Mrs. Miniver

It must be over 50 years since I first saw this classic film, and for some reason I never watched it again until recently. To do so was an interesting experience - reliving many memories of the war years which I mostly spent in London. I think the reason why there was such a long interval before I decided to watch it again was a subconscious recognition that it was produced at a time of crisis, largely for political reasons, and a feeling this was unduly evident in the screenplay. Mrs. Miniver was released a few months after Pearl Harbour, at a time when many U.S. citizens wondered why their country should be expending its efforts fighting in Europe when it was Japan which had attacked them The film was quite clearly written, produced and directed with the objective of answering this question. Winston Churchill has made it clear that he regarded the release of this film as one of the biggest single contributions made to the allied war effort (worth, in his words, "a flotilla of destroyers"), and it is hard today not to regard the film as primarily a piece of patriotic propaganda. However the deft and capable direction of William Wyler and the almost uniformly great acting by the cast, particularly Greer Garson as Mrs. Miniver, go a very long way towards concealing the fact that one is viewing a film with a message and few would deny that the Oscars it won were thoroughly deserved. Mrs. Miniver certainly earns its place on any short list of film classics.

There are of course already many comments on this film in the database, I would have been reluctant to add any more but for the realization that people of my age who lived in England during the war are becoming increasingly few, and our comments - which must have a rather different perspective to those of younger generations - will not continue to be available for very much longer. Many of the very fine sequences in this film have already been reviewed more than adequately by others and I will not comment further on them; but two sequences which I found particularly evocative were the call on amateur sailors to help evacuate the British army from Dieppe, and the pub scene where the locals were listening to the British traitor Lord Haw Haw broadcasting from Germany and telling his listeners how futile any further resistance would be. In stating this, I am simply confirming that for such documentary type films people who lived through the events depicted will assess the film on the basis of their personal memories rather than on their cinematographic quality.

Ultimately, both on its first viewing and when viewing it again a few days ago, I found that for me watching Mrs. Miniver was irritating because it inevitably showed an American view of life as it was in England. Numerous very small points indicated that we were seeing a glimpse of middle class English life through American eyes. Whilst as an English born viewer I found this irritating, it did not in any way detract from the primary purpose of the film in showing Americans what life in wartime Britain was really like, and why their involvement in the war in Europe was so vital. Ultimately I had to accept that this was a great film which well deserves its classic status.

When a film touches one's own reality it becomes something rather special. For this reason I have long held a deep affection for Wyler's saga of an English family on the home front from the immediate pre-second world period to the darkest days of the blitz. It has become very fashionable to sneer at "Mrs Miniver" as sentimental propaganda long after the events it depicted. Was it really like that? Well - yes and no. The whole was very cleverly orchestrated by a team of four scriptwriters (including James Hilton), Hollywood's most accomplished director (William Wyler), MGM's able in-house composer (Herbert Stothart), one of their best cameramen (Joseph Ruttenburg) and a cast, when not verging on the caricature, giving the nearest semblance to the emotions I can remember living through as a child during those dark days. No one sneered at the time and the film gathered a well deserved collection of Oscars. It was only afterwards that doubts set in and reactions from a new generation became derisory. Looking at it today there are many things that are not quite right but they tend to be minor such as the risibly awful choir at the garden party, the maid snivelling to the point of embarrassment, the phoney look of American style fencing around those English gardens and the endless digs at class which, although part and parcel of how things were, were never quite so overstated. Where the work really comes into its own is in its portrayal of human emotions which was always Wyler's trump card. A film that attempts to enshrine that spirit of togetherness that comes to the fore in times of adversity and the fight against a common evil needed a director able to convey with an almost tactile sense of human passion. William Wyler, who during his great period from "Jezebel" in 1938 to "Carrie" in 1952 depicted the human heart with an intensity that has hardly ever been seen before or since, invested his depiction of the British wartime home front with a sincerity that almost completely deflects the arrows of criticism it has so often received. Ask again if it was really like that and I would cite the air-raid shelter scene some two-thirds of the way through as being in every sense definitive. My mother protected me in just such a way during air-raids in South London during the 1940 blitz as do the Miniver parents their children. I remember the crescendo of destructive sounds as depicted in the film as if only yesterday.

What a wonderful film Mrs Miniver still is 58 years later. Like Coppola's 'Gardens of Stone', it deals with war by following the lives of those affected by it, and without showing any combat. It's moving, but unlike many other films of the period, totally unsentimental, though has many warm and winning moments (Pidgeon spanking Garson as the maid walks in, following an eventful morning, to say the least!)

Two sequences particularly clicked on this viewing. The first involves the son/pilot who is recalled to service abruptly when his leave has only just begun. He goes upstairs to get his belongings, the mother and fiancée are left in the room, with the backs of their heads to camera - a most unusual shot 'against the rules' of filming. Then you realise the centre of attention is the space left on the stair by the son - they and we are missing him, awaiting his return, but only for a moment as he must leave again. It's as poignant as the doorway framing scenes in 'The Searchers', and rather subtle.

Another scene is the family in the air raid shelter undergoing a bombing attack. The claustrophobia of the situation, and the bravery and dignity of the powerless family caught there, is focused by a single point of view. The unspoken fear is on the face of Garson, vocalised by the kids who finally awake as the bombardment increases. Long, simple takes perfectly capture the intense atmosphere (and exceptional acting.

When I was young I never appreciated this art of 'invisible' film-making, and just why such directors as William Wyler or Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder do such a good job without you even noticing. The fact their films stand the test of time so well is testament to their wonderful abilities as film-makers.

This film is great movie because it pulls at the heartstrings and brings forth real emotion in the viewer. As somebody who has recently moved away from a war-zone, the sense of loss of the innocent at the hands of a heartless and remorseless enemy actually moved me to tears.

I can see why the movie won so many Oscars - the performances are far above the standards of many of today's "greats", and the longer shots (unlike today's "grunge" editing or excessive camera movements) give the cast a chance to act out scenes in depth instead of doing one line at a time as is the current vogue. In one scene between the young Belden and Miniver, all the dialogue is conveyed by subtle body language. We don't see that from most modern films - cheap dialogue substitutes for communication. Less really is more.

I have one niggle - every single visual detail is wrong - it was filmed in America, where everything looks different. The train was not a Southern Region train, the garden fence wasn't British, and the interiors were like nothing you'd seen in English villages. And some of the accents were uncomfortably like products from "Dick Van Dyke's School of Bad Cockney" - a dialect only spoken in the East End of London!!!

Other than that, this film was a great, and I await the DVD eagerly.

With her peaceful English life suddenly thrown into turmoil by the Second World War, MRS. MINIVER continues to provide a solid rock of security for her family.

Released seven months after America's entry into the War, this film did a great deal to inform the American people about Britain's defiance against Nazi Germany and the steadfast resolution of the British people in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. Coming at a time of heightened emotions - as well as being expertly produced and extremely well acted - it is easy to see why the film earned 6 Oscars, including Best Picture & Best Director.

Greer Garson is completely marvelous in the title role, (for which she won the Best Actress Oscar), presenting a portrait of grace & courage under fire which transcends mere acting. She is representing an entire island full of women who grew the crops & ran the factories and kept the nation operating while the men went to battle. Through her wonderful performance, Garson shows how those she symbolized more than did their part in the fight against the Axis.

Two other ladies give outstanding performances in the film. As the local aristocrat, Dame May Whitty is properly imperious & proud, yet the viewer sees her character unbend over the course of the film to become much more vulnerable. Winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, lovely Teresa Wright is luminous as Dame May's granddaughter. Sweetly sensible, elegantly at ease, joyous during hardships, Miss Wright gives a performance not easy to forget.

In solid, understated roles, both Walter Pidgeon as Mr. Miniver & Richard Ney as his elder son, supply good support to the ladies in the cast. Pidgeon gets to pilot one of the Little Boats to Dunkirk and Ney becomes a flyer with the RAF, but both are performed in an almost subdued manner, leaving the heroics to the women.

A quintet of fine actors add small, deft brushstrokes to the movie's canvas: cherubic Henry Travers as the station-master who delights in the gentle art of breeding roses; blustery Reginald Owen as the local storekeeper who eagerly takes over as air raid warden; kindly Henry Wilcoxon as the village vicar; blunt Rhys Williams as the boyfriend of the Miniver's maid (comically played by Brenda Forbes); and Helmut Dantine as the pitiless German pilot who briefly invades the Miniver household.

Six-year-old Christopher Severn will either delight or annoy as the Miniver's talkative infant son. Clare Sandars, as his slightly older sister, is left something of a cipher by the script.

Movie mavens should recognize Ian Wolfe, uncredited as a boatman helping with the Dunkirk rescue.

The scenes involving the brutal aerial bombardment are still vividly suspenseful, focusing primarily on the faces of the actors involved.