Themes: Life on the Homefront, Women During Wartime
Main Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen
Release Year: 1942
Country: US
Run Time: 134 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
As Academy Award-winning films go, Mrs. Miniver has not weathered the years all that well. This prettified, idealized view of the upper-class British home front during World War II sometimes seems over-calculated and contrived when seen today. In particular, Greer Garson's Oscar-winning performance in the title role often comes off as artificial, especially when she nobly tends her rose garden while her stalwart husband (Walter Pidgeon) participates in the evacuation at Dunkirk. However, even if the film has lost a good portion of its ability to move and inspire audiences, it is easy to see why it was so popular in 1942-and why Winston Churchill was moved to comment that its propaganda value was worth a dozen battleships. Everyone in the audience-even English audiences, closer to the events depicted in the film than American filmgoers-liked to believe that he or she was capable of behaving with as much grace under pressure as the Miniver family. The film's setpieces-the Minivers huddling in their bomb shelter during a Luftwaffe attack, Mrs. Miniver confronting a downed Nazi paratrooper in her kitchen, an annual flower show being staged despite the exigencies of bombing raids, cleric Henry Wilcoxon's climactic call to arms from the pulpit of his ruined church-are masterfully staged and acted, allowing one to ever so briefly forget that this is, after all, slick propagandizing. In addition to Best Picture and Best Actress, Mrs. Miniver garnered Oscars for best supporting actress (Teresa Wright), best director (William Wyler), best script (Arthur Wimperis, George Froschel, James Hilton, Claudine West), best cinematography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and best producer (Sidney Franklin). Sidebar: Richard Ney, who plays Greer Garson's son, later married the actress-and still later became a successful Wall Street financier. Mrs. Miniver was followed by a 1951 sequel, The Miniver Story, but without the wartime setting the bloom was off the rose. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Mrs. Miniver was a World War II propaganda film that, early in the war, helped build and sustain public support for the United States' involvement in Europe. Parts of it may now seem forced and artificial, particularly Greer Garson's Oscar-winning performance. Garson's Oscar win and lengthy acceptance speech became a long-running joke in Hollywood -- for example, the claims that she stayed at the podium for 45 minutes or more. (Her actual acceptance remarks took around 5 minutes, still the longest-ever Oscar acceptance speech.) The film contains the sort of elements that you would expect it to contain. Garson is the strong-willed British homemaker who refuses to allow Nazi bombs to ruin her roses. She is noble and brave and self-sacrificing and all those things that a government asks its people to be in times of war. The film is constructed so smoothly that it's easy to overlook its craft. Hollywood did its part for the war effort and honored Mrs. Miniver with six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director (William Wyler). As soon as WWII was over, Wyler would direct The Best Years of Our Lives, the era's most insightful movie about the hardships that war brings to families. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
The film adaptation of Mrs. Miniver was produced by MGM in 1942 with Greer Garson in the leading role and William Wyler directing. Under the influence of the American Office of War Information, the film attempted to undermine Hollywood's prewar depiction of England as a glamorous bastion of social privilege, anachronistic habits and snobbery in favour of more democratic, modern images. To this end, the social status enjoyed by the Miniver family in the print version was downgraded and increased attention was given to the erosion of class barriers under the pressures of wartime.
The film exceeded all expectations, grossing $5,358,000 in North America (the highest for any MGM film at the time) and $3,520,000 abroad. In Britain, it was named the top box office attraction of 1942. Of the 592 film critics polled by American magazine Film Daily, 555 named it the best film of 1942.
Plot
Teresa Wright, Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson
Although not as 'socially privileged' as in the book, the Mrs. Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) of the film version is still presented as living a comfortable life at a house called 'Starlings' in a village outside London. The house has a large garden, with a private landing stage on the river Thames, and a motorboat. Her husband Clem (Canadian-born actor Walter Pidgeon) is a successful English architect (despite his North American accent). They have three children: the youngsters Toby and Judy (Christopher Severn and Clare Sandars), and an older son Vin (Richard Ney) who is at university. They have live-in staff: Gladys the housemaid (Brenda Forbes) and Ada the cook (Marie De Becker).
As World War II looms, Vin comes down from university and meets Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright), granddaughter of aristocratic Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty) from nearby Beldon Hall. Despite initial disagreements, for example the contrast of Vin's idealistic attitude to class differences and Carol's practical altruism, they fall in love: Vin proposes to Carol at dinner time after young brother Toby has embarrassingly blurted out that he should do so if they are in love. They eventually marry. As the war comes closer to home, Vin feels he must do his bit, joins the Royal Air Force as a pilot, and when qualified is posted to a base near to his parents' home. Clem takes his motorboat to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation.[2] There are scenes of the family during an air-raid, when Mr. Foley (Reginald Owen), the storekeeper and air-raid warden, advises them to close their curtains; and they are shown in their shelter in the garden. Left alone at home, Kay finds a wounded German pilot (Helmut Dantine) in her garden. She feeds him, then calmly disarms him and calls the police.
After the flower show's competition, in which the entry of the stationmaster (Henry Travers) named the 'Mrs. Miniver' rose is declared the winner over Lady Beldon's rose, Kay, with Carol, drives Vin to join his squadron just as an air attack begins. On their return home Kay stops the car: Carol is wounded in an attack from a German plane, and she dies a few minutes after they reach home. The local inhabitants assemble at the badly damaged church where their vicar (Henry Wilcoxon), affirms their determination in a powerful sermon:
"We in this quiet corner of England have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us, some close to this church. George West, choirboy. James Ballard, stationmaster and bellringer, and the proud winner only an hour before his death of the Beldon Cup for his beautiful Miniver Rose. And our hearts go out in sympathy to the two families who share the cruel loss of a young girl who was married at this altar only two weeks ago.
"The homes of many of us have been destroyed, and the lives of young and old have been taken. There's scarcely a household that hasn't been struck to the heart.
"And why? Surely you must have asked yourselves this question? Why in all conscience should these be the ones to suffer? Children, old people, a young girl at the height of her loveliness? Why these? Are these our soldiers? Are these our fighters? Why should they be sacrificed?
"I shall tell you why. Because this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform. It is the war of the people, of all the people. And it must be fought not only on the battlefield but in the cities and in the villages, in the factories and on the farms, in the home and in the heart of every man, woman and child who loves freedom.
"Well, we have buried our dead, but we shall not forget them. Instead they will inspire us with an unbreakable determination to free ourselves, and those who come after us, from the tyranny and terror that threaten to strike us down.
"This is the People's War! It is our war! We are the fighters! Fight it then! Fight it with all that is in us! And may God defend the right."
The congregation stand in unity and sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers" at the top of their voices, while through a gaping hole in the bombed-out roof in the sky above can be seen flight after flight of RAF fighters in the V-for-Victory formation.
Wilcoxon and director William Wyler "wrote and re-wrote" this key sermon "the night before the sequence was to be shot."[3] The speech "made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory."[3]
Soon after filming, Richard Ney, who played Greer Garson's son and 11 years her junior, married Garson.
Radio adaptations
The film was adapted into an episode of the Lux Radio Theater in 1943. That episode in turn was popular enough to inspire a 5 day a week serial, starring radio veteran Trudy Warner on CBS[4].
Television adaptation
A 90 minutes television adaptation was broadcast on CBS in 1960 with Maureen O'Hara as Mrs Miniver and Leo Genn as Clem Miniver, directed by Marc Daniels.
^ There is a parallel story here: Sub-Lieut. Robert Owen Wilcoxon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, only brother of Henry Wilcoxon, assisted in the Dunkirk evacuation on May 29th 1940; but, having helped to get hundreds of Allied troops off the beach to safety in his assault landing craft, he was fatally injured when, after returning to the sloop HMS Bideford to arrange a tow back to Dover, the ship had its stern blown off by a bomb dropped from a dive-bombing German aircraft. This must have been on Wilcoxon's mind during the making of the film. This event is reported in the book The Evacuation from Dunkirk, 'Operation Dynamo', 26 May-4 June 1940 ed. W. J. R. Gardner, pub. Frank Cass, London, 2000 ISBN 0714651206.
^ abDaynard, DonHenry Wilcoxon in Peter Harris (ed.) The New Captain George's Whizzbang #13 (1971), p. 5
