashamed, don't I, Snobby?

Oh, it's a fair treat to see

the way you work it, Major.

The way you got 'em up from three-and-six

to four-and-10 with that hymn...

penny by penny and verse by verse...

was a caution.

Not a cheap jack on Mile End

Waste could have touched her at it.

- Excuse me, sir.

- I wish we could do without it.

What use are these hatfuls

of pennies and ha'pennies?

We want thousands, tens of

thousands, hundreds of thousands.

I want to convert people, not to

be always begging for the Army...

in a way I'd sooner

die than beg for myself.

But how are we to feed them?

I can't talk religion to a man

with bodily hunger in his eyes.

- Oh, it's frightful.

- Oh, Major, dear.

Now, don't comfort me,

Jenny. It's all right.

- We'll get the money.

- How?

By praying for it, of course.

It was the general. She's coming to

march with us to our big meeting...

and she's very anxious to meet

you for some reason or other.

- Perhaps she'll convert you.

- My dear, I shall be delighted.

[Loud Horn Blows]

## [Salvation Army Band]

## [Singing, Faint]

- Half a bitter, and put some gin

in it. - Dog's nose. Right-o, mate.

[Horn Blows]

## [Band, Singing Continue]

[Cash Register Bell Dings]

Here you go.

- You all know who I am.

- [Man] No. Who are ya?

Todger Fairmile, champion

boxer, wrestler and swimmer.

Good old Todger. [Laughing]

Some of you have put

money on me and won it.

- And some of us have lost it.

- Right.

You'll lose no more money that way.

I may ask you for a penny or two presently

to put in the young lass'tambourine.

I've been promoted sergeant

in the Salvation Army!

Yes. It's easier than

fighting, ain't it?

No, Corky, it's not easier,

but it's ever so much happier.

And who told you I'd given up fighting?

I was born a fighter, and

please God, I'll die a fighter.

But the ring was too small

for a champion like me.

It was no satisfaction to me

to knock out some poor fellow...

who'd been set up against

me for a purse of money...

or hold his shoulders down on the mat.

It was too easy, and there was

no future in it for either of us.

- You don't say so.

- [Laughing]

One day I gave an exhibition

spar for the benefit of charity.

Our general was there, and

I was introduced to her.

She said to me... [Chuckles]

I was a wonderful young man.

[Crowd Laughing]

And she asked me, was I saved?

"No," says I, "but I can go 15 rounds with

Tommy Farr if you'd like to put up the money."

[Laughing]

"Of course you can," she said,

"but can you go, not 15 rounds...

but eternity with the

devil, for no money at all?"

Well, I tried to make light of it...

but it stuck...

and a week later, I took the

count for the first time...

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George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra. Shaw's expressed views were often contentious; he promoted eugenics and alphabet reform, and opposed vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopularity by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable, and although not a republican, castigated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period. These stances had no lasting effect on his standing or productivity as a dramatist; the inter-war years saw a series of often ambitious plays, which achieved varying degrees of popular success. In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left—he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946. Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion has varied about his works, but he has regularly been rated as second only to Shakespeare among British dramatists; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word "Shavian" has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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    "Major Barbara" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/major_barbara_13197>.

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