[Crowd Chattering]
The ancient Greeks considered it unseemly...
- to give public praise to women for their good looks... - ## [Band]
but apparently thought it did no harm to young men.
Note that, unlike our own popular playwrights in England and the United States...
the great Athenians scorned what we call " love interest" and regarded sex appeal as indecent.
Strewth.
Listen to the words put into the mouth of Aeschylus by Aristophanes.
He boasts of how he made the Greeks crave like lions to dash at the face of the foe...
and leap to the call of the trumpet.
But no Stenoboea I have given you, no. No Phaedra, no heroine strumpet.
[Exhales] It's no use. This open-air experiment's no good.
Or else I haven't the knack of attracting an audience.
## [Band Continues]
- I'm afraid I must have bored you terribly. - No, no, sir. No, no.
You sounded a bit heathenish at first, almost as if you believed in them queer old gods.
I talked to my missus about it.
You see, sir, she's keen on the Salvation Army and likes good, serious talk.
But when you said last Sunday that God was there all along...
whatever they called him, I knew it was all right.
I never thought much of myself as a speaker, but I've never lost my whole audience before.
Oh, not at all, sir. I've heard worse.
But there's two things that no speaker can stand up against.
What are they, may I ask?
One's a band, the other's a fight.
Salvation Army knows that. They always has a band.
Well, I'm off-duty now that your meeting's over, sir.
- I'll, uh, take you across, if you like. - Thank you.
There's a special attraction this Sunday.
- There's, uh, Major Barbara. - Major Barbara.
- How can a woman be a major? - Oh, she can in the Army, sir.
Or a sergeant, or a colonel, or even a general.
- Really? - Yes.
If you want a tip or two on how to gather a meeting and hold it...
you might do worse than hear her take the Sunday service.
Mmm. I will. I've a fancy for collecting religious experiences.
- Yeah. - ## [Band Ends]
Amid all the poverty and ugliness of our lives here...
the sin and the suffering...
the grime and the smoke, the toil and the struggle...
you know, and I know...
that God is with us always and everywhere.
We don't need a cathedral to worship him in.
Here, beneath God's open sky, we can draw nearer to him.
Some of you feel him near you even now...
and feel, too, how much you need him.
Won't you let him come into your life now, today...
as so many have done before?
You want his strength, his guidance, his comfort.
And you'll need his forgiveness and friendship.
Some of you turn away from him in bitterness at the hardship of your lives...
saying that you do not want God.
You want happiness and beauty.
God will give you both.
There is no beauty like the beauty of the newly saved...
who has found the unspeakable happiness...
that only the consciousness of God's presence and love can give.
We, in the Army, have our daily trials. Most of us are as poor as you are.
But we all are happy, and the mark of that happiness is on us all for you to see.
The rich are not happy.
The poor have only to reach out their hands for God's happiness and take it.
Is there anyone here who has courage enough...
to raise his hand as a sign that he would like us to pray for him?
Make the decision now.
In your need and loneliness...
God can meet with you.
There must be someone here who feels that he should raise his hand...
but it isn't easy.
It's the easiest thing in the world to do.
You've done it often enough...
to beckon to your child or to stop a trolley car.
You feel too shy perhaps.
Never mind. I will pray for him.
And God will give him the courage of a lion.
Come. Do not keep God waiting. Thousands have done it.
And if you can find me one who has done it and been sorry afterwards...
I will put off this dear uniform and never pray again.
Come. Come.
I know there is someone.
Ah. I found him.
Let the brave gentleman come to the front.
Make room for him, please.
[Crowd Murmuring]
Give me your hand, dear brother.
Will you come with me to our shelter where we'll pray together?
Friends, you will now sing...
"How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds."
# How sweet the name of Jesus sounds #
# In a believer's ear #
- Close the door, please. - ## [Continues, Faint]
Won't you sit down?
Now, before we pray a little together...
may I tell you to forget that we've never met before?
You mustn't be shy and distant with me.
I can see that all's well with you.
I can see in your face the new happiness that has just come into your life.
You're a new man. You're saved. You feel that, don't you?
Listen to me, Major Barbara.
I'm, uh... I'm here on false pretenses.
It is true that a new happiness has come into my life...
a happiness which I never quite believed in...
that, at any rate, I thought would never come into my life.
- It has come. - Thank God.
Take care. It hasn't made me a better man.
It's made me an utterly unscrupulous one.
- What do you mean? - Look at me.
Look deep into my eyes.
Is the new happiness that you see there the kind of happiness you're thinking of?
It must be. There's no other happiness like it.
It gladdens my heart because, under God, I have brought it there.
Good.
Now, let me warn you that I am a scholar and a gentleman.
I'm as poor as a church mouse, like all scholars.
I'm no good for anything in the way of worldly success.
But what does that matter? We're all poor here.
We never think of money or success.
When all our money's spent, we pray for more.
And it comes. It always comes.
Take your mind off such things.
And now...
shall we pray together?
I never pray. At least, not in your way.
The new thing that's come to me is not that I'm saved.
I was saved when I was five years old, when I first swallowed your religion.
Since then I've swallowed 20 religions. It's my life's work.
I'm interested in the essence of all religions...
not in their catchwords or in yours.
Let us find it for you here. We can.
Nonsense. I have more to teach you about religion than you can yet imagine.
You think so?
Then why have you come here with me?
Why did you hold up your hand?
Because I have impulses that I cannot explain.
They come very seldom, but when they come, nothing can stop me.
There's an end of my conscience, of my prudence, of my reason.
Such an impulse seized me the moment I saw you.
You may be poor. Our table manners may be different.
Our relatives may not mix.
Probably everything is against our associating with each other. No matter.
I'm going to join the Army. I will put on a uniform and beat the drum.
In short, I am hopelessly and forever in love with you...
and will follow you to the end of the world until you marry me.
Is that plain?
Perfectly.
And now will you begin by seeing me home?
I should like to put you through your first trial by showing you where I live...
and introducing you to my family.
God has some little surprises for you, my friend.
Have we far to go? What about a taxi?
We don't run to taxis in this part of the world.
Most of us have never been in one. We'll have to take a bus.
Oh, there's a 73. Jump in.
Don't ring. I have a latchkey.
By the way, I'd better know your name before I go in.
Well, you haven't mentioned yours, and it's I that have to introduce you.
My name's Adolphus Cusins.
Adolphus? What a name.
I shall call you Dolly.
My relatives do. I wish they didn't.
Introduce me as Professor Cusins.
Allude to me as Miss Undershaft.
Undershaft. Not Undershaft, the cannon king?
The rival of Krupp and Skode? The multimillionaire?
Don't worry, Dolly. I haven't seen him since I was that high.
You'll find my mother much more terrifying.
[Children Shouting]
[Children Laughing]
Remember the first time we caught a bus here, Major?
Yes. And you wanted to take me home in a taxi.
I've cured you of those extravagant ideas, haven't I?
Yes. Takes the daughter of a millionaire...
to teach economy to a penniless professor of Greek.
Good evening, Morrison. I suppose we're too late for dinner.
I regret to say so, sir.
But, sir, your, uh...
Oh. Excuse me.
[Door Opens]
- Is anything the matter, Mother? - Presently, Stephen.
Don't begin to read, Stephen.
I shall require all your attention.
Oh, it was only while I was waiting.
Now.
- I haven't kept you waiting very long, I think? - Not at all, Mother.
Give me my cushion, please.
Sit down.
Don't fiddle with your tie, Stephen. There's nothing the matter with it.
Oh, I... I beg your pardon.
Stephen, I really cannot bear the whole burden of our family affairs any longer.
You must advise me.
Really, Mother? I know so little about your family affairs.
So impossible to mention some things to you.
- I suppose you mean your father. - Yes.
My dear, we can't go on all our lives not mentioning him.
You're old enough now to be taken into my confidence...
and to help me deal with him about the girls.
No, the girls are all right. They are engaged.
Yes, I've made a very good match for Sarah.
Charles Lomax will be a millionaire at 35.
But in the meantime, his trustees cannot allow him more than 800 a year.
- Uh, yes, but... - Sarah will have to find at least another 800.
And what about Barbara?
I thought Barbara was going to make the most brilliant career of all of you.
And what does she do?
Joins the Salvation Army and walks in one evening with a professor of Greek...
whom she's picked up in the street.
Yes, I was rather taken aback when I heard they were engaged.
Cusins is a very nice fellow, certainly.
No one would ever guess that he was born in Australia.
Oh, Adolphus Cusins will make a very good husband.
- After all, nobody can say a word against Greek. - No, indeed.
Besides, my dear, you must marry soon.
I'm trying to arrange something for you.
Don't sulk, Stephen.
I'm not sulking, Mother.
I mean, what has all this to do with my father?
My dear, Stephen. Where is the money to come from?
You know how poor my father is.
Whereas your father must be fabulously wealthy.
There's no need to remind me of that, Mother.
I've hardly been able to open a newspaper in my life without seeing our name in it.
The Undershaft quick firer, the Undershaft torpedo, the Undershaft submarine.
And now, the Undershaft bomb.
At Harrow they called me the Woolwich infant.
And at Cambridge some little beast swiped my Bible...
your first birthday present to me.
My writing underneath my name, "Son and heir to Undershaft and Lazarus...
Death and Destruction Dealers.
Address: Christendom and Judaea."
But that wasn't so bad as the way people kowtowed to me everywhere I went...
because my father was making millions by selling cannons.
Exactly! That's why he's able to behave as he does...
openly defying every social and moral obligation.
- It's criminal. - Well, he does not actually break the law.
He broke the law when he was born. His parents were not married.
Mother, is that true?
Of course it's true.
That's why we separated.
But this is frightful for me, Mother, to... to speak to you about such things.
Now, be a good boy, Stephen, and listen to me.
You see, the Undershafts are descended from a foundling...
who was adopted by an armorer and gunmaker.
That was centuries ago.
Ever since then, the cannon business has been left to an adopted foundling...
named Andrew Undershaft.
Your father was adopted in that way...
and he pretends to consider himself bound to carry on the tradition...
and adopt someone to leave the business to.
Then it was on my account, Mother, that your homelife was broken up.
I am sorry.
Well, dear, there were other differences.
I really cannot bear an immoral man.
Your father didn't exactly do wrong things, but he said them and thought them.
That was what was so dreadful. He really had a sort of religion of wrongness.
But I couldn't forgive him for preaching immorality...
while he practiced morality.
All this simply bewilders me, Mother. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.
If a man cannot distinguish them properly, he's either a fool or a rascal, and that's all.
That's my own boy.
Now that you understand the situation, what do you advise me to do?
We cannot take money from him.
After all, Stephen, our present income comes from your father.
- I never knew that. - Why, dear boy.
The Stevenages couldn't do everything for you.
We gave you social position. Andrew had to contribute something.
So, you see, it isn't a question of taking money from him or not.
It's simply a question of how much.
I would die sooner than ask him for another penny.
You mean that I must ask him?
Very well, Stephen. It shall be as you wish.
I've asked your father to come here this evening.
Ring the bell, please.
He may be here at any moment.
Morrison, go and tell everyone to come to the drawing room at once.
Yes, milady.
Mother, are Cholly and Dolly to come in?
Barbara, I will not have Charles called Cholly.
The vulgarity of it positively makes me ill.
It's all right, Mother. Are they to come in?
Yes, if they will behave themselves.
Come in, Dolly, and behave yourself.
Come in, Chollyl
Well, sit down, all of you.
Listen to me, children.
Your father is coming here this evening.
- What? - Oh, I say.
You're not called on to say anything, Charles.
- Are you serious, Mother? - Of course I'm serious.
It's on your account, Sarah, and also on Charles's.
I hope you're not going to object, Barbara.
I? Why should I?
My father has a soul to be saved like anybody else.
He's quite welcome, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, not that I mind him coming here, you know, if fair Sarah doesn't.
Thank you.
Adolphus, have I your permission to invite my own husband to my own house?
You have my unhesitating support in everything you do, Lady Brit.
- I wonder how the old boy will take it. - Much as the old girl will, Charles.
- No, I... I didn't mean... At least I... - You didn't think, Charles. You never do.
The result is, you never mean anything.
Now, please attend to me, children.
Your father will be quite a stranger to us.
I suppose he hasn't seen Sarah since she was a little kid, really.
Not since she was a little kid, Charles...
as you express it with that elegance of diction and refinement of thought...
that seem never to desert you.
Accordingly...
Might I... Might I speak a word to you, milady?
Nonsense. Show him in.
Yes, milady.
Does Morrison know who it is?
Of course. Morrison's always been with us.
It must be a regular corker for him, don't you know.
Is this a moment to get on my nerves, Charles?
This is something out of the ordinary. Really.
I never expected to meet the... the mystery man of Europe.
The, uh... Mr. Undershaft.
- Good evening, Andrew. - How do you do, my dear?
- You look a good deal older. - I am somewhat older.
Time has stood still with you.
Rubbish.
This is your family.
Is it so large?
I'm sorry to say, my memory is failing very badly in some things.
- Ah, I can see that you're my eldest. - How do you do?
- I'm very glad to meet you again, my boy. - No, no, no.
Andrew, do you mean to say you don't remember how many children you have?
Well, I must confess I recollect only one son.
So many things have happened since then, of course.
Andrew, you're talking nonsense. Of course you have only one son.
That is Charles Lomax, who's engaged to Sarah.
- My dear sir, I beg your pardon. - Not at all. Delighted, I'm sure.
This is Stephen.
Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stephen.
Uh... Ah. Then you must be my son.
How are you, my young friend? He's very like you, my love.
Uh, no, you flatter me, Mr. Undershaft.
My name is Cusins, engaged to Barbara.
This is Major Barbara Undershaft of the Salvation Army.
This is Sarah, your second daughter.
And, uh, that is, uh, Stephen Undershaft, your son.
- My dear Stephen, I beg your pardon. - Not at all.
Mr. Cusins, I'm much indebted to you for explaining so precisely.
- Barbara, my dear. - Sarah!
Oh, Sarah, of course.
Barbara. I am right this time, I hope.
- Quite right. - [Lady Brit] Sit down, all of you.
Sit down, Andrew.
Thank you, my love.
- Here you are, sir. - Oh.
- Thank you. - [Chuckles]
Uh, takes you some time to find out exactly where you are, doesn't it?
That's not what embarrasses me, Mr. Lomax.
My difficulty is that if I play the part of a father...
I should produce the effect of an intrusive stranger.
If I play the part of a discreet stranger, I may appear a callous father.
There's no need for you to play any part at all, Andrew.
You'd much better be sincere and natural.
Yes, my dear. I daresay that will be best.
Well, here I am. Now, what can I do for you all?
[Lady Brit] You need not do anything, Andrew. You're one of the family.
You will sit with us and enjoy yourself.
- [Sneezes] - [Snickers]
[Morrison Clears Throat]
- What on earth is this, Morrison? - Your hot lemon and ginger, sir.
Always at a quarter past 9:00.
- Your memory seems to be a great deal better than mine. - [Charles Chuckles]
Charles Lomax, if you can behave yourself, behave yourself. If not, leave the room.
I'm awfully sorry, Lady Brit, but really, you know, upon my soul.
Why don't you laugh if you want to, Cholly? It's good for your inside.
Barbara, you've had the education of a lady.
Please let your father see that, and don't talk like a street girl.
Never mind me, my dear.
As you know, I'm not a gentleman, and I was never educated.
Oh, but nobody would know it, I assure you. You look all right, you know.
Well, thank you very much.
Charlie, I think you'd better play something for us.
Oh, perhaps that sort of thing isn't in your line.
- I'm particularly fond of music. - Are you? Well, you mustn't expect too much.
- Do you play, Barbara? - Only the tambourine.
But it's useful for taking the collections in at the end of our meetings.
It's not my doing, Andrew. Barbara's old enough to go her own way.
She has no father to advise her.
Oh, yes, she has. There are no orphans in the Salvation Army.
Your father, dear, has a great many children and plenty of experience, hmm?
How did you come to understand that?
Charles, play us something at once.
- ## [Begins, Stops] - One moment, Mr. Lomax.
I'm rather interested in the Salvation Army.
Its motto might be my own. "Blood and fire."
But-But not your sort of blood and fire, you know.
Come down tomorrow to my shelter at Limehouse and see what we're doing.
We're going to march to a great meeting at the Albert Hall.
Come and see the shelter and then march with us.
It'll do you a lot of good. Can you play anything?
In my youth, I earned pennies and even shillings occasionally...
in the streets and public house parlors...
by my natural talent for step dancing.
Later on I became a member of our factory's orchestral society...
and performed passably on the tenor trombone.
Well, that's splendid.
Many a sinner has played himself into heaven on the trombone, thanks to the Army.
Really, Barbara. You go on as if religion were a pleasant subject.
Do have some sense of propriety.
I don't find it an unpleasant subject, my dear.
It's the only one capable people really...
care for.
Well, if you're determined to have it...
I insist on having it in a proper and respectable way.
This seems to be an admirable occasion for family prayers.
- Oh, I say. - Charles, ring the bell.
I'm afraid I must be going.
You can't go so soon, Andrew. It would be most improper. Sit down.
My dear, I have conscientious scruples.
May I suggest a compromise?
If Barbara will conduct a little service elsewhere, I'll attend it willingly.
I'd even take part if a trombone can be procured.
Don't mock, Andrew.
You don't think I'm mocking, my love, I hope.
No, of course not. And it wouldn't matter if you were.
Half the Army came to their first meeting for a joke.
Come along to the nursery, Papa. Come on, Dolly. Cholly.
I will not be disobeyed by everybody.
Adolphus, sit down. Charles, you may go.
You're not fit for prayers. You cannot keep your countenance.
But you, Adolphus, can behave yourself if you choose to.
I insist on your staying.
My dear Lady Brit, there are things in the family prayer book...
that I couldn't bear to hear you say.
What things, pray?
Well, you'd have to say before everyone...
we've done those things we ought not to have done.
Left undone those things we ought to have done, there's no healthiness...
and I couldn't bear to hear you doing yourself such an injustice.
As to myself, I... I flatly deny it, so I must go.
Well, go, and remember this, Adolphus.
I have a very strong suspicion that you went to the Salvation Army to worship Barbara...
and nothing else.
And I quite appreciate the very clever way in which you systematically humbugged me.
I found you out. Take care Barbara doesn't.
- That's all. - Don't give me away.
- [Mouths Words] - Sarah, if you want to go, go.
Anything's better than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles away.
Very well, Mama.
- Mother, what's the matter? - Nothing. Foolishness.
You can go with them, too, if you like, and leave me alone.
Oh, you mustn't think that, Mother. I don't like him.
The others do. That's the injustice of a woman's lot.
A woman has to bring up her children.
That means to punish them, to deny them things they want...
to do all the unpleasant things.
And then the father, who has nothing to do but to pet them and spoil them...
comes in when all her work is done...
and steals their affection from her.
Have you ever saved a maker of cannons?
- No. Would you let me try? - I'll make a bargain with you.
If I go to see you tomorrow in your Salvation shelter...
will you come the day after to see me in my cannon works?
Take care. It may end in your giving up the cannons for the sake of the Salvation Army.
Are you sure it won't end in your giving up the Salvation Army...
for the sake of my cannons?
- I'll take my chance of that. - And I'll take my chance of the other.
- Where is your shelter? - In Limehouse, at the sign of the cross.
Ask anybody in Chinatown. Where are your works?
At Perivale St. Andrews, at the sign of the sword.
Ask anybody in Europe.
## [Chord]
[Group] # Onward, Christian soldiers #
# Marching as to war #
# With the cross of Jesus #
# Going on before ##
## ["Onward, Christian Soldiers"]
[Boy] What ya, Major?
- Feeling better after your meal, sir? - No. Call this a meal?
Good enough for you perhaps. What is it to me, an intelligent working man?
- Working man? - Yes.
[Laughing] What are you?
- Painter. - Yes, I daresay.
- Yes. Three-10 a week, when I can get it. - Why don't you go and get it?
Shall I tell you why? 'Cause I'm intelligent.
Yes, intelligent beyond the station of life into which it has pleased the capitalists to call me.
- And they don't like a man that sees through them. - Yeah.
And second, an intelligent human being needs his due share of happiness...
so I drink something cruel when I gets the chance.
Third, I stand up for me class and do as little as I can...
so as to leave half the job for me fellow workers.
And fourth, I'm fly enough to know what's inside the law and what's outside it.
And inside it, I do as the capitalists do... pinch what I can lay me hands on.
- What's your name? - Price.
Bronterre O'Brien Price. Snobby Price for short. What's yours?
- Rummy Mitchens, sir. - Your health, Miss Mitchens.
Mrs. Mitchens. Mrs. Romola Mitchens.
What? Oh, Rummy, Rummy, Rummy.
Respectable married woman getting rescued by the Salvation Army by pretending to be a bad 'un.
Oh, same old game.
But what was I to do? I can't starve.
These Salvation lasses is dear, good girls...
but the better you are, the worse they like to think you was afore they rescued you.
Why shouldn't they have their bit of credit, the poor loves?
They're wore to rags by their work.
And where would they get the money to rescue us...
if we was to let on that we was no worse than other people?
- That's right. - You know what ladies and gentlemen are.
Yeah. Thievin' swine.
I wouldn't say no to their job though, Rummy, just the same.
Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?
No. I come here on me own.
I'm going to be Bronterre O'Brien Price, the converted painter.
I know what they like. I'm gonna tell 'em how I blasphemed and gambled...
and whopped me poor old mother.
- You used to beat your mother? - Not likely. She used to beat me.
You come and listen to the converted painter, and you'll hear how she was a pious woman...
that taught me me prayers at her knee...
and how I used to come home blind drunk...
and drag her out of bed by her snow-white hair and lay into her with a poker.
That's what's so unfair to us women.
- Your confessions is just as big lies as ours is. - Yeah.
But you men could stand up and tell your lies right out at the meeting...
and be made much of for it...
while the sort of confessions we has to make...
has to be whispered to one lady at a time.
- 'Tain't right, in spite of all their piety. - Right?
Do you suppose the Salvation Army'd be allowed if it went and did right?
Not much. It combs our hair and turns us into good little blokes to be robbed and put upon.
But I can play the game as good as any of'em.
I'll... I'll see somebody struck by lightning or I'll hear a voice saying...
"Snobby Price, where will you spend eternity?"
- Oh, I'll have a time of it, I can tell you. - Mmm.
Come. Pluck up. You'll be all right.
Oh, poor old man. Cheer up, brother.
You'll find rest and peace and happiness here.
Hurry up with the food, miss. He's fair done.
- I shan't be long. - Buck up, daddy.
She's gonna fetch you a nice, thick slice of bread and scrape and a mug of sky blue.
Keep up your old heart. Never say die.
I ain't a old man. I'm only 49.
Why, that gray patch come in my hair afore I was 30.
Am I to be turned out in the street to starve for it...
and my job given to a younger man what can't do it no better than I can?
Well, no good jawin' about it.
You're only a jumped-up, checked-off hospital-turnout incurable of an old working man.
Who cares about you, eh?
You make the thieving swine give you a square meal.
They've stolen plenty from you. You get a bit of your own back.
Ah, there we are, brother.
Now, you ask her blessing and tuck that into you. Go on. There.
Well, I... I never took nothing afore.
Oh, come, come. The Lord wasn't above taking bread from his friends.
So why should you be?
Besides, when we find you a job, you can pay us for it if you like.
Yes, miss. Yeah, that's right. I... I can pay you back.
It's only a loan.
Well, Rummy, are you more comfortable today?
Bless you, lovey. You fed my body and saved my soul, didn't ya?
You look ready to drop.
- Sit down and rest a bit. - Oh, not yet, Rummy.
There's more work than we can do. I mustn't stop.
You'll try a prayer for just two minutes.
You'll work all the better after.
Oh, isn't it wonderful how a few minutes' prayer revives you?
I was quite light-headed this morning, I was so tired.
But Major Barbara just sent me to pray for five minutes...
and I was able to go on as if I'd only just begun.
Did you have a piece of bread, Mr. Price?
Yes, miss, but I got the peace that I value more...
and that's the peace that passeth all understanding.
Glory, hallelujah!
Oh, that makes me so happy. When you say that, I feel wicked for loitering here.
Oh, I must get to work again.
- [Child] Ohl There you go. Hil Hil - [Horn Honking]
[Chicken Clucking]
[Children Chattering]
- Hello, Bill. Found your girl? - Garn!
[Chuckles]
I know you.
You're the one what took my girl away, aren't you?
You're the one what set her against me.
- Well, I've come to get her out, see? - [Gasps]
Tell her Bill Walker wants to see her. She'll know what that means.
And you start to jaw back at me, and I'll start on you, you hear?
- There's your way. In you go! - [Sobs]
Easy there, mate! She ain't done you no harm.
Who are you callin' "mate"? Standin' up for her, are you?
- Put up your hands! - You great brute!
Oh, God forgive you. How could you strike an old woman like that?
You go and forgive me again, and I'll go and forgive you one on the jaw...
that'll stop you praying for a week!
- Have you anything to say against that? - No, matey. She ain't nothin' to do with me.
Good job for you, you starved cur.
Now, are you gonna fetch that Mog Habbijam...
or am I gonna knock your block off and fetch her out myself, eh?
Oh, please, someone go in and tell Major Barbara!
There, you want to tell your major on me, do you?
Please don't drag my hair! Let me go!
Do you or don't you? Yes or no?
Oh, God, give me strength.
- Oh! - Go and show her that and tell her...
if she wants one like it to come and interfere with me!
You!
Here, finish your mess and get out of my way.
You take a liberty with me, and I'll bash your face with this mug and cut your eye out.
Come in shoving and bullying your way in here...
with the bread of charity sittin' in our stomachs.
What good are you, you old palsy maggot?
- What good are you? - As good as you and better!
I'll do a day's work again' you or any other fit, young soaker of your age.
Well, what do you know? Not even how to behave yourself.
Coming in here and laying your dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman.
- [Gasps] - Don't provoke me to lay it across yours. Do you hear?
Yeah, you'd like to hit a old man, wouldn't you...
after you've done with the women!
I ain't seen you with a young man yet.
You lie, you old soup-kitchener, you.
There was a young man here just now. Did I offer to hit him, or did I not?
Was he starving, or was he not?
Was he a man...
or just a cross-eyed thief and a loafer?
Would you hit my son-in-law's brother?
- Who is he? - Todger Fairmile of Balls Pond.
Him what won that £20 off the Japanese wrestler at the music hall...
for standing up again' him for 17 minutes, 14 seconds.
I ain't no music hall wrestler.
- Can he box? - Yes! And you can't.
What? I can't, can I? What's that you say?
Will you box Todger Fairmile if I puts him on to you?
I'll stand up to any man alive if he was 10 Todger Fairmiles...
but I don't set up to be a professional.
Here, what am I doing talking to an old mutter like you for?
I'm goin' in there to fetch her out!
You're gonna be carried to the police station on a stretcher, more likely.
You mind what you're about.
- Why, haven't you heard that the major here is a granddaughter of a earl? - Garn!
- You'll see. - Well, I done nothing to her.
Suppose she says you did?
Who's going to believe you?
God, there ain't no justice in this country.
- I'm as good as her! - Tell her so.
It's what a fool like you would do.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
Sit down. Make yourself at home.
Now then, since you've made friends with us, we want to know all about you.
Name and trades, please.
Peter Shirley, fitter.
Chucked out of me job two months ago 'cause I was too old.
You'd pass still. Why didn't you dye your hair?
Oh, I did. But me age came out at the coroner's inquest on me daughter.
- Steady? - Teetotaler.
Never out of a job before. Good worker, and sent to the scrap heap.
No matter. If you did your part, God will do his.
My religion's no concern to nobody but meself.
I know. Secularist.
- Did I offer to deny it? - Why should you?
My own father's a secularist, I think.
Our father... yours and mine...
fulfills himself in many ways...
and I daresay he knew what he was about when he made a free thinker of you.
So buck up, Peter. We can always find a job for a steady man like you.
- What's your name? - What's it to you?
Afraid to give his name. Any trade?
Who's afraid to give his name?
If you've got a charge to bring against me, bring it!
My name's... Bill Walker.
Bill Walker.
Oh, you're the man that little Jenny Hill was praying for inside just now.
Who's Jenny Hill, and what call's she got to pray for me?
I don't know. Perhaps it was you that cut her lip.
Yes, it was me what cut her lip. I ain't afraid of you.
How can you be, since you're not afraid of God?
You're a brave man, Mr. Walker.
It takes some pluck for us to carry on our work here...
but none of us dare lift a hand against a girl like that for fear of her father in heaven.
I don't want none of your cantin' jaw, see?
I suppose you think I came here to beg from you, like this damaged lot here.
Not me. I don't want none of your bread and scrape.
And I don't believe in your God neither, no more than what you do yourself.
Oh, I beg your pardon for putting your name down, Mr. Walker.
I didn't understand. I'll strike it out.
Here, you let my name alone. Ain't my name good enough to go in your book?
Well, you see, there's not much point in me putting your name down...
if I can't do anything for you.
- What's your trade? - That's no concern of yours.
Quite so. I'll put you down as...
the man who struck poor little Jenny Hill in the mouth.
Now see here. I've had enough of this!
- What did you come here for? - I came for my girl, see?
I came to take her out of this and to break her jaw for her.
You see, I was right about your trade. What's her name?
Her name? Mog Habbijam. That's what her name is! Mog.
Mog Habbijam. Oh, she's gone to Tower Bridge to our shelter there.
Has she? Then I'm going to the Tower Bridge after her.
Here.
Are you lying to me so as you can get shod of me?
I don't want to get shod of you.
I want to keep you here and save your soul.
You better stay. You're going to have a bad time today, Bill.
Who's gonna give it to me? You perhaps?
Someone you don't believe in.
But you'll be glad afterwards.
Yes. Well, I'm going to the Tower Bridge to get out of the reach of your tongue.
And if I don't find Mog there...
I'll come back and I'll do two years for you.
So help me if I don't.
It's no use, Bill.
- She's got another bloke. - What's that?
He fell in love with her when he saw her with her soul saved...
and her face clean and her hair washed.
Well, what did she wash it for, the carroty cat? It's red.
It's quite lovely now because she wears a new look in her eyes to go with it.
It's a pity you're too late, Bill.
The new bloke's put your nose right out of joint.
I'll put his nose out of joint for him! Not that I care a curse for her, mind that.
But I'll teach her to drop me as if I was dead, and I'll teach him to meddle with my Judy.
- What's his bleeding name? - Sergeant Todger Fairmile.
I'll go with him, miss. I want to see them two meet.
And I'll take him to the infirmary when it's over.
Here. Is, uh... Is that him what you were speaking of?
- That's him. - Him what wrestled with the Jap?
That's him. He's given up fighting for religion, so he's a bit fresh for want of exercise.
But he'll be very glad to see you. Come along.
- Here. What's his weight? - Fourteen-five.
Go and talk to him, Bill. He'll convert you.
He'll convert your head into a mashed potato.
I ain't afraid of him. I ain't afraid of nobody.
But he can lick me.
She's done me.
You ain't going?
I thought not.
- Jenny. Jenny! - Yes, Major?
Send Rummy Mitchens out here to clear away.
- Oh, I think she's afraid. - Nonsense. She'll do as she's told.
Rummy! Rummy, the major says you must come.
[Rummy] Oh, all rightl I'm coming then.
Poor little Jenny. Are you tired?
- Does it hurt? - No, it's all right now. It's nothing.
But as hard as he could hit, I expect.
Poor Bill. You don't feel angry with him, do you?
Oh, no, no. Indeed I don't, Major.
Bless his poor heart.
Now, come on, Rummy. Bustle.
Take in these mugs and plates to be washed and throw those crumbs about for the birds.
There ain't got to be no crumbs.
This ain't the time to waste good bread on birds!
[Snobby] Major. Majorl
[Shouting]
- Major Barbara! [Crying] - Well, my dear.
Hello, Papa. So you kept your promise.
I'll get the law on you, you flat-eared, pig-nosed potwallopper, you...
if she'd let me!
You're no gentleman, you ain't, to hit a lady in the face!
Here. In with ya, before ya get yourself into more trouble.
Ha! I ain't never had the pleasure of being introduced to you...
as I can remember.
- Welcome to the shelter, sir. - [Boy] Look at the old beaver!
[Children Laughing]
- What's the matter? - Don't talk to me, you hear?
You leave me alone, or I'll do you a mischief.
- I ain't dirt under your feet anyhow. - Don't you be afeared.
You ain't such prime company as you need expect to be sought after.
- Get out, will you! - Oh, there you are, Mr. Shirley.
This is my father. I told you he was a secularist, didn't I?
Perhaps you'll be able to comfort one another.
A secularist? Not the least in the world. On the contrary, I'm a confirmed mystic.
I'm sorry. By the way, Papa...
what is your religion in case I have to introduce you again?
My religion? My dear, I'm a millionaire. That's my religion.
Then I'm afraid you and Mr. Shirley won't be able to comfort one another after all.
You're not a millionaire, are you, Peter?
No. And proud of it.
Poverty, my friend, isn't a thing to be proud of.
Who made your millions for you?
Me and my like.
What kept us poor? Keeping you rich!
I wouldn't have your conscience, not for all your income!
And I wouldn't have your income, not for all your conscience, Mr. Shirley.
You wouldn't think he was my father, would you, Peter?
Will you go into the kitchen and lend the lasses a hand?
Oh, yes, I... I'm in their debt for a meal, ain't I?
No, not because you're in their debt, but for love of them, Peter.
For love of them.
There now, don't stare at me. In with you.
And give that conscience of yours a holiday.
Oh, never mind me, my dear.
You just go about your work and let me watch it for a while.
Very well, Papa.
For instance, what's the matter with this outpatient over here?
Oh, we'll cure him in no time. Just wait.
[Train Engine Chugging]
[Horn Honking]
It would be nice just to stamp on Mog Habbijam's face, wouldn't it, Bill?
It's a lie. I never said so!
- Who told you what was in my mind? - Only your new friend.
- What new friend? - The devil, Bill.
When he gets round people, they get miserable, just like you.
- I ain't miserable. - Well, if you're happy, why don't you look happy, as we do?
I'm happy enough, I tell ya. Why can't you leave me alone?
What have I done to you? I ain't smashed your face in, have I?
- It's not me that's getting at you, Bill. - Who else is it?
Somebody that doesn't intend you to smash women's faces, I suppose.
Somebody, or something, that wants to make a man of you.
Make a man of me? Ain't I a man, eh? Who says I'm not a man?
Well, there's a man in you somewhere, I suppose.
But why did he let you go and smash little Jenny Hill's face?
Now, that wasn't very manly of him, was it?
Have done with it, I tell you! Chuck it! I'm sick of your Jenny Hill and her silly face!
Then why do you keep thinking about it?
Why does it keep coming up against you in your mind?
You're not getting converted, are you, Bill?
- Not me! Not likely! - That's the spirit!
Hold out against it. Put out your strength. Don't let us get you cheap.
Todger Fairmile said he wrestled against his salvation harder...
than he ever wrestled with the Jap at the music hall.
He gave in to the Jap when his arm was going to break...
but he didn't give in to his salvation till his heart was going to break.
Oh, perhaps you'll escape that. You haven't any heart, have you, Bill?
Why ain't I got a heart, same as what anybody else has?
Well, a man with a heart wouldn't have smashed poor little Jenny Hill's face, would he?
Leave me alone, will ya? Have I ever meddled with you?
Naggin' and provokin' me like this!
It's your soul that's hurting you, Bill, and not me.
We've been through it all ourselves.
Come with us, Bill, to brave manhood on earth and eternal glory in heaven.
Come.
Oh, there you are, Dolly.
I want to introduce a new friend of mine, Mr. Bill Walker.
Bill, this is my bloke, Mr. Cusins.
- What? Going to marry him? - Yes.
Heaven help him. Heaven help him.
Why? Don't you think he'll be happy with me?
Well, I've only had to stand it for an afternoon. He'll have to stand it for a lifetime.
That is a frightful reflection, Mr. Walker, but I can't tear myself away from her.
Well, I can. Here. Do you know where I'm going to and what I'm gonna do?
Yes. You're going to heaven, and you're coming back here before the week's out to tell me so.
You lie. I'm going to Tower Bridge to spit in Todger Fairmile's eye.
I bashed Jenny Hill's face in.
Well, now I'll get me own face bashed and come back and show it to her.
He'll hit me harder than what I hit her. That will make us square.
Is that fair, or is it not? You're a gentleman. You ought to know.
But two black eyes won't make one white one, Bill.
Can't you never keep your mouth shut? I asked the gentleman.
Yes, I think you're right, Mr. Walker. Yes, I should do it.
It's curious. It's exactly what an ancient Greek would have done.
But what good will it do?
Well, it'll give Mr. Fairmile some exercise, and it will satisfy Mr. Walker's soul.
There ain't no such thing as a soul.
How can you tell whether I've got a soul or not? You ain't never seen it.
I've seen it hurting you when you went against it.
If you was my girl and took the words out of my mouth like that...
I'd give you something you'd feel hurting, I would.
You take my tip, mate.
Stop her jaw, or you'll die afore your time.
Wore out, that's what you'll be.
Wore out.
- I wonder. - Dolly!
Yes, my dear, it's very wearing being in love with you.
If it lasts, I quite think I shall die young.
Should you mind?
Not in the least.
- Well. - Oh, Papa! We've not forgotten you.
- We're ready, miss. - Yes, I'm coming, Snobby.
Now, Dolly, explain the place to Papa...
and don't get up to any mischief, you two.
[Man] Whoa.
Once the rowdiest pub in the district. Barbara has converted it.
- She's quite original in her methods. - Barbara Undershaft would be.
Her inspiration comes from within herself.
It's the Undershaft inheritance.
I shall hand on my torch to my daughter.
She shall make my converts and preach my gospel.
- What, money and gunpowder? - Yes, money and gunpowder.
Freedom and power, command of life and command of death.
This is extremely interesting, Mr. Undershaft.
- Of course, you know you're mad. - And you?
Oh, mad as a hatter.
You're welcome to my secret, now I've discovered yours.
I'm astonished. Can a madman make a cannon?
Would anyone else but a madman make them?
And now, question for question.
Can a sane woman make a man of a waster, or a woman of a worm?
Are there two mad people, or three, in this shelter today?
You mean Barbara is as mad as we are?
My dear professor, let's call things by their proper names.
I am a millionaire. You're a Greek scholar. Barbara is a savior of souls.
What have we three to do with the common mob of slaves and idolaters?
Take care. Barbara's in love with the common people. So am I.
Have you never felt the romance of that love?
- Romance? - ## [Notes, Chord]
Have you ever been in love with poverty, like St. Francis?
You ever been in love with dirt, like St. Simeon?
Have you ever been in love with disease and suffering...
like our nurses and philanthropists?
Such passions are unnatural.
This love of the common people...
may please an earl's granddaughter and a university professor...
but I've been a poor man and a common man...
and it has no romance for me.
Leave it to the poor to pretend that poverty is a blessing.
We know better than that.
We three must stand together above the common people...
and help their children to climb up beside us.
Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army.
Well, I can only say that if you think you can get her away from the Salvation Army...
by talking to her as you've been talking to me, then you don't know Barbara.
My friend, I never ask for what I can buy.
Do I understand you to imply that you can buy Barbara?
No, but I can buy the Salvation Army.
Tell that to Barbara, if you dare.
I've hardly ever seen them so much moved as they were by your confession, Mr. Price.
I could almost be glad of me past wickedness if it'd help to keep others straight.
Oh, it will, Snobby. It will.
Oh, Father. We've just had the most wonderful experience.
Snobby Price drew our biggest crowd for months.
Jenny. How much?
Four and 10 pence, Major.
Oh, Snobby. If you'd given your poor mother just one more kick...
we should have got the whole five shillings.
If she heard you say that, miss, she'd be sorry I didn't.
Oh, what a joy it will be to her when she hears I'm saved.
Shall I contribute the odd tuppence, Barbara?
The millionaire's mite, hmm?
How did you make that tuppence?
As usual, my dear. By selling cannons, torpedoes and submarines.
Put it back in your pocket.
You can't buy your salvation here for tuppence. You must work it out.
Isn't tuppence enough? I could afford a little more, if you press me.
Two million millions would not be enough.
Your kind of money's no use. Take it away.
Dolly, you must write another letter to the papers for me.
- Oh! - I know you don't like it, but it must be done.
- [Rhone Ringing] - I'll get it.
The general says we've got to close this shelter if we can't get more money.
I've forced the collections at the meetings until I'm ashamed, don't I, Snobby?
Oh, it's a fair treat to see the way you work it, Major.
The way you got 'em up from three-and-six to four-and-10 with that hymn...
penny by penny and verse by verse...
was a caution.
Not a cheap jack on Mile End Waste could have touched her at it.
- Excuse me, sir. - I wish we could do without it.
What use are these hatfuls of pennies and ha'pennies?
We want thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.
I want to convert people, not to be always begging for the Army...
in a way I'd sooner die than beg for myself.
But how are we to feed them?
I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.
- Oh, it's frightful. - Oh, Major, dear.
Now, don't comfort me, Jenny. It's all right.
- We'll get the money. - How?
By praying for it, of course.
It was the general. She's coming to march with us to our big meeting...
and she's very anxious to meet you for some reason or other.
- Perhaps she'll convert you. - My dear, I shall be delighted.
[Loud Horn Blows]
## [Salvation Army Band]
## [Singing, Faint]
- Half a bitter, and put some gin in it. - Dog's nose. Right-o, mate.
[Horn Blows]
## [Band, Singing Continue]
[Cash Register Bell Dings]
Here you go.
- You all know who I am. - [Man] No. Who are ya?
Todger Fairmile, champion boxer, wrestler and swimmer.
Good old Todger. [Laughing]
Some of you have put money on me and won it.
- And some of us have lost it. - Right.
You'll lose no more money that way.
I may ask you for a penny or two presently to put in the young lass'tambourine.
I've been promoted sergeant in the Salvation Army!
Yes. It's easier than fighting, ain't it?
No, Corky, it's not easier, but it's ever so much happier.
And who told you I'd given up fighting?
I was born a fighter, and please God, I'll die a fighter.
But the ring was too small for a champion like me.
It was no satisfaction to me to knock out some poor fellow...
who'd been set up against me for a purse of money...
or hold his shoulders down on the mat.
It was too easy, and there was no future in it for either of us.
- You don't say so. - [Laughing]
One day I gave an exhibition spar for the benefit of charity.
Our general was there, and I was introduced to her.
She said to me... [Chuckles] I was a wonderful young man.
[Crowd Laughing]
And she asked me, was I saved?
"No," says I, "but I can go 15 rounds with Tommy Farr if you'd like to put up the money."
[Laughing]
"Of course you can," she said, "but can you go, not 15 rounds...
but eternity with the devil, for no money at all?"
Well, I tried to make light of it...
but it stuck...
and a week later, I took the count for the first time...
and I joined up.
And now I fight the devil all the time.
And I'll say this for him, Corkey.
He fights fairer and harder than some champs we've tackled.
But God is against him...
and in that sign, we shall conquer!
Now, shall we have another hymn?
- You're Todger Fairmile, are ya? - Sergeant Fairmile at your service.
You're the one what took my girl away, are you?
- Name of Mog Habbijam. - Bill! Don't you know me?
Blimey! It's her voice. Here. Here, what have you done to yourself?
- What's he done to you? - Sergeant, it's Bill Walker that was my bloke.
And I'm so changed, he doesn't know me.
We'll make the same change in you, Bill.
Is that what you've come for?
I've come to get my face changed right enough, and you're the one what's gonna change it.
[Spits] Take that.
- [Crowd Muttering] - Now here's my jaw.
Go on. Hit it. Hit it your best. Break it!
Oh, that I should be found worthy to be spit upon for the Gospel's sake.
Hit it!
- Glory, hallelujah! - [Salvationists] Glory, hallelujahl
Bill, you shouldn't have done thatl You've spit in the face of your salvationl
Listen here, you. Do you know a slip of a girl named Jenny Hill, one of your Limehouse lasses?
We do. Has she converted you?
Keep your mind off this conversion business and listen to what I'm sayin'.
I broke Jenny Hill's jaw this morning.
Oh, no, you didn't, Bill.
'Tain't so easy to break her jaw as you think. You haven't got the punch for it.
You hit her in the face like the fine, bold fellow you are...
and now you want to forgive yourself and you find you can't...
unless I give you a blow back harder than you can hit.
Friends, this man is on the way to his salvation.
Let us all pray for him.
- Kneel down, Bill. - Get out with ya!
- You will kneel down, brother. - [Man] Get him on his knees.
Here, you leave me alone!
What do you think I'm made of, cast iron?
Brother, pray with us.
Dear Lord, break his stubborn spirit...
but don't hurt his dear heart.
Never mind my dear heart! How 'bout my ribs?
- [Crowd Laughing] - # Tell me the old, old story #
# Of unseen things above ##
Major!
Major?
Major, that man's back again!
- Who? - The one that hit me!
Oh, I hope he's come back to join us!
- Well? - Get out.
Hello, Bill. Back already?
- Been talking ever since, have ya? - Pretty nearly.
Has Todger paid you out for poor Jenny's jaw?
No, he ain't. You want to know where the dirt come from, don't ya?
- Yes. - It come off the ground at Tower Bridge, see. It got rubbed off by my shoulders.
It's a pity it wasn't rubbed off by your knees. That would have done you a lot of good.
I was saving another man's knees at the time.
Mind, I did what I said I'd do... spit in his eye.
And Mog said, "Glory, hallelujah!" and he called me brother...
and darned me as if I was a kid and he was me mother washing me on a Saturday night.
Kneelin' on me head, he was!
Fourteen stone five, prayin' comfortable with me as a carpet!
[Laughing] Served you right, Bill! Oh, I wish I'd been there!
Yes, you've had got an extra bit of talk on me, wouldn't ya?
- Yes. - I'm so sorry, Mr. Walker.
Don't you go bein' sorry for me. What I done I'll pay for.
I tried to get me own jaw broke to satisfy you.
- Oh, no! - I tell you, I did!
And if I can't satisfy you one way, then I can another.
Listen.
Here's my last quid.
Now take it, and let's have no more of your forgivin' and pryin' and your major jawing at me!
Oh, no, I couldn't take it, Mr. Walker.
But if you would give a shilling or two of it to poor Rummy Mitchens.
You really did hurt her, and she's old.
Not me. Not likely. I'd give her another as soon as look at her.
She ain't forgiven me. Not much.
It's this Christian game of yours I won't have played up against me!
I won't have it, I tell you!
So take your money and stop throwing your silly bashed face up against mine!
Major, may I take a little of it for the Army?
No. The Army's not to be bought.
Bill, we want your soul, and we'll take nothing less.
I know. Me and my few bob ain't good enough for you.
You're an earl's granddaughter, you are.
Nothing less than a hundred pound would do for you.
Come, Barbara. You could do a great deal of good with a hundred pounds.
If you'll set this gentleman's mind at ease by taking his pound...
I'll give you the other 99.
Oh, Papa, you're too extravagant.
Bill offers 20 pieces of silver. All you need offer is the other 10.
That will make the standard price to buy anybody who's for sale.
Well, I'm not and the Army is not.
Bill, you'll never have another quiet moment until you come round to us.
You can't stand out against your salvation.
I can't stand out against music hall wrestlers and artful-tongued women.
I've offered to pay, and I can't do no more.
There it is. Take it or leave it.
- [Man] The generall - [Woman] The generall
- [Crowd Shouting, Cheering] - Mr. Walker, apparently we're in the same boat.
Perhaps we can help each other. You'd better come and see me.
- I don't want none of your charity. - It's not charity I'm offering you. It's work.
[Cheering Continues]
My dear, it was an inspiration to have asked your father here today.
God needs him, Major. God needs him.
This is my father, General. Try what you can do with him.
He won't listen to me because he remembers what a fool I was when I was a baby.
[General] Have you been shown over the shelter, Mr. Undershaft? You know the work we're doing, of course.
The whole nation knows it, madam.
No, sir, the whole nation does not know it...
or we should not be crippled as we are for want of money...
to carry our work through the length and breadth of the land.
Let me tell you that there would have been trouble this winter in London but for us.
- You really think so? - I know it.
I remember last year when all you rich gentlemen hardened your hearts against the cry of the poor.
They demonstrated outside your clubs in Piccadilly.
And actually walked into the Ritz and demanded a meal.
I remember very well.
Well, won't you help us to get at the people? They won't demonstrate then.
Come here, my man.
Let me show you to this gentleman.
You remember the epidemic of window smashing?
Remember it? I was the ringleader, ma'am.
- Would you break windows now? - Oh, no, ma'am.
The windows of heaven have been opened to me.
I know now that the rich man is a poor sinner like meself.
Begging your pardon, ma'am.
Mr. Price, your mother's asking for you.
She's heard about your confession.
Go, my friend. Go to your mother and pray for her.
You could come through the kitchen, Mr. Price.
I couldn't face her now, ma'am, not with the weight of me sins fresh on me.
Tell her she'll find her son at home waiting for her in prayer.
You see how we take the anger and bitterness out of their hearts, Mr. Undershaft?
I do indeed, madam.
Who's been bashin' whose mother?
Barbara. Jenny.
I have good news. Most wonderful news.
- Our prayers have been answered. - Yes.
Have we got enough money to keep the shelter open?
I hope we shall have enough money to keep all the shelters open.
Lord Saxmundham has promised us £50,000.
- Hooray! - Glory!
- If... - If what?
If five other gentlemen will give 10,000 each...
to make it up to the hundred thousand.
But who is Lord Saxmundham? I never heard of him.
A new creation, my dear. Did you ever hear of Sir Horace Bodger?
Bodger? Do you mean the distiller? Bodger's Whiskey?
Yes, that's the man. He's one of the greatest of our public benefactors.
He restored the cathedral at Hakington. They made him a baronet for that.
He gave half a million to the funds of his party. They made him a viscount for that!
- What'll they give him for the 50,000? - There's nothing left to give him.
So the 50,000, I imagine, is to save his soul.
Heaven grant it may.
Oh, Mr. Undershaft, you have some very rich friends.
Can't you help us towards the other 50,000?
We're going to hold a great meeting this evening at the Albert Hall.
If I could only announce that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham...
others would follow.
Don't you know somebody? Couldn't you? Wouldn't you?
Oh, think of those poor people, Mr. Undershaft.
Think of how much it means to them and how little to a great man like you.
Madam, you are irresistible. I can't disappoint you.
And I can't deny myself the satisfaction of making Bodger pay up.
You shall have your 50,000.
- Thank God. - You don't thank me, madam?
Oh, sir, don't try to be cynical. Don't be ashamed of being a good man.
The Lord will bless you abundantly...
and our prayers will be like a strong fortification around you all the days of your life.
You'll let me have the check to show at the meeting, won't you?
- Uh, Mr. Duffin. - Thank you. I prefer my own.
What price salvation now, eh?
Stop!
General, are you really going to take this money?
- Why not, my dear? - Why not?
Do you know what my father is?
Have you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whiskey man?
Don't you know that the worst thing I've had to fight here is not the devil...
but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger...
with his whiskey and his distilleries and his tied houses!
Rotten drinkin' whiskey it is too.
Are you going to make this place another tied house and ask me to keep it?
Dear Barbara, Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved like any of us.
I know he has a soul to be saved.
Let him come down here, and I'll do my best to help him to his salvation.
But he wants to send his check down here to buy us and go on being as wicked as ever.
My dear Barbara, alcohol is a very necessary article.
- It heals the sick. - It does nothing of the sort.
Well, it makes life bearable...
for millions of people who couldn't enjoy their existence if they were quite sober.
It enables parliament to do things at 11:00 at night...
which no sane person would do at 11:00 in the morning.
Is it Bodger's fault if this inestimable gift is deplorably abused...
by less than one percent of the poor?
Barbara, will there be less drinking or more...
if all those poor souls we are saving...
come tomorrow and find the doors of the shelter shut in their faces?
Lord Saxmundham gives us this money to stop drinking...
to take his own business from him.
[Cusins] Rure self-sacrifice on Bodger's part, clearly.
Bless dear Bodger.
I also, General, may claim a little disinterestedness.
Think of my business.
Think of the widows and orphans, the oceans of blood...
not one drop of which is shed in a really just cause.
All this makes money for me.
I'm never busier, never richer than when the papers are full of it.
Well, it's your work to pitch peace on earth and goodwill towards men.
Every convert you make is a vote against war.
Yet I give you this money...
to help hasten my own commercial ruin.
The millennium will be inaugurated by the unselfishness of Undershaft and Bodger.
Oh, be joyfull
Oh, what an infinite goodness one finds in everything.
Who would have thought that any good could come out of war and drink?
[Jenny] Oh, dearl How blessed, how glorious it all isl
[Man] A miraclel
Let us seize this unspeakable moment. Let us march to the great meeting at once!
- Our shelter's saved! - [Workers] Hooray!
The Army's saved!
[Woman] Bless the general!
Everybody's saved!
Glory, hallelujah! Glory, hallelujah!
On to the meeting! On!
- Come on, let's go! - [Crowd Murmuring, Chattering]
Mr. Undershaft, have you ever seen 5,000 people fall on their knees with one impulse and pray?
Come with us to the meeting.
Barbara shall tell them that the Army is saved, and saved through you!
You shall carry the flag down the first street, General.
Mr. Undershaft is a gifted trombonist. He shall march with us, blasting us to high heaven!
- Blow, Machiavelli, blow! - ## [Toot]
I'll do my best. I could vamp a bass if I knew the tune.
It's a wedding chorus from Donizetti's operas, but we've converted it!
We convert everything here...
including Bodger!
You remember the chorus?
"For thee, immense rejoicing! Immenso giubilol Immenso giubilol"
# Rum-dum, de-dum-dum #
Dolly, you're breaking my heart.
What's a broken heart more or less here?
St. Undershaft and St. Bodger have descended, the patron saints of peace and temperance!
I am possessed!
Come, Barbara. I must have my dear major to carry the flag with me.
Yes, yes, dear Major.
I can't come.
- Not come? - Barbara.
Do you think I'm wrong to take this money?
No. God help you, you must.
You're saving the Army.
Go! Go, and may you have a great meeting.
But aren't you coming?
No.
Barbara, what are you doing?
Major, you can't be going to leave us.
Father, come here.
My dear...
No, don't be frightened.
There.
It's not much for £50,000, is it?
Barbara, if you won't come and pray with us...
promise me you'll pray for us.
I can't pray now.
Perhaps I shall never pray again.
- Barbara! - [Jenny] Majorl
- I can't bear any more. - Barbara!
Quick! March!
Come on, Machiavelli!
I must go now, my dear.
You're overworked. You'll be all right tomorrow.
We'll never lose you.
Now, Jenny, step out with the old flag. Blood and fire!
[Jenny] Glory, hallelujahl
[Entire Corps Responds] Glory, hallelujah!
[Cheering Resumes]
Hey, up there! "Immenso Giubilol"
## [Band: March]
[General] Blood and fire!
My ducats and my daughter!
Money and gunpowder!
Drunkardness and murder.
## [Continues, Fades]
My God...
why hast thou forsaken me?
What price salvation now?
Don't you hit her when she's down.
She hit me when I was down. Why shouldn't I get a bit of my own b...
Here, where's my money gone?
Blimey, if Jenny Hill didn't take it after all.
You lie, you dirty blackguard!
Snobby Price pinched it! I seen him do it!
What, stole my money?
Why didn't you call thief on him, you silly old mucker you!
Served you right for hitting me across the face.
That's cost you a pound, that has!
I done ya! I got even with ya!
I've had it out on ya! [Cackling]
You can't afford to lose it, Bill.
I'll send it to you.
Not if I was to starve for it.
I ain't to be bought.
Ain't ya?
You sell yourself to the devil for a pint of beer.
So I would, and often have cheerful!
But she can't buy me.
You wanted my soul, did ya?
Well, you ain't got it.
I nearly got it, Bill...
but we've sold it back to you for £50,000.
[Rummy] And dear at the moneyl
- No, it was worth more than money. - It's no good.
You can't get round me now. I don't believe in it.
And I've seen today...
that I was right.
So long, old soup-kitchener!
Ta-da, Major Earl's granddaughter!
What price salvation now?
Snobby Price. [Scoffs]
- Good-bye, Bill. - Get out!
But that's all right, you know.
Nothing personal.
No malice.
So long...
Judy.
No malice.
So long, Bill.
All clear, Rummy.
He's gone.
You make too much of him, miss, in your innocence.
Better too much than too little, Rummy.
Yes, miss.
God forgive me.
Let's go, Peter.
Peter, I'm like you now...
cleaned out, lost my job.
You've youth and hope. That's two better than me.
I'll get you a job, Peter. That's hope for you.
The youth will have to be enough for me.
I've just enough left for two good teas and my bus home.
Don't be proud, Peter.
It's sharing between friends.
And promise me you will talk to me and...
not let me cry.
## [Marching Band: March]
# Steadily forward march #
# To Jesus we will bring #
# Sinners of every kind #
# And he will take them in #
# Rich and poor as well #
# It does not matter who #
# Bring them in with all their sin #
# He'll wash them white as snow ##
Let us pray.
Amen.
- The general! - [Cheering]
[Cheering Quiets]
Friends, we have a duty tonight which we must not forget.
God has answered our prayers wonderfully...
by sending us a great gift...
one that will enable us to get through many winters...
as bitter as this one has been...
without stinting one ofhis children of their little ration ofbread and milk...
and their warm blanket in the shelter.
You all know the name of the nobleman who, under God...
was the instrument of the first half of that gift.
You will pray for him and rejoice in his salvation.
- [Cheering, Shouting] - Glory! Hallelujah!
God bless Lord Saxmundham!
You do not know the name of that other generous servant of God...
who has made up the whole sum for us...
and I must not tell it to you...
for he is one of those who does not let his right hand know...
what his left hand doeth.
[Congregation Laughing]
Friends, he is here among us tonight!
- [Applause Cheering] - ## [Fanfare]
## [Off-key Note Trails]
This afternoon, when he announced his magnificent offering to me...
I exclaimed, "Thank God!"
He smiled and said...
"You do not thank me?"
[Congregation Laughing]
I told him to come to this meeting and he would hear how we thanked him.
He has come...
and you have kept my word for me.
- [Applause Stops] - My friends...
you may not know him on this side of the grave...
but when we cross the river...
over there...
he will be there with us still...
and you will know him by the seal of God on his brow.
[Jenny] Gloryl
We will now sing our old favorite, "Abide with Me."
# Abide with me #
# Fast falls the eventide #
# The darkness deepens #
# Lord, with me abide #
# When other helpers fail #
# And comforts flee ##
- ## [Continues] - This is rather more than I bargained for.
Come and have supper with me at my flat. I've got something to say to you.
We'll pick up a cab outside.
Yes, but I must call at Wilton Crescent to ask if Barbara has got home safely.
Never mind Barbara. She can look after herself.
Her uniform will protect her better than 10 policemen.
Come on. It's about Barbara I want to talk to you.
[Boat Horn Blows]
Now then, what's your game?
I've been watching you.
Don't try throwing yourself after that bonnet and giving me the trouble of fishing you out.
- Because you won't be let do it, see. - That's what you thought, is it?
Even if I wanted to throw away my life, I wouldn't risk yours.
You'll excuse me, miss, but are you quite yourself this evening?
I'm not at all sure.
I've walked a very long way and I've become quite tired suddenly.
Do you think you could find me a taxi to take me home?
Taxi, miss?
What you want, by the look of you, is an ambulance.
Ambulance?
[Undershaft Laughing]
When she said, "You don't thank me, madam."
[Both Laughing]
A remarkable woman.
- It's nice and warm in here. - Help yourself, my friend.
- Have some brandy. - No, thanks. I'll have some water.
My throat's still dry.
I don't know how to sing, and the result of my attempts at the meetings...
is always incipient laryngitis.
[Coughing]
Oh! Ohh! [Coughing Continues]
Look out! You'll set the chimney on fire!
Burnt my throat! What on earth is it?
It's all right. It's only vodka. It won't hurt you.
Try some of that temperance burgundy. It will wash away the sting.
[Coughing Continues]
He may call it a temperance burgundy, sir...
but I should be sorry to venture on more than one glass of it myself.
Nonsense. After that awful stuff it's like milk.
Steady. Steady.
My burgundy isn't as mild as it seems.
- Ohh! - Are you all right?
- Perfectly. - Good.
You don't mind if I get rid of this.
That means you're getting rid of Barbara.
- Not at all. - Yes, she refused to swallow Bodger's whiskey.
Do you think she's any more likely to swallow your money and gunpowder?
She's swallowed a good deal of it already, my friend.
What do you suppose she's been living on all these years?
You think you'll end by making me swallow them, don't you?
Both of you will have to swallow them.
They are mystical powers above and behind the three of us...
that will make short work of your scruples.
Do you think I don't know all about the mystical powers, Machiavelli?
Do you remember what Euripides said about your money and gunpowder?
No.
"One, then another, in money and guns...
"may outpass his brother...
"and then in their millions float and flow...
- "and seethe with a million hopes as leaven. - ## [Harpsichord]
"And they win their will or they miss their will...
"and their hopes are dead or are pined for still.
"But whoe'er can know, as the long days go...
that to live is happy has found his heaven."
That's my translation. What do you think of it?
I think, my friend, that if you wish to know as the long days go...
that to live is happy...
you must first acquire money enough for a decent life...
and power enough to be your own master.
Mmm. You're damnably discouraging.
## [Continues]
"What else is wisdom?
"What of man's endeavor or God's high grace...
"so lovely and so great...
"to stand from fear set free...
"to breathe and wait...
"to hold a hand uplifted over fate?
And shall not Barbara be loved forever?"
Oh. Euripides mentions Barbara, does he?
It's a fair translation. The word means "loveliness."
And may I ask, as Barbara's father, how much a year she is to be loved forever on?
As Barbara's father, that's more your affair than mine.
I can feed her by teaching Greek. That's about all.
Do you consider it a good match for her?
Mr. Undershaft, I am in many ways a weak, timid, ineffectual person...
and my health is far from satisfactory...
but whenever I feel I must have anything...
I get it sooner or later.
I feel that way about Barbara.
I don't like marriage. I feel intensely afraid of it.
I don't know what I shall do with Barbara or what she'll do with me...
but I feel that I, and nobody else, must marry her.
Please regard that as settled.
Not that I wish to be arbitrary, but why should I waste your time in discussing what's inevitable?
- You mean you'll stick at nothing? - Precisely.
Professor Cusins, you're a young man...
after my own heart.
Mr. Undershaft, you are, as far as I'm able to gather, a most infernal old rascal...
but you appeal very strongly to my sense of ironic humor.
Good.
We shall get on well together.
Have you ever thought about going into business?
My business?
Money and gunpowder?
Never.
Barbara's money will come from it.
Why not help to earn it? Have you thought of that at all?
I, uh... I...
Look here, Machiavelli, I am interested in thought reading...
and have, in fact, made some experiments in it...
but I object to your trying it on me.
When my head is clear, I'll tell you exactly what I think.
Just at present I'm in a state of exaltation.
I don't know why.
Perhaps it's the excitement of that meeting.
[Sighs]
Phew! The room is very hot.
Might we have a window open for a moment?
- Certainly. James. - Mmm?
- I should like a breath of fresh air myself. - Sir?
Draw back those curtains and open the window, will you?
- It's a very windy night, sir. - So much the better.
It's only for a moment.
[Inhales] Ah, what a relief!
- Steady, Machiavelli, steady! - Lend a hand, will you!
- Quick! - Right, sir!
I am afraid he's here for the night, sir.
Nobody down yet?
Mr. Stephen's down, milady, and is having breakfast.
Miss Barbara's gone up, I suppose.
- No, milady, Miss Barbara is not up yet. - Not up yet?
- Are you sure? - Quite sure, milady.
Miss Barbara came in late last night and said she was not to be called.
Not to be called? Was she quite well?
A little pale, milady, and without her bonnet.
I hadn't much time to notice.
She went straight upstairs and left me to settle with the policemen and the ambulance.
Policemen? Ambulance? There must have been some accident.
Are you certain she wasn't hurt?
I can assure you she was quite all right, milady.
Well.
What have you laid all those extra places for?
You're expecting Mr. Cusins and Mr. Lomax, milady.
The car's ordered for half past 10:00 to take the party to, uh... to, uh...
Well? To where?
To Mr. Undershaft's place, I think, milady.
- To the factory, you mean? - Well, yes, milady.
The factory pays your wages, Morrison.
Yes, milady. That is what factories are for. We must put up with them.
- Bacon and eggs, milady, as usual? - No, I'll have a sausage this morning.
Yes, milady.
Ah, breakfast! Oh, good morning, Lady Brit!
- You're late, Charles. Where's Adolphus? - I haven't the faintest idea.
Good morning, darling! Morrison, we're starving!
- Ah, bacon and eggs. - Sausages!
Sausages, good. No kidneys. Morrison?
- Kidneys, sir. - Ah, thank heaven for the English breakfast.
You know, as I always say, the one drawback about going abroad...
Charles Lomax, if you must drivel, drivel like a grown-up man and not like a schoolboy.
Drivel is drivel, you know, whatever a man's age.
- [Sarah Giggles] - Good morning, everybody.
- [Charles] Good morning, Barbara. - Morning!
Good heavens! Y-You've chucked the uniform.
You mean that Barbara's changed her dress, Charles. Why not say so?
Cholly means exactly what he says, Mother. Please, let's drop the subject.
Oh, I... I'm awfully sorry, Barbara.
You'll get over it, you know.
Personally, I never shut my eyes to the fact...
that there's a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army.
- On the other hand... - That's enough, Charles.
Speak of something suited to your mental capacity.
Thank you for your sympathy, Cholly.
Now go and flirt with Sarah.
Darling.
Barbara, I wish you wouldn't tell Cholly to do things.
- He always comes straight away and does them. - Darling.
Good morning, Lady Brit.
- Good morning, Charley. - Good morning.
- [Sarah] Morning! - Good morning.
[Sizzling]
Just some water, please, Morrison...
with ice in it.
I say, old boy, did you have a bad night?
No, I had a very good night.
In fact, one of the most remarkable nights I ever passed.
- The meeting? - No, after the meeting.
You ought to have gone to bed after the meeting. What were you doing?
- Drinking. - [Lady Brit Gasps]
- Adolphus! - Dolly!
- I say! - What were you drinking, may I ask?
A most devilish Russian spirit. I believe it was vodka.
Are you joking, Dolly?
No. I've been making a night of it with the nominal head of this household, that's all.
Andrew made you drunk?
No, he just provided the drink.
Tell you the truth, I've never been quite drunk before.
I rather liked it last night.
I told you I was possessed.
Possessed? You're not sober yet. Go home to bed at once.
I've never before ventured to reproach you, Lady Brit...
but how could you marry the prince of darkness?
It was much more excusable to marry him than to get drunk with him.
That's a new accomplishment of Andrew's, by the way. He usen't to drink.
He doesn't now, although he had an admirable excuse for doing so last night.
You see, he'd just given away £50,000.
- Given away? - Yes, to the Salvation Army.
And he insisted upon remaining anonymous.
That was rather fine of the old boy, you know? Most chaps would have wanted the advertisement.
He said all the charitable institutions...
would be down on him like kites on a battlefield if he gave his name.
That's Andrew all over. Never does a proper thing without giving an improper reason for it.
He convinced me that I have all my life been doing improper things for proper reasons.
Mr. Undershaft has just arrived.
He's in the drawing room, milady.
Children, go and get ready. Your father doesn't like to be kept waiting.
Adolphus.
Now that Barbara's left the Salvation Army, you had better leave it too.
I will not have you playing that drum in the streets.
Your order is already obeyed, Lady Brit.
Blah!
How fortunate to see you alone.
Don't be sentimental, Andrew.
Sit down.
Sarah must have 800 a year until Charles comes into his property.
Barbara will need more... need it permanently...
because Adolphus hasn't any property.
Yes, my dear. I shall see to it. Anything else? For yourself, for instance?
I want to talk to you about Stephen.
Don't, my dear. Stephen doesn't interest me.
He does interest me!
- He's our son! - Do you really think so?
Andrew, don't be aggravating and don't be wicked! At present, you're both.
Do you pretend that Stephen couldn't carry on the foundry...
just as well as all the other sons of big business houses?
Yes, he could learn the office routine...
without understanding the business like all the other sons.
Stephen is a most steady, capable, high-minded young man.
You're simply trying to find an excuse for disinheriting him.
My dear, the Undershaft tradition disinherits him.
But I must admit it's landed me in a difficulty.
As you yourself remark, I'm getting on in years and I haven't found a fit successor yet.
- There is Stephen. - That's just it.
All the foundlings I can find are exactly like Stephen.
I want a man with no relations and no schooling.
That is, a man who would be out of the running altogether if he weren't a strong man...
and I can't find him.
If you want to keep the business in the family, you'd better find an eligible foundling...
and marry him to Barbara!
You would sacrifice Stephen to Barbara?
Cheerfully! Come, Biddy...
Don't call me Biddy! I don't call you Andy!
And your tie's all on one side. Put it straight.
- Oh, I... I beg your pardon. - No, come in, Stephen.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
I understand you want to come into the cannon business.
I, go into trade?
Certainly not.
Cannons are not trade, Stephen. They're a national enterprise.
I have no intention of becoming a man of business in any sense.
I intend to devote myself to politics.
My dear boy, this is an immense relief to me...
and I trust it may prove an equally good thing for the country.
Stephen, I cannot allow you to throw away an enormous property like this.
Mother, there must be an end of treating me as a child, if you please.
Any further discussions had better take place with my father as between one man and another.
- Stephen! - I am sorry, Mother, that you have false...
I quite understand, Stephen.
By all means, go your own way, if you feel strong enough.
You see, my dear, it's only the big men who can be treated like children.
All right, Stephen, your independence is achieved. You've won your latchkey.
Now, what about your future, just between one man and another?
It's settled that you don't ask for succession to the cannon business.
I hope it is settled that I repudiate the cannon business.
My dear boy, don't be so devilish sulky. Freedom should be generous.
Besides, I owe you a fair start in life in exchange for disinheriting you.
You can't become prime minister all at once, you know.
Haven't you a turn for something? What about literature, art and so forth?
I have nothing of the artist about me, either in faculty or character, thank heaven.
A philosopher, perhaps.
I make no such ridiculous pretension.
Just so. Well, then, there's the army, the navy, the church and the bar.
The bar requires some ability.
What about the bar?
I'm afraid I haven't the necessary push.
I believe that is the name that barristers give their vulgarity for success in pleading.
Rather a difficult case, Stephen.
Hardly anything left but the stage, is there?
Well, is there anything you know or care for?
I know the difference between right and wrong.
You don't say so!
What? No capacity for business?
No knowledge of law? No sympathy with art?
No pretension to philosophy.
Only a simple knowledge of the secret that has baffled all the lawyers...
muddled all the men of business and ruined most of the artists...
the secret of right and wrong.
Why, man, you're a geniusl
A master of mastersl
A god.
And at 28 too.
You are pleased to be facetious.
I pretend to nothing more than any honorable Englishman claims as his birthright.
Oh, very well. Have it your own way.
You know nothing, and you think you know everything.
That points clearly to a political career.
We'll get you a private secretaryship to someone who can get you an under-secretaryship...
and you'll find your natural and proper place in the end...
on the treasury bench.
I'm sorry, sir, that you force me to forget the respect due to you as my father.
I am an Englishman, and I will not hear the government of my country insulted.
The government of your country.
I am the government of your country. I and Lazarus.
Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you...
sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop...
can govern a country like England?
Be off with you, my boy, and play with your historic parties...
and leading articles and burning questions...
and the rest of your toys.
And in return, you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers...
and the delight of imagining that you're a great statesman.
Really, my dear Father...
it's quite impossible to be angry with you.
I suppose it is natural for you to think that money governs England...
but you must allow me to think I know better.
And what does govern England, pray?
Character, Father, character.
Whose character? Yours or mine?
Neither yours nor mine, Father...
but the best elements in the English national character.
Stephen, I've found your profession for you!
You're a born journalist!
We must get you a job on the Times.
- M-M-Mother... - Don't be apologetic, Stephen.
- Yes, but... - And don't forget you've outgrown your mother.
Good morning, Morrison.
Shall we see you again this evening, sir? I'll have your room ready for you.
No, by George!
You look a little pale, my dear.
I've made you unhappy, haven't I?
Do you understand what you've done to me?
Yesterday I had a man's soul in my hand.
I set him in the way of life with his face to salvation.
And when we took your money he turned back again to drunkenness and derision.
I'll never forgive you that. Never.
Does my daughter despair so easily?
Can you strike a man to the heart and leave no mark on him?
You forget, my dear, Bill Walker spat in Todger's eye to save his honor.
He gave up his hard-earned pound to save his soul.
Do you know what a pound means to such a man?
It's your faith that's failing, not his.
Will he ever strike a woman again as he struck Jenny Hill?
You've sent him on the road to his salvation.
It may not be your road, but he won't turn back.
Oh, yes, you're right.
He can never be lost now.
Where was my faith?
[Cusins] Oh, clever, clever devil.
You may be a devil, but God speaks through you sometimes.
You've given me back my happiness and I can feel it deep down now...
though my spirit is troubled.
You've learnt something, my dear. That always feels, at first, as if you'd lost something.
What have Barbara and I got to do with your factory of death? That's what I ask myself.
I've always thought of it as a sort of pit...
where lost creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoking fires...
and were driven and tormented by my father.
- Is it like that, Papa? - My dear, you'll see for yourself.
[Machinery Thumping, Clanking]
[Clanging]
[Cusins] Raw materials of destruction.
[Undershaft] Or construction. How about railway lines, for instance?
[No Audible Dialogue]
Astonishing.
Remember the words of Plato?
Plato? You dare quote a Greek philosopher to me?
Plato says, my friend, that society cannot be saved...
until either the professors of Greek take to making gunpowder...
or else the makers of gunpowder become professors of Greek.
My predecessors, the old swordsmiths, used the same stuff... boiling steel.
Have you found anything discreditable?
Nope.
The men call him Dandy Andy and are proud he's a cunning old rascal.
Well?
You're driving me against my nature. I hate war.
Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.
Dare you make war on war...
here are the means.
Well, Euripides?
You coming into my business?
Understand this, you old demon... You have me in a horrible dilemma.
I want Barbara.
Like most young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference...
between one young woman and another.
Quite true, Dolly.
I refuse to walk another step through all these sheds and pipes and boilers.
They mean nothing to me.
I've never asked you to come look at the kitchen range and the scullery sink.
[Loud Rumbling, Hissing]
Why is that roof making a noise like a whale with asthma?
It's breathing, my love. Come and see.
This is ridiculous. Is it snow, or salt, or what?
Nitrates to make explosives.
Or sulfates to fertilize your fields.
If you prefer the explosive way, that's your affair, not mine.
Come, Euripides, you think that nitrates are good for nothing but death.
Now I'll show you the sort of life they produce.
This is where my workers live. Here they own everything and I own nothing.
- Sort of a cooperative touch, huh? - Exactly, Mr. Lomax.
It makes it very difficult for them to leave my employment.
- But then they don't want to leave it. - Why?
Because they can't better themselves, my love.
- Slavery, I call it. - Do you, my dear?
[Children Laughing, Chattering]
## [Congregation Singing Hymn]
- Sort of ideal church exhibition, what? - Exactly, Mr. Lomax.
It's the result of our belief in religious freedom.
Its official name is the meeting place of all the religions.
The men call it Piety Square.
Are you sure that all this pampering is really good for the men's characters?
My dear boy, when you're organizing civilization...
you have to make up your mind whether trouble and anxiety are good things or not.
If you decide that they are, then I take it you simply don't organize civilization.
Good morning.
However, our characters are safe here.
A sufficient dose of anxiety is always provided...
by the fact that we may all be blown to smithereens at any moment.
- Well? - Not a ray of hope.
Everything perfect, wonderful, real.
It only needs a cathedral to be a heavenly city instead of a hellish one.
And to think of all that being yours, and you've kept it to yourself all these years.
It doesn't belong to me, I belong to it. It's the Undershaft inheritance.
It is not.
Your ridiculous cannons and that noisy, banging foundry may be the Undershaft inheritance...
but all that plate and linen, all those houses and orchards and gardens, they belong to us.
They belong to me. They're not a man's business. I won't give them up!
- What lovely flowers. - Never mind about the flowers, Andrew.
You're trying to put me off the subject of the inheritance. Well, you shan't.
I don't ask it any longer for Stephen.
He's inherited far too much of your perversity to be fit for it.
But Barbara has rights as well as Stephen.
Why should not Adolphus succeed to the inheritance?
[Undershaft] I should ask nothing better if Adolphus were a foundling.
He's exactly the sort of new blood that's wanted in English business.
But he's not a foundling, and there's an end of it.
Not quite.
I think... Mind, I'm not committing myself in any way as to my future course...
but I think the foundling difficulty can be got over.
- What do you mean? - Well, I have something to say which is in the nature of a confession.
- A confession? - A confession?
Yes, a confession.
Listen, all of you.
Won't you sit down?
Until I met Barbara, I thought myself in the main an honorable, truthful man...
because I wanted the approval of my conscience more than I wanted anything else.
But the moment I saw Barbara, I wanted her far more than the approval of my conscience.
- Adolphus! - I thought she was a woman of the people...
and that a marriage with a professor of Greek would be far beyond...
the wildest social ambitions of her rank.
- [Lady Brit] Adolphusl - No, really!
- When I learnt the horrible truth... - What do you mean by the horrible truth, pray?
That she was enormously rich, that her grandfather was an earl, that her father was the prince of darkness...
- Shh! - And that I was only an adventurer trying to catch a rich wife...
then I stooped to deceive her about my birth.
- Dolly! - Your birth?
Adolphus, don't dare make up a wicked story for the sake of these wretched cannons.
Remember, I've seen photographs of your parents.
The agent general for Southwestern Australia knows them personally...
and has assured me they are the most respectable married people.
Oh, so they are, in Australia. But here they're outcasts.
Their marriage is legal in Australia, but not in England.
My mother is my father's deceased wife's sister...
and in this island I am, consequently, a foundling.
I think not. You can marry your wife's sister even in England.
Ah, you can now, but not when my parents married.
Is the subterfuge good enough, Machiavelli?
You're an educated man. That's against the tradition.
Greek hasn't destroyed my mind, it's nourished it.
Beside, I didn't learn it in an English public school.
Biddy, this may be a way out of the difficulties.
Stuff! A man cannot make cannons any better for being his own cousin instead of his proper self.
Well, I can't afford to be too particular. He's cornered the foundling market.
Let it pass.
You're eligible, Euripides, you're eligible!
You know that you'll have to change your name. You object to that?
Would any man named Adolphus... any man called Dolly...
object to being called something else?
Hardly.
Now, as to money, I propose to treat you handsomely from the beginning.
You shall start at a thousand a year.
A thousand?
You dare offer a miserable thousand to the son-in-law of a millionaire?
No, by heavens, Machiavelli, you shall not cheat me.
You can't do without me, and I can do without you.
I must have, uh, £2,500 a year for two years.
At the end of that time, if I'm a failure I go.
But if I'm a success and stay on, you must give me the other 5,000.
What other 5,000?
To make the two years up to 5,000 a year.
The 2,500 is only half pay, in case I should turn out a failure.
The third year I must have, uh, 10% of the profits.
Ten per... Do you know what my profits are?
Enormous, I hope!
Otherwise, I shall require 25%.
But, Mr. Cusins, this is a serious matter of business.
You're not bringing any capital into the concern.
What? No capital?
Is my mastery of Greek no capital?
Is my access to the subtlest thought...
the loftiest poetry yet attained by humanity no capital?
My character? My intellect? My life? My career?
And what Barbara calls my soul?
Are these no capital?
- Say another word, and I double my salary. - Be reasonable.
Mr. Undershaft, you have my terms. Take them or leave them.
Very well. I note your terms, and I offer you half.
- Half? - Half.
You call yourself a gentleman, then you offer me half?
I don't call myself a gentleman, but I offer you half.
This to your future partner, your successor, your son-in-law?
Leave me out of the bargain please, Dolly.
You're selling your own soul, not mine.
Come, I'll go a step further for Barbara's sake. I'll give you three-fifths, but that's my last word.
- Done! - Done in the eye.
[Sighs]
By the way, Mac, I'm a classical scholar, not an arithmetical one.
Is three-fifths more than half or less?
More, of course.
I'd have taken 250.
How you can succeed in business...
when you're willing to pay all that money to a university professor...
who obviously isn't worth a junior clerk's wages, well...
What'll Lazarus say?
He'll be blamed for your rapacity in money matters, poor fellow...
as he's hitherto been blamed for mine.
You're a shark of the first order, Euripides.
So much the better for the firm.
Dolly, old fellow, think. Think before you decide.
Do you feel that you're a sufficiently practical man?
It's a huge undertaking.
An enormous responsibility.
All this mess of business will be Greek to you.
I think it'll be much less difficult than Greek.
[Vehicles Rassing]
[Train Whistle Blows]
- Bill! - Hello, Judy!
What you think of it? Got meself a job... £3.10 a week!
How's that for salvation, eh?
Barbara.
You understand, don't you, that I had to decide without consulting you.
If I had left this choice to you, you'd sooner or later have despised me for it.
Your father's challenge has beaten me.
Dare I make war on war?
I dare. I must!
I will.
And now, is it all over between us?
Silly baby Dolly.
How could it be?
Then you... You...
Oh, for my drum!
Take care, Dolly, take care.
Oh, if only I could get away from you, from Father, and from it all.
- And leave me? - Yes.
But I can't.
I was happy for a moment in the Salvation Army...
but as soon as our money ran short it all came back to Bodger.
Undershaft and Bodger.
Their hands stretch everywhere...
and as long as that lasts there's no getting away from them.
Turning our backs on them is turning our backs on life.
Do you know what would have happened if you'd refused Papa's offer?
- I wonder. - I should have given you up and married the man who'd accepted it.
After all, my dear old mother's got more sense than any of you.
I felt like her when I saw this place, felt that I must have it...
that never, never, never could I let it go.
Only she thought it was all the houses and kitchen ranges and linen and china.
But it was really all the human souls to be saved.
Not weak souls in starved bodies...
sobbing with gratitude for a scrap of bread and scrape...
but souls that are hungry...
because their bodies are full.
My father shall never throw it in my teeth again that my converts were bribed with bread.
I have got rid of the bribe of bread.
I have got rid of the bribe of heaven.
Let God's work be done for its own sake...
the work that he had to create us to do...
because it cannot be done except by living men and women.
Then the way of life lies through the factory of death.
Yes, through the raising of hell to heaven and of man to God...
through the unveiling of an eternal light...
in the valley of the shadow.
Oh, did you think that my courage would never come back?
Did you believe that I was a deserter...
that I, who have stood in the streets and taken my people to my heart...
and talked of the greatest and holiest of things with them...
could ever turn back and chatter foolishly...
to fashionable people about nothing in a drawing room?
Never, never, never, never!
Sooner than that I'd sweep out the gun-cotton sheds...
or be one of Bodger's barmaids.
Major Barbara will die with the colors!
Glory, hallelujah.
[Barbara] Mamal Mamal
- Well, what did she say? - She's gone right up into the skies!
- Mama! - Well, Barbara, what do you want?
A house in the village to live in with Dolly!
6:00 tomorrow morning, Euripides!
I'll see the whole place blown up with its own dynamite before I get up at 5:00!
Here! Remember my tip, mate.
Stop her jaw, or you'll die afore your time!
Wore out, that's what you'll be! Wore out!
[All Laughing]