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 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.

This is not a great film but it is an interesting one for what it attempts to show. Movies that really dig deeply into the creative processes that lead to great music are rare, because the time and innovative ideas that are needed don't transfer well into 90 to 120 minutes of film. We are shown people rattling off rhyming words and lines as though that is the process for song - it isn't. Yet Sammy Cahn, one of the best of song writers, for years would demonstrate how he composed, and even with the best of his intentions it looked like a set-up job for his audience.The story here is about one of the giants of music, George Frederick Handel (Wilfred Lawton). Handel was a contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach, but while Bach flourished in Dresden, Saxony, Handel was in the backwaters of the petty German states. He headed for Great Britain, and settled in London. Soon his series of operas, like Judah Maccabeus, were hits with the public. But he was a thorough artist and not a sycophant. He wanted quiet from his audience to listen to his music, and to the singers in his pieces sing. So when he found that the then Prince of Wales (Frederick, son of George II and father of George III)(Max Kirby) only went to see his singer, Elizabeth Cibber (Elizabeth Allen), at Covent Gardens theater, he showed his anger at Prince Fred's talking out loud and annoying Ms Cibber. Handel would finally (in the middle of a performance) bang the pianoforte or harpsichord he played to stop the music until His Royal Highness shut up. Prince Fred disliked this kind of lack or due regard to him (due to his position as heir to the throne).The film follows the ploys used by Fred, due to his social position, in trying to ruin Handel and force him back to Germany. Fred threatens to boycott Vauxhall Gardens (the elite met there in the evenings for fun) unless music by others were played (he recommends Gay's THE BEGGAR'S OPERA). He and his friends have gangs of noisy troublemakers bang objects and play instruments badly outside the theater to prevent the customers from hearing the music of Mr. Handel. They certainly succeed in preventing him and his theater friends from prospering at all. Then, just as Handel finds a goal for him to strive to recover his prosperity (he wants to build a foundling home) he suffers a serious illness.At this bleak time he gets a commission for a new piece, called THE MESSIAH. An oratorio on the life of Christ and it's meaning to the world, Handel realizes this is the type of music that will finally establish his talent with a worthy subject. Deeply religious, we watch Handel drive himself without food to write and compose the piece that we know gave him immortality. And at the end we see it's successful premiere in Dublin in December 1742 and in London in March 1743. King George II of Britain established the custom (still observed today) of rising at the repeat of the Hallelujah Chorus. Even a stymied Prince Frederick had to rise if his father did.How true is it? I don't really know the full story, although I am certain the movie does well in showing the difficulties in putting on 18th Century opera in several scenes. It also shows the precarious position of artists (even great ones like Handel) in keeping fiscally sound due to the problems of patronage or the problem of official dislike. As such the film serves a good purpose. These topics are rarely touched on in movies.But how serious a threat was Prince Fred to Handel? I read a biography of Prince Fred twenty years ago. His parents hated him (the Hanovarian monarchs had problems between fathers and sons from George I in 1714 to George III and George IV in 1795). Fred was the son in the chain who never got the throne (his son is George III, raised by his mother and her friend/lover Lord Bute). Fred may have used his influence against Handel (for whom...Dr. Thomas Arne with his best known piece "God Save the King/Queen" or the symphonic composer William Boyce?), but his father was there as a corrective - and George II liked Handel's music. Also, given the dates of this film, within three years of the London performance of THE MESSIAH, Fred and his father were both worried about the possibly imminent arrival from Scotland of their Stuart cousin and enemy Bonnie Prince Charlie. That was a really major issue of the day to face up to. Fred died in 1752 - he was fatally injured in a tennis game. If this story was really true, Handel probably heard the news with a quiet smile, thinking "the Lord works in mysterious ways."Lawton is best recalled as "Alfred Doolittle" in the 1938 PYGMALIION, or as the decrepit old servant "Peacock" in THE WRONG BOX. He is pretty good actually in showing an artist striving to perfect his work in a far from perfect social world. He also is good showing his religious intensity while composing his masterpiece. Kirby does well with Fred, but the character's flaws are not pushed beyond typical snobbery and self-absorption. Allen does well showing how an opera aria was performed in 1742. It was mores static than today. Her voice was quite charming too.

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!