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| Today's post is dedicated to Paul's Auntie Angela and her new husband Colin whose wedding we attended earlier today! |
Plot Intro
Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) lives her idyllic lifestyle with her husband, Clem (Walter Pidgeon), her grown-up son Vin (Richard Ney) and her two smaller children. She spends her time bantering with the servants and supporting train station conductors in flower shows- she’s awfully nice. Then, war hits! Vin goes off to serve, leaving his fiance (Teresa Wright), Clem gets involved in Dunkirk and Kay ends up performing acts of heroism that she never knew she could achieve.
Doug says...
Mrs Miniver is an interesting film in our overall catalogue. On the one hand it’s a simple patriotism-inducing effort, detailing the Minivers’ life in World War II and how they deal with bombing raids, death and chaos. On the other hand it’s a hugely important piece of social propaganda. The director William Wyler openly admitted he created it in order to encourage the US to join the war, showing the plight of ordinary plucky Britons thrown headfirst into fighting for their country.
For me it bordered a little on the ridiculous. At one point Mrs Miniver (Greer Garson, doing a sterling job of turning trite lines into something more powerful) captures a German parachutist who delivers a monologue in her kitchen about how Germany will crush everyone without mercy. Famously the film ends with a vicar giving a huge speech about how this is everyone’s war, delivered from a pulpit in a bombed-out church. This speech was written the night before by the actor who gave it (Henry Wilcoxon), and was so well received that it was later printed in Time magazine and endorsed by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a catalyst for the US’s involvement in WWII, it seems to have been substantially influential.
But where the film succeeds dramatically for me is in the smaller details. Wyler later said that he had romanticised the war too much and not gone far enough in showing the horrors of it. But I think he does himself down a little - in one scene Mr and Mrs Miniver are spending the evening with their two youngest children and family cat in their Anderson shelter (a rough bomb shelter in the garden). It’s all pleasant and they’re reading Alice in Wonderland, until the bombs begin to fall and you really do get a sense - more than any other war film we’ve seen so far - that this is a terrifying situation to be in.
There’s a love story too between the Minivers’ eldest son and the granddaughter of the local aristocracy which is sweet enough and very well acted (although the real gossip is that Greer Garson married the actor who played this son shortly after the film ended. It did not last). But apart from that, it’s a bit of an obvious film - lots of mentions about roses (a symbol of England) not dying and staying strong. And on top of it all, there’s Mrs Miniver herself wandering about and being brave and full of fortitude etc. While Churchill himself said this film did more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers, it hasn’t necessarily lasted well. Written entirely for the mid-war audience of the time, this isn’t a film with an eye on how it will fare in future decades. But why should it be? It clearly achieved its purpose of uplifting and moving the audience for whom it was written. And that is - one could argue - the entire point of cinema.
Highlight
The scene in the bomb shelter and another scene when Mrs Miniver drives a car through a bombing attack are excellently done in giving a flavour of how terrifying these day-to-day situations would have been for ordinary citizens during the war.
Lowlight
The German Parachutist and his monologue proving how ‘evil’ the Germans are was far too on-the-nose for me. It felt as if the film had tipped from realism into spoof, to its own detriment.
Fun Fact!
Mrs Miniver was so successful that they made a sequel in the ‘50s, in which Kay Miniver has an affair with someone and then dies. I’d say spoiler alert but the chances of any readers watching this are minimal.
Mark
5.5/10
Paul says...
Having read a few reviews about it, we had to go into Mrs Miniver with a sense of humour- and thank heavens we did. In this version of 1942, our heroes and heroines attend lovely flower shows in between air raids, make perfectly-constructed grandiose speeches about the importance of community and perseverance, and maintain stiff-lipped, jaw-jutted looks of ferocity into the middle-distance at all times. The back of the DVD calls it “idealised” which is the understatement of the century- William Wyler might as well have made a film about the Holocaust with musical numbers.
It’s hard to criticise this too much (but I’m going to do it anyway) because Mrs Miniver would have resonated with early-40’s audiences ten times more than today’s cynical crowd. Greer Garson epitomised exactly what every struggling housewife aspired towards, with Walter Pidgeon’s acts of heroism at Dunkirk appealing to the middle-aged men left at home. The vicar’s final speech no doubt send seismic waves through the cinema’s audiences, and rallied up the troops for England no end. Nowadays, however, after a multitude of far grittier war films flagging up a more pacifist message, the film’s attempts at inspiration feel vapid. One might argue that it’s even quite tasteless in its quaint pastoral setting, and it’s lack of exploration of WHY we are fighting a war. As far as these script-writers are concerned, we must all steel ourselves to fight because….well…..ENGLAND.
It is a credit to Greer Garson that, amidst her lengthy glares of fear and fortitude into the sky (she’s a dream model for any communist stonemason), she manages to turn an unsubtle script into something natural and spontaneous. She gives incredible side-eye when her eldest son returns from Oxford University with woefully misinformed and self-righteous views on the class system, and I found myself supporting her courage and resourcefulness when she ends up with a German parachutist in her kitchen (the life of a 40’s housewife, eh?).
The film’s vacuity thankfully diminishes as it progresses. Scenes in the air raid shelters are genuinely frightening and I loved how minimalist they were- virtually no dialogue, no changes to camera angles and no special effects. Just the sound of explosions and jolts of fear running through the characters. Very Hitchcockian. And I found the unexpected (if unlikely) death of one of the main characters very moving too.
So Mrs Miniver isn’t all desperately patriotic schmaltz. It’s Important (with a capital I) and played a key role in propping up a war-weary audience. But, by today’s standards, it lacks the nuances of How Green Was My Valley, which wasn’t afraid to portray its characters as flawed, and the sweeping emotions of Gone With the Wind. Next week’s iconic entry will take us to far darker territory.
Highlight
Like Doug, I found the air raid shelter scenes to be harrowing. A brilliant insight into what it must have been like.
Lowlight
The entire subplot involving a flower show competition. I get that it’s supposed to help audiences identify with the characters, and support the idea of carrying on with everyday life despite the bombings, but a flower show is my idea of hell.
Fun Fact!
Greer Garson won Best Actress for this. Her acceptance speech was a lengthy five and a half minutes (rumours abounded that it was 55 minutes). Since then, Oscar acceptance speeches have had a time limit of 45 seconds. Thanks Greer!
Mark
5/10
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