The Negro Soldier (1944) – was a groundbreaking film
for its almost astonishing portrayal of Black Americans as just Americans, with
as deep a sense of responsibility for fighting a war against fascism and as
profoundly courageous as their so-often portrayed white fellow citizens in
inspirational films of this period.
The “inspirational films” are, of course, commonly referred
to as “propaganda,” but since that word has an obvious negative connotation, I
prefer to separate the wheat from the chaff and state simply that many of these
World War II films were actually less about the evil enemy (propaganda) and
more about our resolve to stand for integrity and justice (inspiration).
That the portrayal of Black Americans without stereotype in
this movie is astonishing is, just as obvious, due to the overwhelming stereotype
and often outright negative imagery of African Americans since the start of
cinema.We know that, while prejudice
did not end with the conquering of our enemies in World War II, the end of the
war nevertheless did mark a beginning of a more introspective examination in movies of
racial injustice that slowly began to change the mood in this country.Many historians would point to the fact that
Black Americans, having contributed to the victory, were not willing to
continue being treated as second-class citizens and a foolish, even ugly,
stereotype.
I think, however, part of the change in society had seeds
that were sewn not only by returning Black veterans but by movies of this
type.Though The Negro Soldier
was not the only one of this genre, it was, and is, a fine movie that left a
positive impression with the white civilian population.It was not originally meant for them but
meant only for Black recruits to inspire them to be good soldiers, but so
pleased were they with the representation of themselves, that it was decided to
show it to white soldiers as well, and then to the general public.It was received very well, and in its own
quiet way, made, I think, an important contribution not only to the war effort,
but to the peace that followed.Today,
it is part of the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress.
Produced by Frank Capra as a follow-up to his Why We Fight
series, this short documentary was made under the auspices of the War
Activities Committee of the Motion Pictures Industry, commissioned by the U.S.
War Department.It was directed by
Stuart Heisler and the script was written by Carlton Moss, who also appears in
the role of a minister.
Mr. Moss came from the theatre.After college he was one of the leaders of
the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project, one of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration endeavors to employ
writers, artists, directors, actors during the Great Depression.Moss was recommended to help run the Negro
Theatre Unit by John Houseman, who was leaving that role.
The Negro Soldier begins with a Black congregation
singing in a packed downtown church, and Carlton Moss is the minister who
addresses them from the pulpit.He is
not fiery or emotional, but quiet, professorial, and those of us who are fans
of Mrs. Miniver (1942) (a much more famous film roundly referred to as “propaganda”)
may recall the vicar played by Henry Wilcoxon.His “Wilcoxon speech” at the end of the movie has a different tone that
the words of Preacher Moss, but Moss’s sermon is just as important and
necessary to hear.Like the “Wilcoxon
speech,” it is good for the soul.
First he gestures to the service flag hung in church with
stars for members who are now in the military and he points out members of the
congregation who are in uniform, welcoming them and including among them, a woman
who is a WAC.There is a sense of equity
here not only for African Americans but for Black women, in particular.
Heavyweight champion Joe Louis is recalled for his symbolic trouncing
of the German Max Schmeling in the ring, and both were now in the uniform of
their respective countries “fighting for the real championship of the
world.”
Jesse Owens, likewise, is recalled for his triumphs, along
with Ralph Metcalfe and other team members, over the track and field German
competitors at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.Having thus far made the connection between the phony declarations of
the superiority of the Aryan race,Preacher Moss then quotes from Hitler’s memoir, Mein Kampf.
Moss refers to it as “The gospel according to Hitler.”He reads a passage wherein Hitler outlines
his desire to conquer by force, and as regards to themselves as Black
Americans, of the folly of America to “train a born half-ape.”
This is perhaps the most startling image, to hear the vile
words of an evil man read calmly from the pulpit in a house of worship, insulting
to the congregation, but this has an even greater effect than angry outcry.It is as if the evidence is put on display in
court.The camera shows us closeups of
many faces in the congregation.Here,
too, is a kind of judicial proof.They
are human beings and they are not stereotypes
Then the minister takes us through United States history and Black participation
in every major event from the Boston Massacre, the Battle of Lexington-Concord,
Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, battles of the War of 1812, pointing out with images
perhaps revelatory to those in the theater audience who were unaware of the
longstanding and unbroken involvement of African Americans in the history of the
nation.We catch a glimpse of Black
faces peering out from broad-brimmed hats and bonnets on covered wagons heading
West as pioneers.These people are part
of history but were not part of history books for likely a majority of the
theater audience.
Moving closer to the present day, Black soldiers are seen in
the Spanish-American War and in World War I.Then Moss moves on to images of notable Black Americans in fields of
science, literature, art, finance, medicine.
In the present war, Dorie Miller, who was awarded the Navy
Cross for heroism at Pearl Harbor, and who died in battle the year before this
film was released, is briefly mentioned, as well as the Tuskegee pilots, but
the film shifts at this point from these noble images to the equally noble if
mundane review of a new recruit’s experiences.
A mother in the congregation reads aloud a letter from her
son, who recently entered the Army.She is
Mrs. Bronson, played by Bertha Wolford or Woolford (who seems to have had
uncredited parts in only three other films, including Night and Day, covered
here).
The flashback scenes show her son arriving on the train
platform with other men, including white recruits, as they shed civilian dress
and go through the process of induction.They are interviewed, taught military courtesy, yelled at by sergeants,
stumble around marching, until they finally become soldiers.
On leave, he attends a dance and there is the
romantic image of him dancing with a lovely young woman.He also observes WACs in training and offers
his admiration for them in his letter to his mother.
His next post, he hopes, will be officer’s candidate
school.He is no stereotype, nor is his
quietly proud mother, nor is anyone in the congregation. Over 900,000 African Americans served in the
military in World War II all over the globe.One of the few complaints of the film is it does not stress the
injustice of a segregated military.Nevertheless, the film leaves its audience, as all good films should,
with something to think about and to broaden their minds.
Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were Hollywood's weapon.
When
I think of movies that are most comforting to me in times of turmoil, I think of
World War II-era “home front” films. They are not rollicking comedies or
fantasy-inspired musicals that serve to take one’s mind off troubles in a way
that completely removes the viewer from the present real-life world; however, to
me they are deeply comforting.
This
is our entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association blogathon: Classics for
Comfort. For more on the posts of other
great movie blogs, have
a look here at the roster. The task
is to pick five films to soothe and comfort in these challenging days of the
COVID-19 quarantine.
What
appeals to me in terms of messages of comfort is that each of these films deals
with problems that are realistic, the audiences could identify with the
problems even if they did not experience each one, and the solutions to the
problems did not require luck or a deus ex machina device. The “happy
ending” was one usually not of triumph or gleeful surprise, but of humble hope.
The heroes were everyday people who displayed moral courage, were tested, and
came through by the strength of their character.
In Mrs. Miniver, covered in this post, the enemy was foreign fascism and the Nazi
threat during the Battle of Britain. Keeping Calm and Carrying On was only one
aspect of bravery displayed in this movie. There are so many charming touches that
are like love letters to the world they were leaving behind but hoped to
preserve.
The Best Years of Our Lives, covered here in this post, shows what happened to
the weary conquerors of fascism when they straggled back home to a now
unfamiliar homeland and the anxious and equally weary people who were waiting
for them.
Though
I imagine many film fans prefer those rollicking comedies and fantasy musicals as
a way to relieve tension, I find those movies more appealing when I am in a
lighter mood to begin with and not thinking of troubles. It takes a certain toughness for Buster Keaton
to avoid those oncoming trains and falling houses, and for Laurel and Hardy to
execute even the simplest of tasks. I
need to be in a tough frame of mind just to endure their failures. It takes a sharp wit to appreciate the mental
agility of the screwball comedies with their verbal fireworks: the Marx
Brothers, Hildy Johnson, and Carole Lombard and her butler all require one to
be on the top of her game to keep up with them.
The
musicals are pretty, frothy, and certainly escapist, but when I am pondering
the troubles of the world, I find it unsatisfying for the girl to discover the
bus boy she loves is really a millionaire.
I enjoy musicals, but more so when my troubles can be solved easily.
It
is the home front dramas that appeal for their down-to-earth messages of
decency, courage, and hope that bring me through the worst of times. But for those who crave pure escapism, these films
are also, according to today’s gritty standards, escapist. All of these movies show a society that though
is in some respects, fractured, nevertheless the decent people who survive
their struggles in the end represent the best of our society as it was. The bad people were the fascists, the Nazis,
and the people who admired them. The bad
people were the hoarders, the selfish, the crass, the foolish, the ones who
were willing to sell out American democratic ideals for personal gain. The bad
people were depicted as repugnant, and the message of country and fellow citizen
over self was accepted by audiences. Is
this not escapist? Obviously, the times
in which we live now in the United States would not have ever been tolerated by
the World War II-era audiences. The
times in which we live now, where childish fools refuse to wear a mask to
protect others; where childish fascist thugs threaten the public with military
assault rifles and parade through someone’s hometown streets, and government buildings,
without being arrested; and a fascist in the White House backed by his controlled Senate would have been the greatest fear of The Greatest
Generation.
So
I watch the home front movies, and I am soothed and comforted in a fantasy world
of wholesome, homespun courage and grace, and remember a time when patriotism
meant sacrifice – like the sacrifice of medical personnel and essential workers
today – and hope for a better day.
Teresa
Wright is decency personified for many fans.
Her portrayals of young women at a crossroads—as Bette Davis’
independent daughter in The Little Foxes
(1941); the intelligent young bride in Mrs.Miniver (1942); the spirited protector of her family against a maniacal,
and former favorite, uncle in Shadow of a Doubt (1942); the gallant wife of Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees (1943); and most especially, the young woman
who came of age during World War II and who now faces its aftermath in the form
of a hopeless love for a distraught, and married, veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)—are
all characters that carry her particular stamp of forthrightness and humble
courage.
This
post is part of the 2015 TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted this
year by Kristen at Journeys in Classic Film.
Have a look at her blog for other terrific entries. Today TCM’s Summer Under the Stars is
dedicated to the films of Teresa Wright, and most of those mentioned above will
be featured in today’s programming. But,
as you can see by the links on those movies (as well as California Conquest and Casanova Brown), we’ve discussed them before, so today I’d like to turn our
attention to Miss Wright’s television work, which was filled with opportunities
to perform exciting roles at a point in her career when Hollywood was no longer
granting her that option.
Most
of her later film roles in the 1950s treaded into the hysterical female area,
which, being fairly one-dimensional, are unfulfilling for the fan and, I would
guess, the actress. An artist of subtle
depth and delicate underplaying, Wright had earned Academy Award nominations in
two different categories for her first three roles, and won Best Supporting for
Mrs. Miniver, the same year she was
up for Best Actress for Shadow of a Doubt.
She is the only actress to have been nominated for Oscars® for her first three
films in a row. It was a prodigious beginning for an actress who took her work
seriously and cared very little for stardom (we’ve also referred in this post toher famous contract clause excusing her from any publicity nonsense).
In
this vein, the two TV roles I’d like to discuss today are her work in “No. 5
Checked Out” from Screen Directors
Playhouse from 1956, and “Lonely Place” from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 1964.
These are two women in peril, but she plays these women as possessing a frank
capability far beyond the template laid down by the script.
Some
of her work on TV was pioneering, most especially that she originated the role
of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker
when it debuted on Playhouse 90 in
1957, long before the film or Broadway play. I enjoyed watching this some years ago at the
Paley Center for Media in New York City.
Unfortunately, it is not available on DVD.
She
also played the intrepid Life
photographer Margaret Bourke-White on Sunday
Showcase in 1960, Mary Todd Lincoln on General
Electric Theater in 1955, among many other TV roles. In her TV career, she was nominated for three
Emmys®. However, most of her work from the 1950s onward took place in theatre,
where she began her career and which provided intelligent and challenging
roles.
The
roles in Screen Directors Playhouse
and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour are
both women in danger and the stories are offbeat and quirky. Both feature surprise endings, but the plot
is secondary to characterization. We go
on a psychological journey with these women. It is this journey that defines
them, not the danger. Both, incidentally,
are also three-person plays creating tension within that triangle.
“No.
5 Checked Out” on Screen Directors
Playhouse was directed by Ida Lupino, and co-stars Peter Lorre and William
Talman. Teresa Wright is a deaf woman,
who is capable of reading lips and speaking without impediment. We are told that an operation may help her,
but the story is not about curing her; it’s about her acceptance of
herself. She is a teacher in a school
for the deaf, but is currently helping her father run a tourist cottage
camp. He must leave to care for a sick
relative, and she is left alone to prepare the cottages for the opening of the
season.
William
Talman and Peter Lorre are bad guys on the lam.
Mr. Lorre is the badder of the bad guys, with his creepy leer and
sociopathic enjoyment of making others squirm.
He makes Talman squirm. Talman
was the getaway driver in a bank heist that went wrong, and he feels betrayed
because a man died and there was supposed to be no violence. Lorre likes violence, and he has Talman under
this thumb.
Mr.
Talman has a nice role here and he plays it beautifully, a sadder-but-wiser
schmuck who can easily be seen as a romantic hero paired with Teresa
Wright. He is not aware at first that
she is deaf, as she is able to hide it well, and chooses to hide it to after
being jilted by a boyfriend who found her deafness inconvenient. Eventually, Talman discovers it, and
encourages Wright to believe in her chances for a full and happy life,
including romance.
He sadly acknowledges
to himself and her that she could do better than him, gallantly not attempting
to be more than her friend.
Lorre,
who does not know she is deaf, thinks she has been eavesdropping on their plans
for escape and intends to kill her.
Talman tries to stand up to him to protect Wright. The ending is as cynical and fatalistic as
any noir.
In
“Lonely Place” for The Alfred Hitchcock
Hour, Teresa Wright is the careworn farmer’s wife of Pat Buttram.
Bruce Dern is their new hired hand.
It is a tale of deception, betrayal, and terror.
First,
one is struck by Wright’s beauty in this episode. In middle age, she has passed beyond the
delicate prettiness of her youth and has developed—with fine lines around her
eyes, her jaw set in determination, and a wide, clean smile—into a beauty that
is natural and mature. Her face
registers many moods in this piece as she takes us on a journey that is as
introspective as it is distressing.
For
those used to seeing Pat Buttram in slow-witted, clownish sidekick roles, this
performance is a revelation. He is
splendid as Wright’s penny-pinching husband, too engrossed in making a buck
that he walks a doomed path from taking her for granted, to neglecting her, to
putting her in danger, to saving himself at her expense. He is so meek a man that we fail to see until
it is too late, as does Wright, that his self-centered personality is as deadly
a threat to his wife as Bruce Dern.
Dern
has the flashy role of a knife-wielding maniac, who shows up looking for work,
and will work so cheap that Pat Buttram won’t send him away, even when Dern
begins behaving rudely to his wife.
The
performances are top-notch, and are complemented by intriguing camera
work. They are framed carefully in the
context of the moment. The trio at
dinner, with Dern in the center of the shot literally between them as he is
coming between them in their marriage. A
shot of Dern’s razor-sharp hunting knife in the foreground in his grip as he
talks to Wright.
At
the beginning, Teresa Wright is shown feeding a favorite pet squirrel, laughing
over his antics. Later, Bruce Dern will kick sand in the little squirrel’s
face, and then kill it. When she
suspects his is attacking her pet, Wright runs out of the farmhouse and we
switch seamlessly to a hand-held camera.
When she finds the animal dead, she screams in horror, a wail of
heartbroken despair that breaks into a silent, breath-catching sob. It’s a stunning scene.
Her journey of discovery is played out in her sensitive face: her
expression of hatred for Dern, her expression of disbelief at her husband’s
seeming unconcern for this event, at his apparent ignorance of Dern’s
manipulation as the episode progresses, her expression of disgust when her
husband belittles her and allows Dern to tease her. Dern frightens her, but it is her new
perspective on her husband that causes her the most discomfort. When he playfully suggests he was jealous of
her attention for the squirrel anyway, and complains that she fed the animal
too well, she asks him if that is why they never had any children. It is implied that he did not want additional
mouths to feed, or to have her attention centered on anyone but him. Her throwing a handful of corn to a wild, but
friendly, squirrel who has grown to trust her, giving him water in an old
baking pan, was too much time spent away from the kitchen, in her husband’s eyes. Buttram is not bullying, but employs as
passive-aggressive tactic to make her feel guilty for not being more sensitive
to his feelings.
She
does feel badly, but Dern is too scary. Finally,
she can take no more and attempts to sneak out of the house at night—and Dern
catches her. There is the ultimate
terror of being physically attacked, prolonged by Dern’s enjoyment of
terrorizing her. He tries to make her
scream again, as she did over the squirrel, because he wants her husband to
come out to save her so he can kill him.
She knows this, and she will not scream.
She will save her husband if she cannot save herself.
As
a thunderstorm moves in, they scuffle and she gets his knife. She has the upper hand now, and he runs
away.
The
ultimate shock when she returns to the house is discovering, slowly in their
conversation, that her husband, whom she thought was asleep during her
alteration with Dern, was actually awake.
He heard everything. He refused
to help her because he was afraid of Dern.
Also, he hoped that Dern would just settle down and continue working for
him the next day, because he worked dirt cheap.
The
ending is a great surprise, but the finely crafted scenes building up to it are
really the driving engine of the story.
The image of Teresa Wright, with all her decency, her intelligence, and
her gentle humanity being a caged woman in her own simple home, at the mercy
not only of crazed Bruce Dern, but of her greedy, stupid pig of a husband are
what is most shocking about the episode and this is what stays with us long
after.
Perhaps
the image is indelible because it is not just a helpless woman being
threatened, it is that decency and humanity of the young bride from Mrs. Miniver, the loyal daughter of Shadow of a Doubt, the noble wife of Pride of the Yankees, and the beloved
Peggy Stephenson who gently comforted Dana Andrews during his nightmare in The Best Years of Our Lives. Teresa Wright not only owned those early
roles, she took them with her all the rest of her life.
Have
a look at the other great posts in the TCM Summer Under the Stars blogathon
this month at Journeys in Classic Film.
***************************
Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. by Jacqueline T. Lynch The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.
“Mrs. Miniver” (1942) has an aura of greatness, or infamy, about it among classic film critics, perhaps rather in the same way its star, Greer Garson, remains a symbol of MGM royalty so long accepted that a second look seems irrelevant. It’s just an item in a curio cabinet of ephemera from a more glossy if naïve era.
This is due largely to the moniker of wartime propaganda pasted on this film, (covered in this earlier post), and partly due to the “glossy” aspect of this film. The movie, based on the series of stories, afterwards published in book form, by Jan Struther, tells of a British upper middle class family coping with the early days of World War II. We mentioned in the intro to this series that war stories that focus on the home front are in some ways more revealing of the greater struggles of mankind than battle films.
“Mrs. Miniver” is a perfect example of this. We are shown a western democracy/constitutional monarchy about to be threatened with invasion by the armed forces of a fascist dictatorship. We see the before, and the during, but we do not know the eventual outcome because that hasn’t happened yet, and that provides the greatest suspense to the film. It is current events.
The problem, as some critics see it, is the “glossy”. The movie was made in the studio and on the back lot. The film depicts an American romantic notion of British decency, honor, and pluck. It is current events, certainly, but it is not documentary. One wonders what the film would have looked like if it were a British production. Less glossy? More true? Closer to the book?
Possibly they would have never dreamed of filming it. Maybe they didn’t need to make a movie of it, but in a funny way from our safe distance across “the pond”, maybe we did.
If the movie seems ersatz in many respects, it was still lauded by Prime Minister Winston Churchill as the greatest motivator of U.S. aid to the British. More on that later, and on how this quite excellent film got hog-tied by its political usefulness.
Though this blog, and repeatedly in this series on “war stories”, you will be reminded that there is historical context to old movies that shouldn’t be discounted, this is a movie that, conversely, transcends needing to know every detail of those days, because the movie’s charm, as well as the formidable Greer Garson’s charm, lies in its winsome grace.
Directed by William Wyler, this is a film that is saved by Wyler’s easy touch. Another director might go for broke in the decent British people vs. Nazi monsters setting, and then the film would really have little left to it but forced propaganda strung along a weak storyline. Mr. Wyler creates images that are magical in their simplicity, and doesn’t lean too heavily on a linear storyline, probably because he did not have an ending to the story. We wouldn’t know the end for some years.
I’ll not go into this movie scene by scene (I’m afraid you’re going to get quite enough of that in our next post in this series about “The More the Merrier”). Instead, just a few highlights.
We see first the quiet orderliness of their lives in this English village on the back lot. Mrs. Miniver shops in town for a hat, and the local train station manager, played by Henry Travers, has named for her a rose he is growing in competition. A leisurely scene (fortunately, they are all leisurely scenes) when he takes her into his office and tells her about it, and I love the way we see his reflection in the mirror seeming to mimic Greer Garson’s enjoyment of the rose’s scent.
She heads home to a cozy Hollywood/British suburban house. Walter Pidgeon buys a new used car, and struggles with the decision. His small daughter Judy hammers on the piano during her lesson. His small son Toby lugs a cat around. Toby was played by Christopher Severn, who had a few uncredited roles after this, but “Mrs. Miniver” was the highlight of his brief career, where he left an indelible impression in a few key scenes.
Oldest boy Vin, played by Richard Ney, arrives home from university, and blathers on about new philosophies. As they drive home from the station in the new used car, I love the way Walter Pidgeon rolls his eyes and nods his head sarcastically in response to his son’s self-centered philosophical rants. Richard Ney is at an age when young men discover the world, but when such immense knowledge is still not quite useful without maturity. He’s a decent kid; he’s just got some growing up to do.
His impatient, “What IS it, Gladys?” to the maid trying to interrupt with a message shows he’s not quite so sensitive to the working class as he likes to believe. It’s a nice touch on Wyler’s part.
When Teresa Wright visits and debates with Mr. Ney about the realities of having a social conscience in the British class system, I love the looks that Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon exchange. We see they are a well-married couple who are able to telegraph to each other wordlessly their amusement, and fascination, watching their son on that awkward road to manhood.
He will grow up sooner than they realize, with the first flush of romance with the sweet, ultra-decent Teresa Wright. A superior young actress nominated for Academy Awards for each of the first few movies she ever made (she would be nominated this year both for Best Actress in “Pride of the Yankees” and Best Supporting for “Mrs. Miniver”. She won in this latter category), Miss Wright adds a gentle poignancy to the role of the sole heir of Lady Belham, an aristocratic dragon played with her usual indignant aplomb by the Dame May Whitty.
Teresa Wright is also pretty much the only person in the movie who, when paired in a scene with Richard Ney, does not make him look goofy. Mr. Wyler is said to have auditioned a handful of men for the role of Vincent Miniver, and wanted a goofy looking kid. He chose young Mr. Ney as the goofiest of the lot.
So, while Ney stammers and declares his thoughts and feelings to the room, Miss Wright by virtue of her serenity seems to bring his character down to earth and makes you believe this young fellow is a really nice guy who could make something of himself.
The other maturing influence to come his way is the war.
We break into the war with a sudden announcement in church, and the congregation, as well as the audience, needs a moment to figure out what this all means.
A nice moment, and we all know Wyler’s films are full of them, of Richard Ney squishing little Christopher Severn against the pew in front of them as he strains to get a look at Teresa Wright over in her family pew. Poor Toby really gets pushed around in church, including by mother Geer Garson when she plants her hand on his head that has popped up over the head-bowed genuflecting of others. She pushes him down to a more referent posture. He bobs up again like a cork on the water. A couple of other “moments” follow in this church scene, when Christopher Severn as Toby asks loudly, “Are we going to be bombed?” Toby has the comical habit common to little kids of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place.
He is not afraid of the war, only curious. His curiosity also leads him to bang loudly the iron door knocker as his family leaves the church, disrupting conversations and startling everybody. In an interview done I believe in the 1980s (which might still be up on YouTube), Greer Garson mentions that Christopher had whapped this door knocker on the first take. He was not told to do this; he was just fidgety and playing. Director Wyler liked it, and repeated the scene several more takes (as was his habit), hoping the little boy would do it again. However (as also was his habit), he never told the boy to do it. He wanted it to be natural. After many takes of not doing it, finally, the little guy did it again, of his own accord, and that’s the take we see in the film.
Which makes me think that the scene when the Miniver’s maid, Gladys, serving in the dining room and wailing over her boyfriend about to leave for the Army, makes Christopher laugh with her boo-hooing is another of those spontaneous moments. His burst of chuckle is so natural that it does not seem forced or planned. Also, look at Greer Garson’s expression when he does it. For a moment it looks like she’s going to crack up, then quickly she puts on her disapproving mother expression.
Wyler eases us into this family’s war experiences so smoothly and under such “normal” circumstances that we find ourselves sharing their growing anxieties rather than simply observing them. Their grown son announces he will join the RAF, and Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon exchange another glance, like throwing a dart, that conveys their fear and their equal determination to say nothing. After Ney has left the room, their only commiseration is Greer’s, “Isn’t he very young?”
“Yes. He’s young.” Walter Pidgeon speaks with resignation, finality, and without a trace of comfort.
This sets us up for what is one of the most shocking switcheroos in the movies. We are reminded in different scenes that Richard Ney is young and that time is precious. He may die in the war. He and Teresa Wright marry because the war will soon drive them apart. Miss Wright is grimly prepared, as her grandma, Dame May Whitty was, to live the rest of her life as a widow if only she gets to live life to its fullest in the meantime. Richard Ney’s pilot officer’s uniform is his death sentence.
But Teresa Wright is one with the Nazi tracer bullets in her body. Greer Garson drags her home in the blackout, leaves her sprawled on the floor while she tries to get help, and her young daughter-in-law dies, as Greer holds her and chokes, “Oh, God…oh, God.” It’s a powerful scene because of Garson, and because of its unexpectedness.
So much else in the before this was cute, from the first air raid drill when Toby wanted to know if the war was over when the all-clear siren sounded, and heartily shouts, “Good!” when he is told it is just the first day. Cute with Mr. Foley, the blackout warden and local grocer pushing sardines on everybody. Cute that the village flower show must continue, and that our gentle Henry Travers wins the top prize. Cute that Dame May gets a standing ovation from her villagers for being a good egg and giving it to him despite her immense pride.
Teresa Wright’s death is telling us to grow up. Life isn’t all about flower shows and shopping for new hats, not anymore it isn’t.
But we have a warning before the death of Teresa Wright’s character on all this intrigue with wartime, and how it becomes, as we might say today, “the new normal” when the Minivers and their two youngest children take to the backyard bomb shelter. (Called Anderson shelters.) We get a taste of the Hollywood-cum-British stiff upper lip when Walter Pidgeon admires the barrage in the distance and then asks if his laundry has come back. We get it when Greer Garson reads “Alice in Wonderland” to the kids by lantern light, and knits, and Mr. Pidgeon shows off the toxic gas detector on the roof of the shelter, like a man proud of his new stereo system. It’s a little surreal to us, and nothing’s even happened yet.
In a few moments, a series of bombs that shake the shelter and plunge it into darkness, a breathless scene with very little dialogue terrorizes the Minivers and terrorizes us. It’s capped, beautifully, by Toby’s, now earnestly scared, wail, “They nearly killed us this time, didn’t they?”
By the time the film ends, we are left with half their house bombed to rubble, Teresa Wright’s corpse laid out in an upstairs bedroom, the villagers gathered in the bombed-out church whose roof is exposed to the sky. We are told several villagers were killed in the raid, including our Henry Travers.
We see that Richard Ney, now a morose widower, has lost any chance of ever being young again.
Then the vicar gives us the Wilcoxon Speech. How could we not buy bonds and send aid to Britain after all this?
The Wilcoxon Speech, as mentioned in this previous post, was hammered out at the last minute by Wyler and Henry Wilcoxon, who played the vicar. The speech was praised by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who ordered it printed in pamphlet form and scattered over Europe. This began the political usefulness of “Mrs. Miniver”, and perhaps locked it forever into a movie called “propaganda”, a message movie to show what William Wyler felt was the urgency of the war in Europe and what it might mean for Americans.
Wyler, as evidenced by this passionate movie, took the Nazis personally. When his movie swept the Academy Awards, he wasn’t there. He had already enlisted. When he returned from war, his next film was “The Best Years of our Lives” (1946). I’ve always felt that “Best Years” was, though certainly not a sequel, nevertheless the ending to the story began in “Mrs. Miniver”. The beginning of the war in 1939, and then the aftermath, and the link between two allied nations.
There are only two scenes which I think Wyler could have done better in this movie, and they overlap. One is the scene about Walter Pidgeon helping out at Dunkirk. At the Battle of Dunkirk, on the coast of France, the Germans had trapped Allied forces. The only hope of escape was by sea, and thousands of British, French, Belgian, Polish, and Dutch troops were rescued under heavy fire by the British Navy, and by civilians who were called upon to volunteer in small craft to scoop up as many men as they could and bring them back across the Channel to England. It took nine days. The evacuation was a remarkable event that could have been given more attention, but perhaps that would not be sticking to the home front parameters of the film.
Sticking to the home front parameters is what made the other weak scene in the film probably something that could have been left out entirely. This is when Greer Garson captures the wounded Nazi pilot. Invasion was a real threat, not an imagined one, but I don’t think this film really needed a Nazi to show us that threat, or to show Mrs. Miniver with her British pluck capturing him.
The only part of this scene I find interesting is that Helmut Dantine, who plays the German flyer, is about the same age as her boy Richard Ney, and when he discovers she has taken his gun, the sick look of hopelessness makes him seem less monstrous and more human. Perhaps Wyler wants us to look in the face of the enemy and see he’s not so tough. But the movie doesn’t really need this scene. It’s like Mrs. Miniver jumped the shark.
One British wartime experience not seen in the film (obviously, it wasn’t in the book, either, but then most of this film wasn’t in the book), was the evacuation of thousands of children from the London area to other parts of Great Britain, and to the U.S. Toby and his sister Judy being sent to America for the duration certainly would have made a dramatic episode.
What we today need to remember about this movie is that all these events, the air raids, Dunkirk, etc., were all familiar tales to the Americans, still safely guarded by two oceans at this time. We had listened to Edward R. Murrow’s impassioned broadcasts from London, where he described these events (with a command of language far greater than most television commentators you will hear today), and so this movie represented a reenactment of what we already knew. It was fascinating to see it dramatized above the radio transmissions and newspaper headlines.
We also need to remember, as far as the accusation of propaganda element goes, that the U.S. was extremely isolationist before our entry into World War II. We tend to remember only the gung-ho, self-sacrificing era after we got into the war. Until December 7th, as a nation we were anything but.
Director William Wyler had to fight MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer even to show a Nazi in this film, as Mayer was reluctant to show Germans as an enemy when we were not yet at war with them. Most studio owners (apart from the always daring Warner Bros.), preferred not to alienate a huge and profitable market in Germany. Studio owners of Jewish heritage were also loathe to appear to be war mongering, and possibly call down the wrath of middle America.
They had reason to fear. Almost immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, conservative Republican congressmen accused President Roosevelt of orchestrating the disaster so that the U.S. would enter the war. If these powerful men, so sick with hatred for FDR, could pull that hideous accusation out of a hat, what could they do to a group of Jewish businessmen, whose religion automatically made them scapegoats?
Even a centrist, or a progressive Republican like Senator Gerald Nye (R-North Dakota), who had supported FDR’s “New Deal” programs, could form the America First Committee. Strongly anti-war, though he did not outright accuse FDR of being responsible for Pearl Harbor, he did insist that our entering the war because of it was a maneuver by Roosevelt to placate British national interests, of being a pawn of Great Britain. Many average citizens of similar viewpoint would agree that “Mrs. Miniver” was a message Hollywood was ramming down our throats.
We finally did enter the war against Germany and Italy, of course, but only after they declared war on us first.
All this was in background, behind the scrim, above the Fresnels, beyond the soundstage while “Mrs. Miniver” was being filmed. No wonder it was labeled with a propaganda badge, since it was created in a tense political environment.
When shooting began in the autumn of 1941, the U.S. was still at peace. By the time the picture was released, peacetime was only a memory, and Greer Garson became not only a symbol of British pluck to Americans, but an example of how brave we could be ourselves, should we ever find Nazis in our kitchen. One wonders would the film have been half so successful were we still at peace?
Along with the propaganda tag, other aftermaths stuck like flypaper to this film. Greer Garson, who really wanted to do comedy, was stuck with being The Queen of MGM for several years in dramatic, patrician roles.
She and Water Pidgeon, in this their second film together, were locked in the public’s mind, and the studio’s filming schedule, as a team for several more movies.
Greer Garson, soon after this movie was filmed, married Richard Ney, who played her son in the movie, which is pretty much all a lot of people can think about today when they see them together in the film. The marriage was short-lived.
In 1992, when unable to attend the opening of the new Greer Garson Theatre in her now home state of Texas, the British Ambassador to the U.S. sent a bouquet of flowers to Miss Garson along with a message from Queen Elizabeth II. Her Majesty wanted Greer’s theater patrons to know, “She is remembered with particular affection for her role in the classic wartime film ‘Mrs. Miniver’” which along with her philanthropy over the years “have made her an outstanding ambassador for Anglo-American friendship.”
To be still called a symbol of US-British friendship at 88 years old, long after the war and that movie is an interesting legacy. Author Michael Troyan noted the above quote in his biography of Greer Garson, A Rose for Mrs. Miniver - The Life of Greer Garson (University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1999). He also notes that a year later in July 1993, Queen Elizabeth II made Greer an Honorary (because she had been a US citizen since the early 1950s) Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for “improving relations between England and the United States” as well as for her philanthropic and conservation activities. Still and forever a symbol of the alliance between two nations.
“Mrs. Miniver” ended up following Greer Garson the rest of her life.
Mr. Troyan also quotes Teresa Wright on the movie “Mrs. Miniver”, and we’ll give her the last word:
“We all felt, and sought to convey, the profound determination that dramatized those days. It was a picture produced in the shadow of headlines, and those of us who appeared in it never forgot it.”
Come back next Monday for another home front; this time in the U.S. where Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, and Charles Coburn discover “The More the Merrier.”
Have a look below at a newsreel of the London bombing and some of the less “glossy” aspects of wartime Britain. (Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and mute the music so you can hear the video.)
