Major Barbara Page #8

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


and I joined up.

And now I fight the devil all the time.

And I'll say this for him, Corkey.

He fights fairer and harder

than some champs we've tackled.

But God is against him...

and in that sign, we shall conquer!

Now, shall we have another hymn?

- You're Todger Fairmile, are ya?

- Sergeant Fairmile at your service.

You're the one what took

my girl away, are you?

- Name of Mog Habbijam.

- Bill! Don't you know me?

Blimey! It's her voice. Here. Here,

what have you done to yourself?

- What's he done to you? - Sergeant,

it's Bill Walker that was my bloke.

And I'm so changed, he doesn't know me.

We'll make the same change in you, Bill.

Is that what you've come for?

I've come to get my face changed right enough,

and you're the one what's gonna change it.

[Spits] Take that.

- [Crowd Muttering]

- Now here's my jaw.

Go on. Hit it. Hit it

your best. Break it!

Oh, that I should be found worthy to

be spit upon for the Gospel's sake.

Hit it!

- Glory, hallelujah!

- [Salvationists] Glory, hallelujahl

Bill, you shouldn't have done thatl

You've spit in the face of your salvationl

Listen here, you. Do you know a slip of a girl

named Jenny Hill, one of your Limehouse lasses?

We do. Has she converted you?

Keep your mind off this conversion

business and listen to what I'm sayin'.

I broke Jenny Hill's jaw this morning.

Oh, no, you didn't, Bill.

'Tain't so easy to break her jaw as you

think. You haven't got the punch for it.

You hit her in the face like

the fine, bold fellow you are...

and now you want to forgive

yourself and you find you can't...

unless I give you a blow

back harder than you can hit.

Friends, this man is on

the way to his salvation.

Let us all pray for him.

- Kneel down, Bill.

- Get out with ya!

- You will kneel down, brother.

- [Man] Get him on his knees.

Here, you leave me alone!

What do you think I'm

made of, cast iron?

Brother, pray with us.

Dear Lord, break his stubborn spirit...

but don't hurt his dear heart.

Never mind my dear

heart! How 'bout my ribs?

- [Crowd Laughing]

- # Tell me the old, old story #

# Of unseen things above ##

Major!

Major?

Major, that man's back again!

- Who?

- The one that hit me!

Oh, I hope he's come back to join us!

- Well?

- Get out.

Hello, Bill. Back already?

- Been talking ever since, have ya?

- Pretty nearly.

Has Todger paid you

out for poor Jenny's jaw?

No, he ain't. You want to know

where the dirt come from, don't ya?

- Yes. - It come off the ground at Tower

Bridge, see. It got rubbed off by my shoulders.

It's a pity it wasn't rubbed off by your

knees. That would have done you a lot of good.

I was saving another

man's knees at the time.

Mind, I did what I said

I'd do... spit in his eye.

And Mog said, "Glory, hallelujah!"

and he called me brother...

and darned me as if I was a kid and he was

me mother washing me on a Saturday night.

Kneelin' on me head, he was!

Fourteen stone five, prayin'

comfortable with me as a carpet!

[Laughing] Served you right,

Bill! Oh, I wish I'd been there!

Yes, you've had got an extra

bit of talk on me, wouldn't ya?

- Yes.

- I'm so sorry, Mr. Walker.

Don't you go bein' sorry for

me. What I done I'll pay for.

I tried to get me own

jaw broke to satisfy you.

- Oh, no!

- I tell you, I did!

And if I can't satisfy you

one way, then I can another.

Listen.

Here's my last quid.

Now take it, and let's have no more of your

forgivin' and pryin' and your major jawing at me!

Oh, no, I couldn't take it, Mr. Walker.

But if you would give a shilling

or two of it to poor Rummy Mitchens.

You really did hurt her, and she's old.

Not me. Not likely. I'd give her

another as soon as look at her.

She ain't forgiven me. Not much.

It's this Christian game of yours

I won't have played up against me!

I won't have it, I tell you!

So take your money and stop throwing

your silly bashed face up against mine!

Major, may I take a

little of it for the Army?

No. The Army's not to be bought.

Bill, we want your soul,

and we'll take nothing less.

I know. Me and my few bob

ain't good enough for you.

You're an earl's granddaughter, you are.

Nothing less than a hundred

pound would do for you.

Come, Barbara. You could do a great

deal of good with a hundred pounds.

If you'll set this gentleman's

mind at ease by taking his pound...

I'll give you the other 99.

Oh, Papa, you're too extravagant.

Bill offers 20 pieces of silver.

All you need offer is the other 10.

That will make the standard price

to buy anybody who's for sale.

Well, I'm not and the Army is not.

Bill, you'll never have another quiet

moment until you come round to us.

You can't stand out

against your salvation.

I can't stand out against music hall

wrestlers and artful-tongued women.

I've offered to pay,

and I can't do no more.

There it is. Take it or leave it.

- [Man] The generall

- [Woman] The generall

- [Crowd Shouting, Cheering] - Mr. Walker,

apparently we're in the same boat.

Perhaps we can help each other.

You'd better come and see me.

- I don't want none of your charity. - It's

not charity I'm offering you. It's work.

[Cheering Continues]

My dear, it was an inspiration to

have asked your father here today.

God needs him, Major. God needs him.

This is my father, General.

Try what you can do with him.

He won't listen to me because he remembers

what a fool I was when I was a baby.

[General] Have you been shown over the shelter, Mr.

Undershaft? You know the work we're doing, of course.

The whole nation knows it, madam.

No, sir, the whole

nation does not know it...

or we should not be crippled

as we are for want of money...

to carry our work through the

length and breadth of the land.

Let me tell you that there would have been

trouble this winter in London but for us.

- You really think so?

- I know it.

I remember last year when all you rich gentlemen

hardened your hearts against the cry of the poor.

They demonstrated outside

your clubs in Piccadilly.

And actually walked into

the Ritz and demanded a meal.

I remember very well.

Well, won't you help us to get at the

people? They won't demonstrate then.

Come here, my man.

Let me show you to this gentleman.

You remember the epidemic

of window smashing?

Remember it? I was

the ringleader, ma'am.

- Would you break windows now?

- Oh, no, ma'am.

The windows of heaven

have been opened to me.

I know now that the rich man

is a poor sinner like meself.

Begging your pardon, ma'am.

Mr. Price, your mother's asking for you.

She's heard about your confession.

Go, my friend. Go to your

mother and pray for her.

You could come through

the kitchen, Mr. Price.

I couldn't face her now, ma'am, not

with the weight of me sins fresh on me.

Tell her she'll find her son at

home waiting for her in prayer.

You see how we take the anger and bitterness

out of their hearts, Mr. Undershaft?

I do indeed, madam.

Who's been bashin' whose mother?

Barbara. Jenny.

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

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