Mrs. Miniver | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | William Wyler |
Screenplay by | |
Based on | Mrs. Miniver 1939 book (from newspaper column Mrs. Miniver) by Jan Struther |
Produced by | Sidney Franklin |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Joseph Ruttenberg |
Edited by | Harold F. Kress |
Music by |
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Production company | |
Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release dates |
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Running time | 133 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.34 million [2] |
Box office | $8.9 million [2] |
Mrs. Miniver is a 1942 American romantic war drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon. Inspired by the 1940 novel Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther, [3] it shows how the life of an unassuming British housewife in rural England is affected by World War II. Produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, its supporting cast includes Teresa Wright, May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney and Henry Wilcoxon. [4]
It was a critical and a commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1942 and winning six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Garson), and Best Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright). [5] [6] It was the first film centered on World War II to win Best Picture, and the first to receive five acting nominations. [7] The film ranked 40th on the American Film Institute's list of most inspirational movies.
In 2009, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
A sequel, The Miniver Story (1950) was made with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon reprising their roles. [4]
Kay Miniver lives a comfortable life in Belham, a fictional village outside London. Her devoted husband, Clem, is an architect. They have three children: the youngsters, Toby and Judy, and an older son, Vin, a student at Oxford University.
As World War II looms, Vin returns from university and meets Carol Beldon, granddaughter of Lady Beldon from nearby Beldon Hall. Despite initial disagreements, they fall in love. As the war comes closer to home, Vin enlists in the Royal Air Force, qualifying as a fighter pilot. He is posted to a base near his parents' home and can signal his safe return from operations to his parents by "blipping" his engine briefly as he flies over the house. Vin proposes to Carol in front of his family at home.
Together with other boat owners, Clem volunteers to take his motorboat, the Starling, to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation. Early one morning, Kay wanders down to the landing stage and discovers a wounded German pilot hiding in her garden. He takes her to the house at gunpoint, where she feeds him, calmly disarms him when he collapses, and calls the police. Soon after, Clem returns home, exhausted, from Dunkirk.
Lady Beldon visits Kay to try to convince her to talk Vin out of marrying Carol on account of her granddaughter's comparative youth at age eighteen and short engagement. Kay reminds her that she, too, had been young when she married her late husband. Lady Beldon concedes defeat. Carol marries Vin, becoming another Mrs. Miniver even though she fears Vin is likely to be killed in action. During an air raid, Kay and her family take refuge in their Anderson shelter in the garden and attempt to keep their minds off the bombing by reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . They narrowly survive as a bomb destroys part of the house. Vin and Carol return from their honeymoon in Scotland and see the damage to the house, but Kay has arranged Vin's room for them.
At the annual village flower show, Lady Beldon disregards the judges' decision that her rose is the winner. Instead, she announces the rose entered by the local stationmaster, Mr. Ballard, named the "Mrs. Miniver" as the winner, with her own Beldon Rose taking second prize. As air raid sirens sound and the villagers take refuge in the cellars of Beldon Hall, Kay and Carol drive Vin to join his squadron. On their journey home, they see a German ME-110 lose a dogfight and crash. Immediately afterwards, two fighters duel at treetop level. Realizing Carol has been wounded by machine-gun fire from the planes, Kay takes her back to Starlings, where she dies.
The villagers assemble at the bomb-damaged church where their vicar affirms their determination in a 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.
Lady Beldon stands alone in her family's church pew. Vin moves to stand alongside her, united in grief, as the members of the congregation sing "Onward, Christian Soldiers". Meanwhile, visible through the holes in the roof, RAF fighters in "V for Victory" formations depart to face the enemy.
The film entered pre-production in the autumn of 1940, when the United States was still a neutral country. Over the several months the screenplay was written, the U.S. moved closer to war. As a result, scenes were rewritten to reflect Americans' more realistic view of the war. For example, the scene where Mrs. Miniver confronts a downed German pilot in her garden was made more confrontational in each revision.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the U.S. into the war, the garden scene was re-filmed to reflect the tough, new spirit of a nation at war. The key difference was that in the new version of the scene, filmed in February 1942, Mrs. Miniver was allowed to slap the pilot across the face. The film was released four months later. [9]
Wilcoxon and director William Wyler "wrote and re-wrote" the key sermon scene the night before it was shot. [10] 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". [10] Roosevelt ordered the film rushed to the theaters for propaganda purposes. [11] The sermon dialogue was reprinted in Time and Look magazines. [12]
Mrs. Miniver had a profound impact on British audiences. Historian Tony Judt wrote that it was "a very English tale of domestic fortitude and endurance, of middle-class reticence and perseverance, set symptomatically around the disaster at Dunkirk where all these qualities were taken to be most on display—[it] was a pure product of Hollywood. Yet for the English generation that first saw it the film would long remain the truest representation of national memory and self-image." [13]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "An excessively sentimental piece of propaganda, Mrs. Miniver nonetheless succeeds, due largely to Greer Garson's powerful performance." [14]
In 2006, the film was ranked No. 40 on the American Film Institute's list of the most inspiring American films of all time. In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant: [15]
This remarkably touching wartime melodrama pictorials the classic British stiff upper lip and the courage of a middle-class English family (headed by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) amid the chaos of air raids and family loss. The film's iconic tribute to the sacrifices on the home front, as movingly directed by William Wyler, did much to rally America's support for its British allies. [15]
Film critic Manny Farber writing in The New Republic registered this response to the picture:
Mrs. Miniver is about an English family which is prissy and fake like all screen families. The five Minivers are all very pretty and behave according to Will Hays and whoever wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy . Greer Garson makes motherhood seem the profession of impeccable taste and Walter Pidgeon acts the wise father by smoking a pipe, nodding his head knowingly and saying nothing…The older son is a mother’s delight from Oxford, and the two little Minivers make those irritating and unchildlike smart cracks because it’s the one device known these days for comedy relief in family pictures…the difference between these people and their originals in Jan Struther’s novel is the difference between marshmallows and human beings. [16]
Of the 592 critics polled by American magazine Film Daily , 555 named it the best film of 1942. [17]
Joseph Goebbels, minister of Nazi propaganda, wrote:
[Mrs. Miniver] shows the destiny of a family during the current war, and its refined powerful propagandistic tendency has up to now only been dreamed of. There is not a single angry word spoken against Germany; nevertheless the anti-German tendency is perfectly accomplished. [18] [12]
Presently (in 21 century) the film is somewhat forgotten. However, if one were to look for a film that served humanity the most, it would probably be this modest melodrama. Winston Churchill once said that this film had done more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers [19]
In 1942 Variety wrote in its review:
In its quiet yet actionful way, is, probably entirely unintentionally, one of the strongest pieces of propaganda against complacency to come out of the war. Not that it shows anything like the result of lack of planning by governments or individuals, but in that it brings so close to home the effects of total war. [20]
Mrs. Miniver exceeded all expectations, grossing $5,358,000 in the US and Canada and $3,520,000 abroad. In the United Kingdom, it was named the top box office attraction of 1942. The initial theatrical release earned a profit of $4,831,000, making it MGM's most successful film to that time. [2] [21]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
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Academy Awards [22] | Outstanding Motion Picture | Sidney Franklin (for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) | Won |
Best Director | William Wyler | Won | |
Best Actor | Walter Pidgeon | Nominated | |
Best Actress | Greer Garson [lower-alpha 3] | Won | |
Best Supporting Actor | Henry Travers | Nominated | |
Best Supporting Actress | May Whitty | Nominated | |
Teresa Wright | Won | ||
Best Screenplay | George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis | Won | |
Best Cinematography – Black-and-White | Joseph Ruttenberg | Won | |
Best Film Editing | Harold F. Kress | Nominated | |
Best Sound Recording | Douglas Shearer | Nominated | |
Best Special Effects | A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe and Douglas Shearer | Nominated | |
National Board of Review Awards | Top Ten Films | Mrs. Miniver | Won |
Best Acting | Greer Garson (also for Random Harvest ) | Won | |
Teresa Wright | Won | ||
National Film Preservation Board | National Film Registry | Mrs. Miniver | Inducted |
New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Actress | Greer Garson | Nominated |
Mrs. Miniver is a fictional character created by Jan Struther in 1937 for a series of newspaper columns for The Times, later adapted into a film of the same name.
William Wyler was a German-born American film director and producer. Known for his work in numerous genres over five decades, he received numerous awards and accolades, including three Academy Awards. He holds the record of twelve nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director. For his oeuvre of work, Wyler was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was a British-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the homefront; listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top-10 box office draws from 1942 to 1946.
Blossoms in the Dust is a 1941 American biographical drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Felix Bressart, Marsha Hunt, Fay Holden and Samuel S. Hinds. It tells the story of Edna Gladney, who helped orphaned children find homes and began a campaign to remove the word "illegitimate" from Texas birth certificates, despite the opposition of "good" citizens. The screenplay was by Anita Loos, with a story by Ralph Wheelwright. Some of the important aspects of her life fictionalized in the film are the fact that it was Edna herself who was born out of wedlock; she and Sam eloped on the eve of her marriage to someone else, and they had much more time together before his death than given them in the film.
Random Harvest is a 1942 American romantic drama film based on the 1941 James Hilton novel of the same title, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination. The novel keeps the true identity of Paula/Margaret a secret until the very end, something that would have been impossible in a film, where characters’ faces must be seen. This meant that the movie had to take a very different approach to the story. The film stars Ronald Colman as a shellshocked, amnesiac World War I veteran, and Greer Garson as his love interest.
Walter Davis Pidgeon was a Canadian-American actor. A major leading man during the Golden Age of Hollywood, known for his "portrayals of men who prove both sturdy and wise," Pidgeon earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, for his roles in Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Madame Curie (1943).
Henry Wilcoxon was a British-American actor and film producer, born in the British West Indies. He was known as an actor in many of director Cecil B. DeMille's films, also serving as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.
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Dame Mary Louise Webster,, known professionally as May Whitty and later, for her charity work, Dame May Whitty, was an English stage and film actress. She was one of the first two women entertainers to become a Dame. The British actors' union Equity was established in her home in 1930.
The 15th Academy Awards was held in the Cocoanut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on March 4, 1943, honoring the films of 1942. The ceremony is most famous for the speech by Greer Garson; accepting the award for Best Actress, Garson spoke for nearly six minutes, considered to be the longest Oscars acceptance speech. A portion of the ceremony was broadcast by CBS Radio.
The Miniver Story is a 1950 American drama film that is the sequel to the 1942 film Mrs. Miniver. Like its predecessor, the picture, made by MGM, stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, but it was filmed on-location in England. The film was directed by H.C. Potter and produced by Sidney Franklin, from a screenplay by George Froeschel and Ronald Millar based on characters created by Jan Struther. The music score was by Miklós Rózsa and Herbert Stothart, with additional uncredited music by Daniele Amfitheatrof, and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg.
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Julia Misbehaves is a 1948 American romantic comedy film starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as a married couple who are separated by the man's snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when the daughter whom the man has raised, played by Elizabeth Taylor, invites her mother to her wedding. The film also features Peter Lawford and Cesar Romero.
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