Posted on 02/11/2015 12:52:34 PM PST by Borges
Winston Churchill credited Mrs Miniver with increasing American support for the war effort. A new programme finds out how the domestic drama changed history.
“We will come. We will bomb your cities.” So bristles a character in the film Mrs Miniver. A German pilot who had been shot down in the chocolate box English village of Belham, he momentarily brings the horrors of World War II to what is largely a domestic drama.
The movie – released in June 1942, going on to win the best picture Oscar the following year – is credited with consolidating American support for the Allies, at a time when the public backed isolationism. A new programme explores the moment Hollywood finally took a stance against the Nazis, after years of underplaying opposition to the regime.
“The Hollywood business behaved shabbily and in a cowardly way,” film critic David Thomson tells presenter Paul Gambaccini. “Hollywood was caught in a very nasty situation – it did not want war for the simple reason that war would interfere with its European sales. And they played a very two-faced game, until it was clear that war was inevitable.”
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Always one of my favorites.
Interestingly, no one seems to be able to make a dent against the Americanism of the film.
We can have hope, again
Great film, great cast.
It is remarkable how powerful a film Mrs Miniver is in spite of the fact that the entire film is made at the studio, mostly on indoor sets. Incidentally, Greer Garson married the young man who played her oldest son in the film.
Pearl Harbor was December, 1941. America wasn't very isolationist after that.
I got this movie about 5 years ago and watched it with a 14 year old grand daughter.
She loved the film but was shocked at the smoking by the main characters.
Pretty funny.
.
The film was made before Pearl Harbor.
Nonsense. You apparently haven’t see The Great Dictator, or Confessions of a Nazi Spy. Both pre-war and both scathing indictments if Nazism. As far as the Soviets are concerned, you are missing perhaps the greatest film they made, Alexander Nevsky. While it was briefly pulled after Molotov-Ribbentrop, it was very popular both prior to and after, and is loaded with anti-German, anti-Nazi imagery.
Never saw it, thanks for the tip.
I went to the wiki entry on Walter Pidgeon and surprisingly he turned out to be a Republican. Married twice his first wife died in child birth and his second marriage lasted until his death. He got slapped with the label Mr Miniver after the movie became such a hit. He apparently hated that nick.
My sainted mom was born in 1915, and had a lot of adventures. Once while watching some old Bogart-type movie, it seemed like 3/4 of the folks in a bar/restaurant were smoking. I asked if this was an accurate representation of the 1940s and she said it was. My mom never smoked nor drank in her life. A teetotaler. But not anti-social, quite social, so she “grinned and beared it.” She said she always tried to get the chair at the end of the crowded booth, to have more fresh air. Your post reminded me of that.
Yeah, six months after Pearl Harbor, American support for the allies had been a done deal for a while. What a silly statement for the article to make.
‘The Great Dictator’ immediately comes to mind as a film made after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact but before Operation Barbarossa. Chaplin was probably one of the few with the clout to make such a film at the time. And of course the Three Stooges mocked Hitler even earlier!
I like the part where private boats and yachts participated in rescuing the British Army in Dunkirk. Never knew about that.
Greer was such a beauty.
The interesting duality of the film was that while her
husband was helping pull off Dunkirk, the situation on
the home front was just as dire.
Great character actors too.
‘Confessions of a Nazi Spy’ was made before the Soviet-Nazi pact.
I will surely try to see it now. It seems like the same moral questions circle today.
bookmark
Yes, agree. And the US had been building its war footing for a number of years beforehand. We already were helping to arm the Brits & other eventual Allies. Our shipping was being attacked by Nazi U-boat wolf packs, and the Japs, who already had invaded China & elsewhere, were as belligerent as hell. The draft was ramped up, Service academies were graduaring its classes early, and war production was moving into high gear. Americans knew we were getting into the fight at some point. The fuse already was lit; Pearl Harbor was the explosion. The Doolittle Raid, fall of Bataan & Corregidor, Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway were occurring when Mrs. Minniver was released. We were up to our hip waders in war by then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.