Mrs Miniver Details

This superb wartime melodrama was “more valuable than the combined efforts of six army divisions”, according to Winston Churchill. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon play the British couple suffering in the Second World War, bringing this country's plight to the American public, and today this MGM production is best viewed in that propagandist light. The film won six Oscars, including best picture, best actress and best direction for William Wyler, and it's easy to understand why. Trivia buffs might like to note that Garson's real-life lover at the time, Richard Ney, plays her son in this movie — the couple married the following year. A sequel, The Miniver Story, filmed in England eight years later, is nowhere near as good.

This is the rose-strewn English village, Hollywood variety, but when released it proved a beacon of morale despite its false sentiment, absurd rural types and melodramatic situations. It is therefore beyond criticism, except that some of the people involv