Product: The Great Mr. Handel [VHS] (1942)
Rating: 4.0
FUn, but hardly accurate
More than anything, "The Great Mr. Handel" serves as a window into a world (1940s Britain) where everything was correct and right, yet encrusted with passé (and just downright wrong) Victorian music legends. Granted, there's been a whole hell of a lot of research on Handel and his era, so the people involved in this film were working with what knowledge they had. As the first reviewer on this page, Stephen C. Charitan mentions, the soundtrack is performed by a Wagnerian-sized orchestra (The London Symphony Orchestra?) even going so far as to employ clashing cymbals during "For Unto Us a Child Is Born", something the real Mr. Handel would have been appalled by. The comparison of the Victorian-era performance practice (say, a herd of lusty, rampaging bulls) with the much streamlined sound of today (a Lamborghini) is startling. The original chorus for "Messiah" consisted of about 16 men and boys, not something akin to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But such were the tastes of the day 67 years ago.As movies must from time to time, the action in TGMH is much streamlined. I must take to task the film's outrageous portrayal of poor Georg's spiritual ephiphany. Again, the saccharine religious reverence in the movie was merely appropriate for the time and situation, 1942 and the middle of World War II). In truth, Handel was more of an agnostic than a raving Christian given to tears and *mea culpas*. Ambivalent to religious custom, his enormous talent was more than sufficient to create his singularly perfect oeuvre.Still, it's a very watchable movie and I highly recommend it, bearing in mind the excesses of the era in which it was produced.