Tonight's Movie: Mrs. Miniver (1942)

Last night I revisited MRS. MINIVER (1942), the classic, multi-Oscar-winning British homefront drama directed by William Wyler.

As many classic film fans will already know, it's the story of a family in a "quiet corner of England," to quote a line from the end of the film, whose pleasant lives are turned upside down by World War II.

As the film begins, architect Clem Miniver (Walter Pidgeon) and his wife Kay (Greer Garson) have three children: college student Vin (Richard Ney) and much younger Judy (Clare Sandars) and Toby (Christopher Severn).

At the outset of the film the biggest conflict in the Minivers' lives is that they've each splurged financially -- a new hat for her, a new car for him -- and it's really not much of a problem. They have a comfortable life, including a lovely home with a cook and a maid -- but with a declaration of war, everything changes, including Vin leaving college to become a pilot.

Soon the Minivers are having other experiences which would have seemed unreal just months or years before, as Clem participates in the Dunkirk rescue, Kay is forced to feed a gun-wielding downed German pilot (Helmut Dantine) in her kitchen, and they spend evenings comforting their younger children (and cat!) in their garden bomb shelter.

Meanwhile Vin has a hurried wartime marriage to his sweetheart Carol (Teresa Wright), granddaughter of a neighboring aristocrat (Dame May Whitty).

MRS. MINIVER deserves all the superlatives it's received over the years, both for its artistry, including six Oscars, and for its role encouraging Britain, the United States, and our allies. The movie was released in the summer of 1942, just months after the U.S. entered the war.

The film is simultaneously extremely polished and very natural and real. Was there ever a more likeable cast than Garson, Pidgeon, and Wright? Who could help sympathizing with them?

My favorite scene in the movie is an extended sequence in the bomb shelter, which is absolutely terrifying -- and all conveyed simply through top-quality acting and sound effects. The inclusion of the beloved family cat in the shelter and Kay reassuring her little boy as the bombs whistle that the cat is just hiding is a very relatable moment for any parent, along with little Toby's tearful comment that the Germans almost killed them that time.

As a side note, I met Christopher Severn, who played Toby, in 2015; click on this link. He's seen here with other family members, second from the left; his brother Winston, who was also a child actor, is in the center. (I particularly noticed on this viewing that when they're not in church, Toby and Judy spend much of the movie in their bathrobes!)

I honestly think MRS. MINIVER does a better job capturing the miracle of Dunkirk than either the 1958 or 2017 movies; both those films focus heavily on the trauma but relatively little on what was accomplished, avoiding spending much time showing the masses of little boats and the rescues.

MRS. MINIVER doesn't show what actually happens at Dunkirk, yet a single shot of the flotilla leaving for France is quite thrilling and conveys the audacity of what hundreds of private boats were doing. When Clem's group is informed there is danger ahead, one can see a brief flicker of concern cross Clem's face -- doubtless thinking of his family -- before he quickly sets about doing what must be done.

I also love the underplaying of the moment when Clem arrives home from Dunkirk -- he docks the boat and says almost nothing about the experience other than that he's very tired. The bullet holes, broken glass, and other damage visible on the boat say what words can't.

MRS. MINIVER was a key film for me as I became a classic film fan in my pre-teen years. I saw it on local commercial television (KTTV Ch. 11 in Los Angeles) when I was 11 or 12; the movie ran in a two-hour slot and the Dunkirk sequence was cut. I was thus surprised to later read that Mr. Miniver had been to Dunkirk! Although I saw many classic films in theaters growing up, this wasn't one of them, but I finally saw the entire thing years later, once the movie was out on VHS.

Despite the editing and commercials, my first experience with the film was powerful, evoking one of the strongest emotional responses I've ever had to a film before or since, and I love it to this day.

My first viewing of the movie would even inspire a couple of junior high school projects, including a paper on the importance of movies during WWII, an interest which continues to this day. When assigned to memorize a speech for English class, I found a copy of the final speech delivered by the vicar in a library book. That stirring speech which closes the movie was delivered by Henry Wilcoxon (seen here), whose real-life brother had been killed at Dunkirk.

MRS. MINIVER was based on a novel by Jan Struther; the four screenwriters included novelist James Hilton, whose books GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS and RANDOM HARVEST were both filmed with Greer Garson. The screenplay received one of the film's Academy Awards. The movie runs two hours and 14 minutes yet never overstays its welcome.

MRS. MINIVER was filmed in black and white by Joseph Ruttenberg, one of the film's Oscar winners. The movie also received awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Garson), Best Supporting Actress (Wright), and Best Director.  There were additional nominations including Supporting Actress (Whitty) and Supporting Actor (Henry Travers).

The supporting cast also included Reginald Owen, Rhys Williams, Brenda Forbes, Marie De Becker, Mary Field, and John Abbott.

I watched the movie on DVD. It's also available on Blu-ray and VHS.

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