palmiro I can only imagine the impact this movie must have had on American audiences in 1942--the deep feelings of sympathy it aroused for the British people who were suffering under the incessant Nazi bombings. I'm guessing that it was this movie that made my mother say that her favorite male movie star was Walter Pidgeon (something I could never figure out till I saw "Mrs. Miniver" and realized how much she must have cried seeing it and knowing that my dad would soon be shipped out to England).But in retrospect, the movie needs to be seen also in the context of war-time propaganda and its impact on British and American viewers. The biggest surprise in the movie is surely not that "Lady Beldon" renounces her claim to the village's rose of the year and shows her common cause with "the people". Rather, it was the designation of the Brit who was to be the symbol for all of Britain's war dead. From out of the blue, it turned out to be Lady Beldon's grand- daughter (and a more ethereal, tender and vulnerable creature couldn't have been chosen for the role than Teresa Wright).The obvious choice, and the one everyone in the movie theater must have anticipated, was the Minivers' son as fighter-pilot destined to die in the Battle of Britain (and he almost certainly would have died if he had existed in real life--there were very few fighter pilots who survived from the beginning of war to the end). But the death of a beautiful, young woman, symbol of all the "innocent civilians" to die in the war, surely had a greater impact on the movie-goers. In a sense, it prepared Americans and Brits to understand and accept the logic of Total War, where there are no "innocent civilians".And so it's a strange and sad irony that "Mrs. Miniver" plays a part (a small part, admittedly) in laying the groundwork for the legitimation of the firestorm in Dresden (1945) that killed in a few hours 25,000 Germans, more than half of all the Britons killed over the years of the Nazi bombing of Britain. Just one chapter in the story of the war-time bombing of civilians in the 20th century and beyond.

Donny C. Eldredge Why do so many younger viewers, or stubborn older ones for that matter, avoid a 1940s movie because they perceive it as "old-timey"? This classic film from director William Wyler -- who was to later film "The Best Years of Our Lives" -- makes one laugh, cry and understand the effect of war (timeless war) on so many lives while entertaining the viewer with such ease. Anyone who is not touched by such a film has no business calling himself/herself a film fan. Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson show why they were such popular stars of their day, and Teresa Wright's performance is magnificent while also familiar to those who know her work. Dame May Witty shows her versatility in a key role of this story concerning class differences in the face of a world war. Look for other familiar faces such as Henry Travers, Henry Wilcoxon, and Reginald Owen, and after viewing check through references to see the the off-screen connection between Garson and the actor who plays her son, Richard Ney.

Robert J. Maxwell Nicely done story of an English family during the blitz in 1940-41. Before the war, we are introduced to Mrs. Miniver (Garson), matriarch of a warm, happy middle-class family straight out of "Father Knows Best" except that in this case it's usually Mother who knows best. She and her architect husband (Pigeon) have three children, two small and cute, one grown up and just out of Oxford. He's smart but he's a callow youth. (All youths are callow.) The kid sounds like a fatuous Marxist at the dinner table, but a pretty guest (Wright) soon brings him down to earth.Theresa Wright is a member of the Beldon family. They're aristocrats, not middle-class like the Minivers. There is also a working class in the village, shopkeepers, postmen, and people of that ilk, and the Minivers enjoy friendly relations with all of them. But Lady Beldon (Whitty), the Aristocrat-in-Chief, holds them all in contempt. However, the aristocratic Wright and the non-U Miniver son from Oxford fall in love and -- Well, I could go on with this, but not without sounding like a sociologist.What it is, is a kind of training film for civilians during war time. Mrs. Miniver is a resolute, brave, uncomplaining, church-going, stiff-upper-lip model of civilian endurance. Not just for the Brits who, by the time of this release, had already learned any lessons to be derived from suffering, but for Americans too. The movie was released in 1942 and shot in 1941, when Europe had been at war for years and everyone knew that the war was just around the corner for Americans. So, while the Army recruits were getting movies showing them how to avoid venereal disease, the civilian audiences got movies like this, demonstrating how to avoid breaking down under stress.It's filled with stereotypes but well done for what it is. I'll give an example of a well-written scene. It's the blitz. The Miniver family is huddled down in its bomb shelter in the back yard of the mansion they live in. They're subject to Nazi bombs that scare hell out of them and bash in their dining room.Here's how a perfunctory script would handle the scene. The sirens wail. The family rushes to the shelter. Suddenly -- overhead -- the roar of airplane engines. Anti-aircraft batteries bark at the enemy. A salvo of bombs blasts the shelter as the brave but terrified Minivers huddle together and silently pray. The bombs stop as abruptly as they began. The Minivers emerge from the shelter and stare, stricken, at their smoking, half-ruined manse.Not here. The scene opens with the family already in the shelter, looking out the door while a city on the horizon is aglow with searchlights probing the sky and fitful bursts of anti-aircraft shells. "Not many bombs," observes Pigeon. And we think, "Whew, at least the Minivers aren't getting slammed." Back into the shelter, where they read "Alice in Wonderland" to their dozing children. Then, from nearby, the loud KRUPP of batteries going into action. Then the sound of airplanes. The Minivers sit silently, Garson knitting calmly, Pigeon staring at the walls. Nobody says anything about having loose bowels or needing a jolt of whiskey. The whistle of the first bomb at a distance. Then another, closer. Then a veritable rain of bombs knocking everything over in the shelter. Fade out.A scene at the railway station follows. The Oxfordian is in the RAF and has just returned from his honeymoon with Wright. After an effusive greeting, Pigeon says, "Well -- I'll show you to your room." And they walk up the path into the house, and for the first time we see that half the house seems to have been dismantled by the bombs -- windows broken, daylight showing through the roof, furniture reduced to kindling.I've spent that much time on one scene because the scene illustrates the care with which the script was put together. A more reckless approach would have had the whole business over with in five minutes. Instead, the terror and ultimate shock are allowed to creep up on us, bit by bit, as the threat grows nearer and the aftermath of its impact delayed. Good job.Helmut Dantine is a surprise as a downed and desperate German pilot. For one thing, he's handsome instead of ugly. For another, he shows weakness from his wound and when he collapses in pain, we almost feel sympathy. I only wish he hadn't had to eat like an animal and bark out order like, "Give -- me -- coat." He should be stalwart. Instead, he acts and sounds like Frankenstein's monster.

tomgillespie2002 Directed by German-born American citizen William Wyler, depicting the plight of the British Home Front, Mrs. Miniver swept the boards at the Oscars, collecting five wins including Best Picture. It is now clearly a piece of propaganda film-making, made at the time where the U.S. were edging closer and closer to war, but this doesn't do anything to dampen what is an often gripping, moving and stirring film. Wyler's views are clear as day - American needed to enter the war before the threat of Nazism becomes too powerful to overthrow - and wanted to show the American audience of the stubborn, stiff-upper lipped efforts of its British allies, from the soldiers on the front lines, to the defiance of the women and the elderly at home.As World War II draws inevitably nearer, middle-class housewife Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) journeys home after shopping to learn that station-master Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers) is naming his potentially prize-winning rose "Mrs. Miniver". Her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) has just indulged in an expensive new car and the two patter around admitting to their lavish spending. Their son Vin (Richard Ney) returns home from Oxford and falls in love with Carol (Teresa Wright), grand- daughter of aristocrat Lady Beldon (Dame May Witty). But when war is announced, Vin joins the Air Force, and Clem volunteers to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation.What is most surprising about Mrs. Miniver is its depiction of Britain. With an American director and a cast made up mostly of American and Canadian actors, the film is alarmingly successful in its realism, and doesn't look out of place amongst the many British films made during this era with similar settings. The cast border on perfection (apart from the slightly hammy Richard Ney), and Pidgeon, Wright, Witty and Travers all receiving Oscar nominations for the efforts, with Garson winning. They manage to juggle a mixture of middle-class kitchen-sink drama and some naturalistic humour, with some playful scenes managing to alleviate the doom-and-gloom subject matter.The film is keen to explore themes of social divide, and how this apparent barrier seems to vanish and diminish during wartime. Vin arrives home from his college spouting a new-found enlightenment about his fellow man, and how the wealthy live comfortably in ignorance while the lower-classes suffer, but has nothing to say when challenged as to what he's doing about it by Carol. It is only when he goes to war when he is truly with his fellow man, a revelation shared by the snobbish Lady Beldon (in a powerhouse performance by Dame Witty) during the village flower show in an extremely moving scene.A true milestone film, now admitted to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, that President Roosevelt heralded as being as important to the war effort as the soldiers on the ground, as he rushed it straight into theatres shortly after being completed. The film's famous final scene that shows a powerful speech on the country's unity by the Vicar (Henry Wilcoxon - whose brother Robert was killed in the Dunkirk evacuation), was transcribed and translated by Roosevelt and dropped into allied territory as a morale builder, and is now known as the Wilcoxon Speech. Historically important, but a magnificent film in its own right.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com