1942: Mrs. Miniver

-“If war comes, it’s goodbye roses.

-“Don’t talk silly. Ha! You might as well say goodbye England. There’ll always be roses.”

-Foley and Mr. Ballard, Mrs. Miniver

 

By 1942, America had joined the World War II, and Hollywood was quick to follow suit.  World War II casts overt tones over the next three best pictures and none more so than Mrs. Miniver, an unabashed propaganda piece detailing the struggles of war-torn England. Filming for the movie began before the U.S. entered into the war and it was initially designed to be an anti-isolation movie. By the time the movie was released, the U.S. was in the thick of it, only adding to the urgency of the film’s message.

A pair of Oscar winners – Best Supporting Actress Teresa Wright as Carol Beldon and Best Actress Greer Garson as the titular Kay Miniver.

 

Based on a collection of British short stories, Mrs. Miniver details the cataclysmic shifts in life and culture brought about by England’s entrance and absorption into World War II. The movie begins in 1939, with a collection of stories straight out of the Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet: Kay Miniver (Best Actress Greer Garson), the middle class housewife and voice of reason in the town of Starlings, spends too much on a hat then harangues with her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) when he wants to buy a new car; later, her oldest son, Vin, returns home from college as a world-class a-hole, but softens when he becomes smitten with Carol (Best Supporting Actress Teresa Wright), the granddaughter of the town snob, the rich Lady Beldon (Vin particularly hates the aristocratic upper class).

The Minivers’ world is thrown into disarray when England enters the War. Vin joins the Royal Air Force, leading to many sleepless nights for his parents. Clem, who owns a small boat, is drafted into assisting with the evacuation at Dunkirk (look it up) leaving Mrs. Miniver to deal with a German pilot who crash-lands near the village. Interestingly, in many movies, the German would be sympathetic – a lost soul, scared, injured and alone and Mrs. Miniver would grow sympathetic to him. Instead, he is nothing short of a monster, explaining how England will be reduced to rubble by the Germans.

The moving final image

Things get even tenser once the village becomes the target of nightly German bombings. The movie does not pull any punches in showing the damage. The Minivers’ home – and much of the village – is basically destroyed as the bombings continue. But the town struggles on, continuing its daily life (and humorous anecdotes) culminating with a showdown at the annual flower show between Lady Beldon and the trainman over who has grown the best rose (it actually is a far more moving scene than what I have described). Following more tragedy, the film ends on a powerful note with a church service as the villagers gather to mourn the dead and find strength. The camera pans up to show the church itself is bombed out and in ruins. But the town will persevere.

I thought Mrs. Miniver was a very powerful movie and, as noted, derivated a lot from what you would expect. In some ways, its propaganda tone – England is good, Germany is bad – is pretty simplistic, especially for what we expect from a Best Picture winner, where “shades of grey” are the norm – check out All Quiet on the Western Front, for example, where we pity the soldiers. In Mrs. Miniver, we either love them (the English) or hate them (the German pilot). But on the other hand, the tonal shift from idyllic quaintness to harsh realities of life in war time on the front line is very moving. There are some schmaltzy scenes that can elicit an eye roll (like when Vin joins Lady Beldon in her private church pew) but there also some moments of real humanity.

The movie feels too long. After the suspense of Mrs. Miniver facing down the German spy, it feels like we should be winding down, but there’s still another 45 minutes to go (it’s a very long movie). Still, the movie is a really interesting piece of the cultural mindset as America entered the war.

Creepy Trivia: Garson, who wasn’t as old as the character she played, ended up marrying Richard Ney, who played her son Vin in the movie!

1941: How Green Was My Valley

“Memory. Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago of men and women long since dead,” – Huw Morgan waxing poetic, How Green Was My Valley.

It Really Was Quite Green

1941’s Best Picture, How Green Was My Valley, is more commonly known as “that fucking movie that beat Citizen Kane.”  While bitching about who won the Oscar is a sport as old as the awards themselves, to cinephiles, the defeat of Citizen Kane is particularly hard to stomach. Nevertheless, I entered my first viewing of Valley hoping to find some underappreciated masterpiece, a movie that turned out to be something really special in its own right. Alas, this was not the case.

While not as outright terrible as Cavalcade, Valley is still very sugary and very, very dull. It’s another movie about the onslaught of modern times, but takes a more microeconomic approach to its story. That’s is a hoity toity way of saying that instead of focusing on the big improvements in terms of roads, law and the economy (like in Cimarron, another Best Picture about modernity), this movie looks at the price paid by blue collar laborers in the light of such earth-shaking changes (and a little bit to the price paid by the Earth itself).

The movie starts in modern times (for 1941), where the titular Welsh Valley and its scenic village have been ravaged by years of over-mining and general industrial neglect. As the narrator packs his belongings to leave, he thinks back to his time as a child, when the Valley was green (allegedly – the film is in black and white) and the inhabitants’ lungs weren’t coated black with coal dust.

Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), long before becoming an ape man.

Huw (Roddy McDowall – more famous from the original Planet of the Apes) (get ready for lots of “w’s”, “f’s that sound like d’s and other crazy spellings – we’re in Wales) is the youngest of the many Morgan children (he was apparently a late-in-life baby because his brothers all seem to be about 10-15 years older than him). Gwyllim Morgan, Huw’s father (Best Supporting Actor Donald Crisp), is a leader in town and very much a traditionalist. Gwyllim resists his sons’ call to unionize when the coal mine owners start slashing wages, leading striking miners to ostracize him. When Huw’s mother tries to stand up for her husband at a secret town meeting, she and 10-year-old Huw fall in an icy creek. Surprisingly, neither die, as is usually the case in turn of these century stories, but Huw’s legs apparently freeze and take a year to thaw out (really, he is bed-bound for a year and that is the town doctor’s explanation). Huw is encouraged in recovery by the kindly and liberal-leaning pastor, Mr. Gruffydd, who has a thing for the Morgan’s sole daughter, Angharad, even though she is engaged to the mine owner’s wealthy son.

Oh the crushing weight of these modern times!

Slowly, the times and the increasing cruelty of mine life tear the family apart. Various Morgan brothers can’t find work and are forced to leave Wales. One of the sons, Iver, is killed in a mining accident. Angharad and Gruffydd’s relationship becomes a scandal amongst the town. Huw – recovered from his ice diving – excels at school but opts to start working in the mine to impress Iver’s widow, who he is in love with despite an apparent 15-year-age difference. Finally, Gwyllim himself is killed in a cave-in, although adult Huw notes his father will always live on in memory.

The thing that bugged me most about How Green Was My Valley was the assorted loose ends in the film. Angharad and Gruffydd’s relationship is left in the air. Huw’s one-sided romance with Ivar’s widow is similarly never resolved. Mr. Morgan dies and boom – we’re out. While things in the Valley appear headed down hill (no pun intended), we’re never told exactly why Huw decided to leave or why it took decades after the events portrayed in the movie for him to decide to go. And how can one forget the endless Welsh singing – the movie employs an actual Welsh choir who sings – in Welsh – all the time.

How Green Was My Valley is unfortunately saddled with many of the negative “Oscar bait” qualities that cause some people to find the awards loathsome: main characters die in dramatic fashion, there’s loads of social issues addressed in somewhat simplistic tones (the plight of mine workers and in a more general sense the plight of all workers), and an overall schmaltzy feeling permeates the film.  And there’s a lot of Welsh singing to accompany it all.