The Great Mr. Handel

A biopic that is different than usual. How much of it is true, and how much invented by screenwriters, I have no idea. What makes it different is the absence of romance. Also when Handel turns to writing the messiah, he actually does write, and for more than a few minutes. The only real criticism, i have is that the religious visions could have been left out. In the title role, Wilfred Lawson is excellent.

This is a dreadfully dull biopic in an era of stodgy biographical stories.Probably made for propaganda purposes.The best aspect of this film.The sort of colour that seemingly could only be achieved by early three strip Technicolor.Jack Cardiff receives a credit as one of the cameramen.Wilfred Lawson plays the title role with a truly dodgy German accent.This film really represented the pinnacle of his screen career,partly due to his alcoholism.By the fifties he had slipped well down the cast and was playing character parts with that rich fruity voice.Sadly this is a very dull film whose narration is partly explained by lengthy interrupted.In truth this film is only likely to find favour with fans of his music.

For the first Technicolor feature produced by his organization, Rank went to his WHV production arm; this was the group that did movies on sacred subjects. The subject was George Frideric Handel and how he came to write his MESSIAH.

The best part of this movie is the cinematography. Two men are credited: Claude Friese-Greene, who had more experience with color camera work than anyone else in Britain -- he and his father had developed Biocolor, which was never commercially successful. This turned out to be his last completed movie. His co-cinematographer was Jack Cardiff, whose painterly vision is very apparent here. The whole thing looks like a series of paintings from Handel's era. The music, being Handel's, is beautiful. The story, of how Handel (played by Wilfred Lawson), grown unfashionable, continues on, supported only by Elizabeth Allan as Mrs. Cibber and his faithful servant, played by Hay Petrie, is adequate to the task.

Were these the only considerations, this would be fine movie. Unfortunately, while Mr. Lawson's performance is great (he plays Handel as someone who has not quite grown used to speaking English; his language is that of the orchestra) and Hay Petrie speaks his lines as he always does, which is why he was such a successful character actor, the other performers talk as if they are amateurs reading their parts off the script for the first time. Given the long and successful careers of many of these performers, this is an annoying puzzlement.

A talking movie is more than pictures and score. The dialogue is the glue that holds the pieces together and tells the story. The failure here leaves the movie-goer looking at a beautiful and sometimes very interesting effort (when it is just Lawson and Petrie, or when Handel's music is being performed -- although none of the actors are very good at faking their playing of instruments -- but ridiculously dull at other moments. The result is a movie that is definitely worth watching, but not more than once.

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.

This movie seems to sum up the dull, pompous Victorian view on Handel. It focuses on his premiere of "The Messiah" (Dublin, 1742), with all the virtuous clichés that have transformed for a while that masterpiece and the untamed Handel in a sort of propagandistic stuff. In war-time, it was understandable England's desire for something stimulating and "British". Ironically enough, Handel was a German, remember? Why didn't they represent him more vigorous, irascible, jolly and enthusiastic (this was also one of his faces, especially while dealing with music, I suppose)? Who knows... Such castrated and didactic views are repelling young people from the great music and the great figures of the past. Too bad. The leading actor was so melancholic all the time!