Some people call Mrs. Miniver a propaganda film, and that is entirely reasonable, but I have a little more narrow definition, but only a little more narrow. Winston Churchill may have said the movie was “worth either five battleships or fifty destroyers.” Another source claims he said a hundred battleships. German Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels reportedly thought it was a great work of propaganda. Director William Wyler reportedly said, “Mrs. Miniver obviously was a propaganda film.”

Fine. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe it’s just such a good propaganda film, it is so charming and entertaining, it has moments of such joy, humor, terror and sorrow, that I don’t want to give it a label that might diminish it—that might lead you to not watch this film.

It is difficult to label this film because it should be a romantic comedy or a drawing room comedy or a comedy of manners or some combination of all three. It should be one or all of these things, but it isn’t, because the war inserts itself and makes it impossible for the film to be any sort of comedy—it must end in tragedy. This is why it is most certainly a war movie.

But it begins as a sort of comedy where everyone is charming. The upper-middle class Minivers are introduced buying luxury items that are over their budget—but life is short, and we’re all very charming. And we’re kind to our servants; “of course, housekeeper, who is less attractive than we are, you can take time off to visit your boyfriend who’s joining the army.” And we have small children who are adorable as opposed to charming—who am I kidding, they’re charmingly adorable. And the little boy has a cat!

The stodgy upper-class Lady of the town also, coincidentally, has a charmingly feisty and beautiful granddaughter, right around the same age as the Miniver’s oldest boy, who is charming in a “I went to college and read philosophy, so I’m earnest about changing the class system—yes servant lady, I’ll have some tea, thank you” kind of way, while the charming, old, lower class train station worker, Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers, who plays the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life) has made a beautiful rose that he wants to call “Mrs. Miniver” because she’s so beautiful and always so kind to the lower classes in her upper middle-class way. So we see there will be three Mrs. Minivers, three English Roses, sooner or later.

Mr. Ballard and Mrs. Miniver Meet Another Mrs. Miniver

We have a comedy of manners, or a drawing room comedy or a romance, or a little bit of all of them about the three Mrs. Minivers, but then there’s a war. It throws a wrench into a lovely little story that should have a simple happy ending. But everyone tries to play that story out. Everyone tries to remain normal—to live their best lives—but the war constantly intrudes. The husband smokes his pipe and reads, we assume he has a job somewhere, but he also takes his boat to Dunkirk, and the son joins the RAF, but also marries, and they build an air raid shelter in the backyard and make it as homey as possible. In one excellent shot Mrs. Miniver—Greer Garson, not the rose—is reading to her son all tucked up cozy in bed, and the camera pulls out to show they are in their air raid shelter with Mr. Miniver right next to them reading and smoking his pipe. It first appears to be an entirely normal, even sweet and happy moment—and maybe it is—but it takes place cramped in an air raid shelter, under a very real threat of death.

Everyone’s upper lips tend to be appropriately stiff in an entirely charming way. When Mrs. Miniver hears her son is joining the RAF, there’s a long pause after he leaves the room, and she simply says, almost as an aside: “Isn’t he very young, even for the air force?” and the husband replies, after a pause: “Yes . . . he’s young.” They knit and read books to the children in their bomb shelter and still have the big flower show. The show is interrupted by an impending air raid, so the hostess says, “I’m sorry to disturb the harmony of this occasion, but our enemies are no respecters of flower shows.” It’s a Hollywood version of the English that the English themselves must’ve found very appealing.

Even when Mr. Miniver takes his boat to Dunkirk, there’s a restraint to it. Everyone is all hale and hardy and well met at the local pub and seems oblivious to why the government wants them and their boats. There is a nice sequence of shots as more and more small boats are seen going down the river.  When they learn why their boats have been requisitioned, they all have the correct steely resolve.

Ships along the Thames–this shot is nearly exactly replicated in the 1958 Dunkirk

Later he returns with the boat tattered and torn, and he’s happy to learn his wife has read about it in the papers. He says, “Thank heavens I shan’t have to tell you about it,” but he also says, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

I may sound like I find this movie cloyingly sweet, but I don’t; I find it charming and engaging. One reason the movie works so well is these bright, lovely and charming people also face real struggles and because Greer Garson, as Mrs. Miniver, gives a restrained yet impassioned performance. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, and Teresa Wright won for Best Supporting Actress as the other Mrs. Miniver (the flower was notably snubbed). Wright is fine, but Garson crushes it. She is lovely; she is charming and thoughtful and kind and strong. In the first clip above, she initially is hesitant about some old guy naming a rose after her, but her final reaction leaving the room is immensely charming and helps us feel okay about some old guy naming a rose after her–an act that many would find creepy. She’s charming, but she’s also human, and the stresses she faces take a toll on her.

At one point the family is in their bomb shelter, and Mrs. Miniver is knitting as we hear the explosions. Her husband is notably worried long before she is, but you see so much on her face, as she knits and fights to ignore it; she finally cannot. The bombs get closer and closer, and things fall down, and the children start crying, and they end up huddled together in the dark, trying to comfort the children and wondering if they’re about to die. And when it’s over the little boy says something brave and charming. Garson owns this scene; she drinks this scene’s milkshake. Fine. See for yourself.

The movie ends in the fancy, old county (Shire? Town? Parish? I don’t know how England works) church that now has a simple wooden cross that is keeping the walls from falling in—at least the walls that are still there, and the Vicar (Pastor? Priest?) gives the big speech, and everyone sings “Onward Christian Soldiers” so, yeah, this part sure looks like propaganda. You can find a clip of this on YouTube, and it apparently was very big, but I tend to ignore the morals that many of these movies tack on at the end, or the beginning, because they often lack subtlety.

This ending shifts the movie from tragedy to propaganda–“despite our losses we shall prevail.” Ending in the church works for story reasons beyond reinforcing the theme of a once sleeping but now unified Great Britain that the 1958 Dunkirk and this movie share, but I prefer to watch this movie for the human dramas instead of for its propaganda value, though of course, it is effective propaganda because it is so human.

Recommendation

You can buy this movie at Amazon

But it’s the kind of movie that you’ll probably be able to see on some service you subscribe to eventually without paying any extra money, so maybe buy The Jam’s greatest hits CD, Snap! instead–some versions have “English Rose,” but all versions have “Going Underground”. and “Town Called Malice.”