Mrs. Miniver was one of Hollywood's major attempts to rally support for Britain in the early years of World War II. However, at its onset, MGM had a different approach to its political content than that which ultimately emerged in the film.
Early in production, Louis B. Mayer called director William Wyler into his office and told him to lighten up the character of the downed German flyer (played by Helmut Dantine) because the United States "didn't hate anyone" and Mayer had to answer to his stockholders. Selling American films abroad was (and still is) big business and Mayer didn't want to ruffle any box office feathers.
I guess that's not surprising from a studio that paid a producer to scan the credits and change names that sounded too "Jewish" for films being released abroad. Wyler was allowed to make the German character suitably nasty only after Hitler declared war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ironically, while Mrs. Miniver was very popular in the United States and won several Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress, it was ridiculed everywhere else, especially in England, the country it was supposed to glorify.
Mrs. Miniver is the story of the Miniver family and their genteel life in "merrie olde," carefree England before Germany invades Poland and begins hostilities. The country life enjoyed by the Minivers (architect Father, shop-'til-she-drops Mother, spoiled Oxford-educated son, etc.) is undermined until they all learn the meaning of sacrifice.
One of the reasons the English scoffed at this film is its condescending attitude to the lower classes who were fighting the real war. We're supposed to feel sorry that poor Mr. Miniver nearly wrecks his sailboat trying to help his countrymen evacuate Dunkirk.
Most of the actual Dunkirk defenders had no country house to go back to nor a family boat to take them. The "middle-class" Miniver family represents the kind of people who actively ignored Hitler until he started dropped bombs on them.
What are their biggest worries before hostilities' break out?
How can they possibly afford the new car father just bought as well as the frivolous new hat mother simply had to have? Will the station master's rose, named after Mrs. Miniver, win the annual flower competition? Do you care? The Minivers are supposed to be the family we all identify with and they make me wish I were an orphan.
Not since seeing The Sound of Music have I rooted for the Nazis in a film. (I would have rooted for anyone to shut that Trapp family up. They couldn't walk across a room without breaking into a song.) The creaky mechanisms of cliché melodrama are painfully evident here: the young lovers, the noble upperclassmen, the sacrifice of the family house, the brave church rector, etc.
Early on I played a game trying to figure out which of the main characters would die. My money was on the cat the littlest Miniver loved. But, as it turns out, I guessed incorrectly, although the actual victim did not take me by surprise.
This gung-ho, rally-the-troops agitprop doesn't travel well over time and Mrs. Miniver is hopelessly dependent for relevance on the time for which it was made. The theme of civilians in war is a fascinating one, but Mrs. Miniver fails to convey the terror of a non- combatant waiting to see if bombs will drop on his house.
While bombs fall on her neighborhood Mrs. Miniver sits in the basement calmly knitting, thereby carrying the stiff upper lip British attitude to an absurd extreme. Other films like Hope and Glory, The Marriage of Maria Braun and the great Dutch film Soldier of Orange not only portray the tragedy of a daily routine upset by war, but are also refreshingly free of propaganda.
So check one of them out before seeing this disappointing film.
Early in production, Louis B. Mayer called director William Wyler into his office and told him to lighten up the character of the downed German flyer (played by Helmut Dantine) because the United States "didn't hate anyone" and Mayer had to answer to his stockholders. Selling American films abroad was (and still is) big business and Mayer didn't want to ruffle any box office feathers.
I guess that's not surprising from a studio that paid a producer to scan the credits and change names that sounded too "Jewish" for films being released abroad. Wyler was allowed to make the German character suitably nasty only after Hitler declared war on the United States after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ironically, while Mrs. Miniver was very popular in the United States and won several Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress, it was ridiculed everywhere else, especially in England, the country it was supposed to glorify.
Mrs. Miniver is the story of the Miniver family and their genteel life in "merrie olde," carefree England before Germany invades Poland and begins hostilities. The country life enjoyed by the Minivers (architect Father, shop-'til-she-drops Mother, spoiled Oxford-educated son, etc.) is undermined until they all learn the meaning of sacrifice.
One of the reasons the English scoffed at this film is its condescending attitude to the lower classes who were fighting the real war. We're supposed to feel sorry that poor Mr. Miniver nearly wrecks his sailboat trying to help his countrymen evacuate Dunkirk.
Most of the actual Dunkirk defenders had no country house to go back to nor a family boat to take them. The "middle-class" Miniver family represents the kind of people who actively ignored Hitler until he started dropped bombs on them.
What are their biggest worries before hostilities' break out?
How can they possibly afford the new car father just bought as well as the frivolous new hat mother simply had to have? Will the station master's rose, named after Mrs. Miniver, win the annual flower competition? Do you care? The Minivers are supposed to be the family we all identify with and they make me wish I were an orphan.
Not since seeing The Sound of Music have I rooted for the Nazis in a film. (I would have rooted for anyone to shut that Trapp family up. They couldn't walk across a room without breaking into a song.) The creaky mechanisms of cliché melodrama are painfully evident here: the young lovers, the noble upperclassmen, the sacrifice of the family house, the brave church rector, etc.
Early on I played a game trying to figure out which of the main characters would die. My money was on the cat the littlest Miniver loved. But, as it turns out, I guessed incorrectly, although the actual victim did not take me by surprise.
This gung-ho, rally-the-troops agitprop doesn't travel well over time and Mrs. Miniver is hopelessly dependent for relevance on the time for which it was made. The theme of civilians in war is a fascinating one, but Mrs. Miniver fails to convey the terror of a non- combatant waiting to see if bombs will drop on his house.
While bombs fall on her neighborhood Mrs. Miniver sits in the basement calmly knitting, thereby carrying the stiff upper lip British attitude to an absurd extreme. Other films like Hope and Glory, The Marriage of Maria Braun and the great Dutch film Soldier of Orange not only portray the tragedy of a daily routine upset by war, but are also refreshingly free of propaganda.
So check one of them out before seeing this disappointing film.