Die Minivers sind eine reizende bürgerliche Familie in einer beschaulichen Kleinstadt in Südengland. Sie können sich ein neues Auto leisten oder einen sündhaft teuren Hut, haben ein Hausmädchen, einen erwachsenen Sohn, der in Oxford studiert, und zwei süße kleine Kinder, die manchmal etwas vorlaut sind. Der liebenswerte Bahnhofsvorsteher Mr. Ballard benennt eine Rose nach Mrs. Miniver, und der aus Oxford zurückgekehrte Sohn Vin knüpft zarte Bande mit Carol, der Nichte der alten Lady Beldon, die es zunächst gar nicht gerne sieht, dass sich ihre Familie mit dem gemeinen Volk verbindet. Der Krieg stellt das idyllische Leben in der kleinen Stadt auf den Kopf. Vin geht zur Air Force und macht Carol einen Heiratsantrag, und Mrs. Miniver versucht, zwischen Fliegeralarm, Luftangriffen, den Beschränkungen des Krieges und schrecklichen Verlusten ein Stückchen Normalität zu bewahren.
The Minivers are a charming bourgeois family in a quaint little village in southern England. Sometimes they can afford a new car or a wickedly expensive new hat. They have a maid, a grown-up son, who studies at Oxford, and two sweet little children, who are sometimes a bit audacious. Mr. Ballard, a kind railroad station master, names a rose after Mrs. Miniver. Vin, back from Oxford, flirtatiously approaches Carol, the niece of old Lady Beldon, who is not amused to see her family getting involved with the common people. The war turns the idyllic life of the town upside down. Vin joins the Air Force and proposes marriage to Carol. Mrs. Miniver tries to maintain some degree of normality in between air alerts, bombing raids, the restrictions accompanying the war and terrible losses.
Regie: William Wyler. Regie-Assistenz: Walter Strohm. Buch: George Froeschel, James Hilton, Arthur Wimperis, Claudine West, Hans Rameau (Mitarbeit); nach dem Roman »Mrs. Miniver« (1939) von Jan Struther. Kamera: Joseph Ruttenberg. Special photografic effects: Max Fabian; optical effects: A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Associate art director: Urie McCleary. Set decoration: Edwin B. Willis. Kostüme: Robert Kalloch. Garderobe: Gile Steele. Hairstylist Greer Garson: Sydney Guilaroff. Schnitt: Harold F. Kress; Assistenz: John McSweeney Jr. Ton: Douglas Shearer. Musik: Herbert Stothart; Additional music: Daniele Amfitheatrof. Arrangements: Murray Cutter, Paul Marquardt, Leonid Raab. Song: Gene Lockhart. Musik-Titel: »Midsummer's Day«.
Darsteller: Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver), Walter Pidgeon (Clem Miniver), Teresa Wright (Carol Beldon), Dame May Whitty (Lady Beldon), Reginald Owen (Foley), Henry Travers (Mr. Ballard), Richard Ney (Vin Miniver), Christopher Severn (Toby Miniver), Henry Wilcoxon (Vicar), Brenda Forbes (Gladys’ Housemaid), Clare Sandars (Judy Miniver), Marie de Becker (Ada), Helmut Dantine (German flyer), John Abbott (Fred), Connie Leon (Simpson), Rhys Williams (Horace), Paul Scardon (Nobby), Ben Webster (Ginger), Aubrey Mather (George, innkeeper), Forrester Harvey (Huggins), Billy Bevan (Conductor), Florence Wix (Woman with dog), Bobby Hale (Old man), Alice Monk (Passenger), Ottola Nesmith (Saleslady), Douglas Gordon (Porter), Gerald Oliver Smith (Car dealer), Alec Craig (Joe), Clara Reid (Mrs. Huggins), Harry Allen (William), Leslie Vincent (Dancing partner), John Burton (Halliday), Leonard Carey (Lady Beldon's butler), Eric Lonsdale (Marston), Guy Bellis (Barman), Charles Irwin (Mac), Ian Wolfe (Dentist), Dave Thursby (Farmer), Charles Bennett (Milkman), Arthur Wimperis (Sir Henry), Sidney Franklin (Man at flower show), David Clyde (Carruthers), Colin Campbell (Bickles), Herbert Clifton (Doctor), Leslie Francis (Doctor), – Policemen: Frank Baker, Leslie Sketchley, Emerson Fisher–Smith, Colin Kenny, – Men in store: Dave Dunbar, Art Berry Sr., Sid D'Albrook, St. Luke's Choristers, – Glee club members: Gene Byram, Virginia Bassett, Aileen Carlyle, Irene Denny, Herbert Evans, Eula Morgan, Vernon Steele, Vivie Steele, Marek Windheim, Tudor Williams, – Contestants: Kitty Watson, Hugh Greenwood, Sybil Bacon, Florence Benson, Harold Howard (Judge), Billy Engle (Townsman), Louise Bates (Miniver guest), Edward Cooper (Waiter), – Men in tavern: Walter Byron, Ted Billings, Dan Maxwell, Frank Atkinson, Henry King, Gil Perkins, John Power, Thomas Louden (Mr. Verger), Peter Lawford (Pilot), Stanley Mann (Workman), Miles Mander (Voice of Lord Haw Haw).
Produktion: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (M-G-M), Culver City; für: Loew's Inc., New York. Produzent: Sidney A. Franklin. Drehzeit: Anfang November 1941 – 12.2.1942, März – 1.4.1942 (Nachdreh). Länge: 134 min, 12026 ft = 3666 m. Format: 35mm, s/w, 1:1.33, Western Electric. Zensur: 15.5.1942, (c) LP11367. Uraufführung: 4.6.1942, New York (Music Hall).
— Academy Awards 1943: Oscars Bester Film, Beste Regie, Bestes adaptiertes Drehbuch, Beste Hauptdarstellerin für Greer Garson, Beste Nebendarstellerin für Teresa Wright, Beste Kamera für Joseph Ruttenberg; Oscar-Nominierungen: Bester Hauptdarsteller für Walter Pidgeon, Bester Nebendarsteller für Henry Travers, Beste Nebendarstellerin für Dame May Whitty, Beste Special effects, Bester Schnitt, Bester Ton.
Kopie: British Film Institute, London.
It is hard to believe that a picture could be made within the heat of present strife which would clearly, but without a cry for vengeance, crystallize the cruel effect of total war upon a civilized people. Yet that is what has been magnificently done in Metro's Mrs. Miniver, which came to the Music Hall yesterday. Perhaps it is too soon to call this one of the greatest motion pictures ever made; perhaps its tremendous impact is too largely conditioned by one's own immediate association of one's torn heart with the people so heroically involved. But certainly it is the finest film yet made about the present war, and a most exalting tribute to the British, who have taken it gallantly.
For this is not a war film about soldiers in uniform. There are no bloody land battles in it; no armies clash by night, except for the unseen armadas which drone in the moonlit sky. This is a film about the people in a small, unpretentious English town on whom the war creeps up slowly, disturbing their tranquil ways of life, then suddenly bursts in devastating fury as the bombs rain down and the Battle of Britain is on. This is a film of modern warfare in which civilians become the front-line fighters and the ingrained courage of the people becomes the nation's most vital strength. This is a film in which a flower show is as pregnant of national spirit as Dunkerque. (...)
One cannot speak too highly of the superb understatement and restraint exercised throughout this picture. The four writers who prepared the script have given it a natural, literate quality which matches the very best work in their craft and have admirably blended light and humor with pathos and tragedy. And William Wyler has directed with a sensitivity that rarely shows in films. Every episode is made a full experience, with rich and vibrant overtones. The pulse of real humanity beats strong throughout the film.
Greer Garson's performance as Mrs. Miniver glows with compassion and womanly strength. Her encounter with the German flier conveys as fine an emotional conflict as you'll ever see – on the screen, anyhow. (...)
Two years ago yesterday Winston Churchill gave his memorable address: »We shall go on to the end ... We shall never surrender.« It was most propitious that Mrs. Miniver should open on that anniversary. One seeing it can understand why there was no doubt in Mr. Churchill's mind.
- Bosley Crowther: Mrs. Miniver
New York Times, 5.6.1942
Mrs. Miniver is not one of the easiest films to review because in some ways it is very good and in a lot of others it is just repulsive. You can sit in the Empire and hear practically the whole house weeping – a British audience with three years of war behind it, crying at one of the phoniest war films that has ever been made. So you can tell it is well made – superlatively well made. It is hard to be unkind to Mrs. Miniver because William Wyler is such a good director, but the film is so untrue that it has got to be done.
On Mrs. Miniver, her husband and three children William Wyler has lavished all the qualities that make people likeable. The Minivers are a comfortably-off professional family. They have a big house with a river frontage – landing stage and motor-boat; a £400 Lagonda and a son at
The film has already been described by a leading British critic as »the best film on English wartime life«. The film was, I suppose, well-intentioned in its praise of the people of
These pseudo-comic characters are no strangers to the British stage or indeed to the British film. And if the film had made a less strenuous attempt to be realistic one could have accepted them for their entertainment value. But the film sets out to tell a true story of blitzed
In The Little Foxes Wyler made the negroes into dignified sensible people. They were the people who grew the cotton, spun the cloth, grew the food, looked after the white people’s children, sang songs and lived true and well, while around them their masters bickered over pennies and mistresses killed masters for a few musty deeds in a tin box. Why, when he comes to an all-white story does Wyler fail? Surely he cannot believe that the four thousand men Mr. Miniver goes to rescue from the beaches are the morons that he shows in the rest of the film. I can well believe that the story and conception of the people are Jan Struther’s but surely Mr. Wyler who, with all his skill can turn a family of drones into good human people, can clean up a script or else in the actual direction make the forty-seven odd million people in Britain just a little more realistic. (...)
It is a pity that so much ability has been misused by an allied country in presenting
- Mrs. Miniver
Documentary News Letter, Nr. 8, 1942