Mrs Miniver 1942

The Film:

The poster states that it's "The Greatest Movie Ever Made". Well, it's not, by anyone's standards. But the claim is a good example of the wartime hype that was going on in 1942-43 that led to both the making of this film and its subsequent recognition in the form of six Oscars.

The film itself has an interesting production history and is a really good example of subtle (yet very unsubtle) propaganda. It is based on a book that was published in 1940 - just after the outbreak of war in Europe. The book was almost immediately optioned and the film was already in pre-production before the end of the year. Parts of the script were re-written time after time throughout 1941 to reflect changing US attitudes towards the war, and much of it was filmed before the US joined the war in December. The scene with the only German character in the whole film (the shot down airman) was reshot in January 1942 to be a bit more anti-German, and the final rousing speech was one of the last bits to be filmed.

So - blatant propaganda, aimed squarely at US audiences (although very British in its story!) with a plea in the final frames for everyone to buy War Bonds. Churchill apparently said it did more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers and even Goebbels admired the film as a refined and effective piece of propaganda - managing to stir up anti-German feelings without ever saying a word against Germany.

Having never seen it before I admit that we were both very skeptical of how well a very "of-its-time" piece of American war propaganda set in a quaint English village would stand up to a 21st Century viewing!

The Ceremony:

Bob Hope and Oscar. Starting to become a
permanent double act

The 15th Academy Awards took place on March 4th 1943 at the Cocoanut Grove. Bob Hope hosted
(again).

Greer Garson gave a six minute long acceptance speech (about 30 seconds of it is on Youtube and she seems to cover everything, so I can't imagine what the rest of it was about). It remains the longest ever and is likely to do so now that the music comes in and winners are unceremoniously swept off the stage after about 90 seconds these days!

Also, it was the first and only time that there was a four-way tie for an award. This was for Best Documentary. To be fair, there was a very long list of nominees and a very clear overriding theme amongst them (more of that below!). Among the winners were films directed by Ford and Capra, who already had several awards each to their name.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Greer and Jimmy

Mr Miniver won six awards - including Director and both of the Actress awards (Greer Garson and Teresa Wright). James Cagney took Best Actor for Yankee Doodle Dandy, and gave a far shorter speech than his counterpart!

Wartime themes were everywhere - the four Documentary winners all had this in common. As did the Animation winner - a Donald Duck cartoon called Der Fuehrer's Face (Donald's only Oscar!). Some thought the cartoon was a bit tasteless and there was definitely no real place for it after the war, so it was out of circulation and unavailable for several decades. But it's now on Youtube, so judge for yourself:

Best Song:

A real classic this year. Internationally I think this still counts as the best selling single of all time and it's as ubiquitous as previous winner Over The Rainbow. I think familiarity breeds contempt a bit with this one, but I still love Holiday Inn (controversial Lincoln number and all!) and re-watch it pretty regularly - so I get to sing along to this in its original setting once in a while.

Irving Berlin was not only the recipient of the award this year, but also the presenter. I'm pretty sure that's not been allowed to happen since......

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Jimmy in action - doing what, unfortunately,
he's not best remembered for

Out of the list of nominees, the only other films I've seen are Yankee Doodle Dandy (years ago - I need to watch it again) and The Magnificent Ambersons (which was hacked to bits whilst Orson Welles was out of the country, so is not the film he intended to make - which is a shame, as it's a good film crying out to be a great film). There are other classics on the list, such as Pride of the Yankees and Random Harvest. I should probably watch both of those one day.

But it was always going to be Mrs Miniver and her wartime struggles. And I suppose that's fair enough!


Our Verdict:

A rose by any other name,,,,,,

We started watching the film with reasonably low expectations. Andy was clearly gearing up to cope with schmaltz and outdated stereotypes with a healthy dose of sarcasm. The opening scenes that tried a little too hard to paint Mrs M as some sort of 40s WAG didn't help at all - and certainly didn't do the rest of the film any favours.

When Mrs M gets back to the village fresh from her frivolous shopping trip she comes across Henry Travers (a few years before he played his most famous part as Clarence, Angel 2nd Class) and his accent wavers uncomfortably between US character actor and member of The Archers cast. A great deal is made of him naming a rose after Mrs M - for reasons that will become clear much later.....

Quite possibly the nicest, realest posh English family
ever portrayed on film!

At this point I'm still not entirely sure, but then we get back to the Miniver family home, Starlings, and I'm pretty much immediately won over. Mrs M chats realistically on the phone while her husband is faffing about. Mr M is incredibly lovely (Walter Pigeon successfully playing an Englishman with an American accent, one year after playing a Welshman with an American accent) and the interplay between the two of them is natural and clearly physical and passionate without anything "untoward" being said or done. Then we cut to Mrs M talking to the younger two children about how their older brother is "going through a phase". The conversation is well written and acted and just shows a really lovely and very real family doing family things. I think this is my favourite thing about the whole film. The family are brilliant. Down to earth, realistic, loving, funny and very easy to get caught up with. I love the interplay around the dinner table in several scenes and the way they talk to each other in more difficult times, like when they are stuck in air raid shelters. The random cat is all a part of this. Judy has the least to say, but some of the best moments - like asking Vin to bring her back a souvenir. What does she want? "A Messerschmitt!" Also the scene where Vin is heading over to the Beldon mansion and she asks if she can go with him. Mum says it's up to Vin. Judy gets up to follow him and there's a firm "No!" from offscreen, so she sits back down again. All of this feels very modern, totally unstuffy and just makes the whole film for me.

Single beds? Who do you think you're fooling Will Hays?

At the heart of the family are Mr and Mrs Miniver and they are both superb. Greer and Walter have undoubtable chemistry (which is why they were paired up on screen so many times). They are also very earthy and real. Totally believable as a loving couple - including physically. Which makes the way they skirt round the Hays Code in the bedroom pretty impressive. Any scene that doesn't show more than one of them actually on the bed gives the impression that there's only one bed in there - it's only one morning scene that reveals (unconvincingly) that they sleep apart. (Unfortunately there is really no way of getting round the preposterous single beds in the bedroom of newlyweds Vin and Carol. Given their fate I hope to God they pushed them together at least once!)

But what became of the crazy cat????

 Anyway, enough of my obsession with the domestic lives of the Minivers. This is a war film. There are scenes of war. There is some impressive cinematography - tracking shots of Dunkirk, planes being shot down etc. There is a really well played scene where Mrs M finds a German soldier that could so easily have gone horribly wrong, but doesn't. And there's a brilliantly claustrophobic scene in an Anderson shelter that very quickly turns from knitting and chatting into holding on to each other for dear life. Mrs M reassures Toby that the manic cat is hiding under the bed, but I fear he may have met a sticky end as that's the last we see of him!

Henry Travers and his rose make a reappearance to ensure that the heartstrings are well and truly tugged towards the end of the film - as Lady Beldon concedes and awards him the cup for Best Rose, just as the planes start to fly over again. It's the nearest to pure schmaltz but it works wonderfully (especially when we later find out who did and didn't survive the raid) and gives Dame May Whitty the chance to deliver the best line of the film - "Our enemies are no respecters of flower shows!" - which pretty much sums the whole thing up.

"Our enemies are no respecters of flower shows!"

The final scene in the church is quite a famous one, particularly the Vicar's speech - although said speech doesn't sound quite right to 21st Century ears. The construction of the scene is lovely, particularly when the camera pans round and reveals that half the church is missing! The names of the dead that are read out are all civilians - a very clever move from a propaganda point of view. And we leave the family and their community to carry on and deal with whatever is coming next - not knowing (or, at least, the viewers at the time didn't know) what is coming next, how long things will last, or who will be the ultimate victors.

In short - I liked the film a lot. There were things about it I really loved. I was quite surprised by this and am now happy to say that it deserved its Oscar - not just because of the moment in history in which it won, but because the film itself was impressively made and still enjoyable and thought provoking 75 years later.