You know what they say, if you're still an activist at 40, there must be something wrong with you. When faced with the cold hard truth that no money is kosher money, Major Barbara can relax and enjoy being rich. Just like with every activist, her manner of speaking is at least half a century old and she sounds like a Victorian spinster. The film seems to be set in the flappers era, so you can imagine how comical she must be. Wendy Hiller is a great actress and I'm sorry she didn't make more films and Rex Harrison is her equal. Deborah Kerr appears in a minor role, good from the start (this is her first film). Anyway, they speak too much and too fast, which maybe makes things unclear for most viewers, but that was not typical only of Bernard Shaw, but also of the screwball comedies of that period, which was actually ending by the time this film was released. You can still see the great Art Deco design during the factory visit scenes, photographed in beautiful B&W.
Review of Major Barbara
