Prior to his death in 1950, George Bernard Shaw was granted complete creative control over a number of film adaptations of his stage works. Of course, he was also an astute and entertaining music critic. This week on “Picture Perfect,” enjoy an hour of Shavian delights. We’ll hear selections from scores from the films of GBS.
It was the ambition of Hungarian producer Gabriel Pascal to create a series of films inspired by Shaw’s plays, beginning with “Pygmalion” in 1938. Shaw was skeptical at first, on account of some inferior adaptations by other hands which had already appeared. However, when he was granted final approval, he agreed. This led to several big screen collaborations. After “Pygmalion” (scored by Arthur Honegger) came “Major Barbara” (1941).
Wendy Hiller plays the Salvation Army major, who is appalled to take donations from those who have made their fortunes on war and whiskey, and Robert Morley her father, a munitions manufacturer. Rex Harrison is the scholar who tries to persuade her of the benefits of capitalism. (Harrison, of course, would go on to star in the musical version of Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” “My Fair Lady.”)
William Walton wrote the score. Still a few years shy of his knighthood, he was already one of Britain’s most famous composers.
“Caesar and Cleopatra” (1945) would be the final Pascal-Shaw collaboration. (Following Shaw’s death, Pascal would film “Androcles and the Lion” in 1953.) Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh were cast in the title roles. Rains made history as the first actor ever to receive a million-dollar salary. The lavish Technicolor production wound up being the most expensive British film ever made, up until that time, and unlike “Pygmalion” and “Major Barbara,” it was not a success.
Pascal had actually wanted Sergei Prokofiev to write the music, but when that didn’t go anywhere, he offered the assignment to Walton. When Walton turned it down, Arthur Bliss was engaged. Bliss, like Walton, was destined to receive a knighthood. In 1953, he would also be appointed Master of the Queen’s Music.
Bliss may have been good enough for the Royal Family, but Pascal was evidently not pleased with him from the start. He had been Shaw’s choice, and the playwright encouraged him to eschew any Egyptianisms in his music. Rather, Shaw wanted the score to sound as “Bliss-ful and British” as possible.
In the end, Pascal’s surliness, in no doubt exacerbated by production setbacks, ran Bliss out. The job was then offered to Benjamin Britten, but Britten wisely declined, acknowledging that his own temperament was a great deal less mild than Bliss’.
The final cut sports a score by Georges Auric. Both Bliss’ and Auric’s scores have been recorded, so we’ll get to sample from both.
Finally, we’ll turn to Otto Preminger’s adaptation of “Saint Joan” (1957). Graham Greene worked on the screenplay, produced seven years after Shaw’s death. The film featured a seasoned cast, including Richard Widmark, Anton Walbrook, John Gielgud, Felix Aylmer, and Finlay Currie. However, Jean Seberg, an unknown actress, reportedly selected from a casting call of 18,000 applicants, was widely panned for her alleged inability to carry the film.
The music was by Mischa Spoliansky, not exactly a household name. Spoliansky was born in Bialystok. He moved with his family to Vienna, then was displaced from Koenigsberg to Berlin during the First World War. With the rise of fascism in Germany, he settled in London in 1933. Some of his songs were written for Paul Robeson, and he provided the complete underscore for the Robeson version of “King Solomon’s Mines,” in 1937. Whatever the film’s perceived faults, the music Spoliansky composed for “Saint Joan” is beautiful and evocative.
In the classical music world, we’re used to encountering Shaw’s assessments of Wagner and Brahms and Parry and Elgar. One wonders what he would have made of these scores composed for his films.
Shaw observed, “Most people go to their grave with their music inside them.” Hear some that made it to the big screen this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Shaw models centurion headgear for Pascal
