Reeling Backward: Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Greer Garson shines in this unapologetically sentimental look at the lives of a British family during the early days of World War II, which won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Say what you will about the failings of the Golden Age Hollywood studio system, but I’m perennially amazed at the speed with which they churned out films.
Consider “Mrs. Miniver,” a series of newspaper columns in the late 1930s by Jan Struther about a well-to-do British mother. When the U.K. went to war in 1939, so did Mrs. Miniver, and the columns were collected and expanded in a book of the same name.
Extensive film production wasn’t really possible in an England beset by the Nazi navy and air force, so the Yanks started shooting a movie adaptation stateside in 1940. It was aimed at a 1941 release, but America’s increasing likelihood of entering the war resulted in continual rewrite and reshoots. Star Greer Garson shot some pickups in early 1942 just a couple of months before its release.
“Mrs. Miniver” became the top-grossing film of the year, one of the first feature films set during WWII, and would go on to win six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress. It was a true cultural phenomenon, and the stirring speech the town vicar gives at the end amidst the bombed-out church urging the common folk to join fight was reprinted on propaganda materials.
It’s an unapologetically sentimental and romantic picture, directed by William Wyler (who also won an Oscar) from a screenplay by Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton and Claudine West (them too). It’s essentially a melodrama with an episodic feel, not so much one singular narrative as the weaving together of several smaller ones.
In the bucolic village of Belham on the outskirts of London, Mrs. Kay Minver (Garson) is widely admired as the nicest woman in town. The somewhat daffy but gentlemanly train stationmaster, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), honors her by asking to name the special rose he has bred after her. He intends to enter it in the upcoming annual flower show — a bold move, considering the local duchess, the imperious Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty), hosts the show and has won the rose competition 30 years in a row… because no one has dared to enter a competing bloom.
Mrs. Miniver is married to Clem, a well-to-do architect played by Walter Pidgeon. I’m assuming his character is American, either because the studio wanted a Yank character for domestic audiences to identify with or because Pidgeon didn’t dare attempt a Brit accent. They have a loving and respectful relationship, with two adorable youngsters, Toby (Christopher Severn) and Judy (Clare Sandars), as well as a 19-year-old, Vin (Richard Ney), who’s just completed his first year at Oxford.
What’s interesting is that unlike other “women’s pictures” of its day, the main character is not the person that things happen to but the figure who stands at the locus of a swirling community of faces and intrigues, quietly directing traffic without anyone noticing too much. Mrs. Miniver is a quiet sort of heroine, the very picture of domesticity and stability, and very much in keeping with feminine ideals of the era.
Garson plays her as strong, intelligent and resilient, someone who nudges others in the right direction — even before they can see it themselves. Her relationship with Clem is subtle; she lets him think he’s the manly patriarch, but really, they have a nice give-and-take that is quite equitable for its time.
Pidgeon seems to recognize that he’s merely a supporting player kept around to reflect in Garson’s light (though he did get his own Academy Award nod in the Best Actor category.) Eight years later they would pair again for a sequel, “The Miniver Story,” that had them on more equal footing.
The story of “Mrs. Miniver” is divided into three sections with time slips of a few months in between. I kept thinking old Ballard must have come up with a truly exceptional rose to stay alive and in bloom for so long, though mostly likely it’s just one of several iterations we see. (I am prone to being a literalist and prefer it when filmmakers make such things clear.)
The first bit is primarily concerned with the budding romance between Vin and Carol (Teresa Wright), the sweet-natured granddaughter of Lady Beldon. She comes around to their house to ask them not to enter a rose against her grandmother, which causes Vin to accost her with his newly acquired opinions on the lingering remnants of feudalism in Belham.
Of course, he later apologies, and she apologies, and they dance the night away and become ensorcelled with each other. The announcement of England’s declaration of war ends this section, as Vin enlists in RAF as a pilot. The flower show is postponed, and not for the last time. Wright won her own Oscar for her vivacious, charming turn.
The second part includes the bombing of the area, mostly aimed at the nearby airfield where Vin is stationed, as well as his engagement and marriage to Carol. Old Lady Beldon at first opposes the marriage owing to their youth but is reminded by Mrs. Miniver that the duchess herself was just 16 when she wed. Part of the reason is her husband soon went off to war and died, and everyone fears the same will happen to Vin.
Everyone who can builds underground bunkers to withstand the bombings. The light warden knocks on doors of houses with any illumination peeping out, officially to protect them from bombers but also as a nice side business selling tinned food to keep their stocks full.
During this section Clem also takes part in the evacuation of Dunkirk as part of an armada of private vessels ferrying the trapped soldiers across the English Channel. This is not actually depicted, though we see him come home with his boat, the Starling, all shot up.
Mrs. Miniver has her own excitement during this time, as a German pilot who had been shot down in the area and pursued by local search crews stumbles across her and holds the woman hostage in her house for a brief time. At first she looks to the wounded man’s welfare, but his increasingly bombastic pronouncements about Germany’s inevitable victory cause her to grow resentful and slap him. (This was the section reshot right before the film’s release). He eventually faints, she seizes his Luger pistol and turns him in.
There’s a great scene where Clem, returned from Dunkirk, tries to pooh-pooh his adventures and Kay gets to slip in the story of her capturing the German fugitive all the men couldn’t find. It’s a great example of British one-upmanship through feigned modesty.
In the last portion, the bombings get worse and the Miniver mansion — they don’t call it that, but anyone who sees it would — is damaged. They eventually get around to holding the flower show, during which Mrs. Miniver convinces Lady Beldon to award the prize for best rose to Mr. Ballard. This rare show of magnanimity results in the entire village cheering for the old battle axe, possibly for the first time in her life.
The worst attack of all occurs right after the show, resulting in most of Belham being destroyed and many people killed, including Ballard. The audience has been primed during the entire movie for Vin to die in a dogfight, but in fact it’s Carol who perishes when a stray bullet pierces the canvas roof of the car Mrs. Miniver was driving them home in.
It’s never commented upon directly, but this sporty little roadster was purchased by Clem in a fit of self-indulgence at the beginning of the story to replace the big, clanky car he had before. One wonders if a steel roof might have saved Carol’s life.
Things end with the vicar’s speech in a stirring finale. It’s quite a stemwinder and I won’t quote the whole thing, but this will give you a flavor:
“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.”
I can’t say as I found “Mrs. Miniver” to be a top-notch Best Picture. It hasn’t aged particularly well and I’m afraid most people today would consider its depiction of womanly virtue quite archaic. (Because it is.) In many ways it’s almost a soap opera, sort of a “Downton Abbey” of its day.
Still, it’s wonderful at capturing a particular place and moment in time, showing what life was really like on the English home front, at least for a very privileged set. Other films would soon take us to the front lines, where the horrors of war were not so remote.