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Post by Andrea Doria on Dec 3, 2023 22:39:12 GMT
Thanks for a wonderful movie, I had waves of chill bumps about ten times as well as the tears.
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Dec 3, 2023 22:53:16 GMT
Yes thank you. Such a treat on a Sunday afternoon to share such great cinema. Only for such a fête would I venture out into the okru wilds of Russia for a copy of a movie I own. Really need to organize the archives. Now if only my internet provider wasn't also apparently located in the wilds of Russia I would be happy. Only dropped me 10 times in 2hours or so.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 4, 2023 0:03:48 GMT
Thank you all for reading/participating.
It was an enjoyable Sunday afternoon!
***
After watching MRS. MINIVER, I decided to watch SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943). I guess I was in the mood to see another film with Teresa Wright from this stage of her career. It's interesting that in the Hitchcock movie she is reunited on screen with Henry Travers who plays her father.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 4, 2023 1:56:19 GMT
Mrs. Miniver from 1942 with Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Richard Ney, May Whitty and Henry Travers
Subtle is good, but sometimes obvious works. In Mrs. Miniver, director William Wyler delivers one of the great WWII propaganda films with little subtlety. The characters and situations are almost all black and white, but inspiring nonetheless.
Sometimes, also, you just want to watch a movie and feel good. Mrs. Miniver fits the bill as its unbridled patriotism was delivered at the exact time England and America needed it. It's so well done, it's still uplifting today.
We meet the Minivers, played by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, just before the war when they are a happy, albeit a bit spoiled upper-middle-class family, which also includes a teenage son, played by Richard Ney, and a younger son and daughter.
After the war starts, frivolity disappears as England is fighting for its life. When British troops are trapped at Dunkirk, a civilian Pidgeon risks his life, over several sleepless days and nights, using his pleasure boat to rescue British soldiers from the beaches of France.
The scene of the armada of small boats, "the little ships of Dunkirk," owned by private citizens coming together to save the British Expeditionary Force at the behest of the British Navy is one of the most inspiring scenes in all of the many WWII propaganda films made.
While Pidgeon is busy at Dunkirk, wife Garson, at home, manages to capture a downed German pilot before breakfast. It's another obvious scene, with ideology masquerading as dialogue. Too bad for the sophisticates, though, as this is a war of good versus evil.
Not all of the movie is heroics as part of the charm of Mrs. Miniver is seeing their village join the "homefront" effort: Older men and women becoming air raid wardens, rationing, blackouts, backyard bomb shelters and more become part of everyday life.
The charm is also the Minivers themselves who cheerfully go about "doing their part." Yes, it's with worry and concern, but also with English fortitude and resolve.
The older son, Ney, joins the Royal Air Force, which has him defending his village during the Blitz. It's obvious propaganda again - this family is at the center of everything - but it's also true as England's towns and villages were on the frontlines of the air war.
Ney also begins dating the daughter, played by Teresa Wright, of the village's noble family, "The Beldons," headed by the imperios Lady Beldon, played by May Whitty. For class conscious England, this is a "presumptuous" act by "the Miniver Boy."
In one of the great tête-à-tête scenes in movie history, Whitty confronts Garson over their children's relationship. Garson, in her inimitable way and in a fine bit of acting, slowly wins Whitty over. Garson's bridging of the classes also, nicely, reaches both ways.
Her friendship with the village's humble stationmaster, played by Henry Travers, leads to another democratic scene when Travers' rose, "The Mrs. Miniver," wins at the annual village flower show against Whitty's rose, the perennial winner "by tradition."
Garson defined her career with her Oscar winning performances as everyone's favorite English mother and wife. But Pidgeon, Ney, Travers, Wright (Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner) and Whitty all deserve mention for creating memorable characters.
Wyler (Best Director Oscar winner) admitted gave the Minivers a house more American than British, but his seamless directing and beautifully black and white cinematography gives the picture an echo of the WWII newsreels the public was familiar with at the time.
Wyler also created several iconic images, including the inspiring ones of the Minivers placidly huddling in their backyard bomb shelter during a raid and the closing one of British bombers heading toward Germany, as seen through the roof of a bomb-damage English church.
It is easy to criticize Mrs. Miniver for being blatant propaganda with a perfect family, endlessly cheerful resolve and a lens that only sees the good side of England's homefront efforts. All those criticisms are true, but so what?
If you want to focus on the criticisms, go ahead, while the rest of us will just enjoy the patriotism of Mrs. Miniver that was, faults included, decidedly on the right side of history.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 4, 2023 14:44:18 GMT
Nice review Fading Fast.
I was reading up on the sequel, called THE MINIVER STORY, which MGM produced in 1950. It's been a while since I've seen it, but per wiki, it was a box office flop. One thing I do remember about the sequel (spoiler coming) is that Kay Miniver dies at the end of it, from cancer I believe. So it was kind of a downer, but the point was that she was doing the valiant thing and putting her family's welfare first, so they'd be taken care of, after her death.
Obviously Teresa Wright's character is not included in the sequel...neither is May Whitty's (since the actress had died in 1948). Richard Ney's character Vin Miniver is curiously missing (probably because he and Garson had divorced in 1947 and unless they did a recast, it would have been odd for him to participate). The young daughter Judy is aged and played by Cathy O'Donnell, but the young son Toby is not aged, though played by a different child actor.
The only returnees from the original are Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Wilcoxon and Reginald Owen. Besides Miss O'Donnell, newer cast includes John Hodiak in a supporting role, Leo Genn in another supporting role and Peter Finch in a minor role. As I said yesterday, Leo Genn played Clem Miniver in the TV movie remake of the original story in 1960 opposite Maureen O'Hara.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 4, 2023 14:59:53 GMT
Nice review Fading Fast.
I was reading up on the sequel, called THE MINIVER STORY, which MGM produced in 1950. It's been a while since I've seen it, but per wiki, it was a box office flop. One thing I do remember about the sequel (spoiler coming) is that Kay Miniver dies at the end of it, from cancer I believe. So it was kind of a downer, but the point was that she was doing the valiant thing and putting her family's welfare first, so they'd be taken care of, after her death.
Obviously Teresa Wright's character is not included in the sequel...neither is May Whitty's (since the actress had died in 1948). Richard Ney's character Vin Miniver is curiously missing (probably because he and Garson had divorced in 1947 and unless they did a recast, it would have been odd for him to participate). The young daughter Judy is aged and played by Cathy O'Donnell, but the young son Toby is not aged, though played by a different child actor.
The only returnees from the original are Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Henry Wilcoxon and Reginald Owen. Besides Miss O'Donnell, newer cast includes John Hodiak in a supporting role, Leo Genn in another supporting role and Peter Finch in a minor role. As I said yesterday, Leo Genn played Clem Miniver in the TV movie remake of the original story in 1960 opposite Maureen O'Hara. That's great information.
My memory of "The Miniver Story" is, as a sequel to a great movie, it's disappointing, but taken as a regular old movie, it's entertaining enough.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 4, 2023 15:05:15 GMT
I am going to have to find time this week to re-watch THE MINIVER STORY, since I'm curious about it now. I see that per MovieCollector's database, it has only aired 23 times on TCM...while the original film, MRS. MINIVER, has aired 99 times.
THE MINIVER STORY can be viewed here:
ok.ru/video/1319426787842
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