Review by clanciai

This is a grossly underrated film about music, so it is basically directed towards musicians, and they will understand it and know how to appreciate it, not just for the music, but there are many other credits as well. Above all it is gorgeously photographed in technicolour (of 1942!) with a very admirable reconstruction of the Hanoverian or Georgian age with a splendid wardrobe in flashing colours. The language is also worth remarking on as it captures the Georgian spirit and imitates the Hanoverian style. The actors are all good enough, there is no real star here, and Wilfred Lawson's rendering of the Handel character could be found somewhat lacking and unconvincing at first, but he gives a wonderful interpretation of Handel's crisis and its ordeals, which is more than convincing: he had already proved his extraordinary abilities at impersonating human sufferings and ordeals in "Pastor Hall" (two years earlier in 1940), and here he shows the same depths. Above all, the script is as well composed as Handel's music. The film becomes truly interesting as the orphans enter the story, he goes to find an ailing old musician of his and finds nothing but his four orphans, as the oboist has died of starvation. Thus the film enters on his extensive philanthropic engagements. Of course, the story of the "Messiah" crowns the film, and the rendering of his visions and dreams while being arduous at work (for three weeks without interruption) are wondrously well contrived, while the final touch is given by its first performance in London, where his arch enemy finally at the Hallelujah chorus rises to his feet, while all the audience follows suit, which I believe has been a tradition ever since at every performance. However, Handel wrote any number of Hallelujah choruses, and this was just one of them.