The Great Mr. Handel

Produced byJames B. SloanStarringCinematographyEdited bySam SimmondsMusic byDistributed byGeneral Film Distributors98 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

The Great Mr. Handel is a 1942 British Technicolor historical film directed by Norman Walker and starring Wilfrid Lawson, Elizabeth Allan and Malcolm Keen.^[1] The film is a biopic of the 18th-century German-British composer Georg Friedrich Händel, focusing in particular on the years leading up to his 1741 oratorio Messiah.^[2]

• Wilfrid Lawson as George Frideric Handel
• Elizabeth Allan as Mrs. Cibber
• Malcolm Keen as Lord Chesterfield
• Michael Shepley as Sir Charles Marsham
• Max Kirby as Frederick, Prince of Wales
• Hay Petrie as Phineas
• Morris Harvey as John Heidegger
• A. E. Matthews as Charles Jennens
• Frederick Cooper as Pooley
• Andrew Leigh as Captain Coram

The film was made by the Rank Organisation at Denham Studios, using Technicolor. After a private screening, the company head J. Arthur Rank criticised its lack of glamorous appeal. The film was not a box office success on its release.^[3]

• Harper, Sue. Picturing the Past: The Rise and Fall of the British Costume Film. British Film Institute, 1994.
• Macnab, Geoffrey. J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry. Routledge, 1994.
• Murphy, Robert. Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain, 1939-1949. Routledge, 1989.

• The Great Mr. Handel at IMDb