I'd give this turkey zero stars if I could, but a "1" will have to do. All the glowing reviews must be jokes. This vapid, poorly -acted propaganda film is so bad it's hilarious. Winner of 6 Academy Awards, you say? Nonsense. Those Awards weren't won - they were paid for fair and square. Garson's acting is zombie-like and the rest of the characters are equally dull: Her husband is a buffoon, her pilot son a swish, her younger son an irritating brat and her daughter unremarkable. Think the son is gong to buy it? Wrong! The brand-spanking new daughter-in- law does and her death scene is so predictable yet trite it made my eyes ache. And the church scene at the end - so much stiff upper lipiness it made me want to turn the thing off and brew some tea.

Why do so many younger viewers, or stubborn older ones for that matter, avoid a 1940s movie because they perceive it as "old-timey"? This classic film from director William Wyler -- who was to later film "The Best Years of Our Lives" -- makes one laugh, cry and understand the effect of war (timeless war) on so many lives while entertaining the viewer with such ease. Anyone who is not touched by such a film has no business calling himself/herself a film fan. Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson show why they were such popular stars of their day, and Teresa Wright's performance is magnificent while also familiar to those who know her work. Dame May Witty shows her versatility in a key role of this story concerning class differences in the face of a world war. Look for other familiar faces such as Henry Travers, Henry Wilcoxon, and Reginald Owen, and after viewing check through references to see the the off-screen connection between Garson and the actor who plays her son, Richard Ney.

I'm sorry, but I've always felt that this film is overrated.  The story is good, as a propaganda piece, yet the acting and the production values leave much to be desired.To begin with, this is a very claustrophobic film, and feels very set-bound.  It feels exactly as if it is taking place in a studio in Hollywood, and there is very little that feels English about it.  I always feel very conscious that this is an American film about England  made in America-even the Miniver house is much more American than English.The acting is stiff.  One is very conscious that the two principal American actors, Teresa Wright and Richard Ney, are clearly not English, and even the English actors seem to be trying too hard. Greer Garson gives the best performance in the film, but her acting seems strained throughout.  Walter Pidgeon has a hard time being convincingly English, though as a Canadian, he does a better job than the Americans.  I can see how this would have won Best Picture of 1942; the field was fairly weak that year (although I think that "Talk of the Town" was a better film, or even "King's Row"), and with our recent entry into the war, the propaganda impact was enough to put it over.It's an okay film that loses more impact each passing year.  It certainly is not timeless art, nor is it deserving of the gushing praise that it often gets.

Directed by German-born American citizen William Wyler, depicting the plight of the British Home Front, Mrs. Miniver swept the boards at the Oscars, collecting five wins including Best Picture. It is now clearly a piece of propaganda film-making, made at the time where the U.S. were edging closer and closer to war, but this doesn't do anything to dampen what is an often gripping, moving and stirring film. Wyler's views are clear as day - American needed to enter the war before the threat of Nazism becomes too powerful to overthrow - and wanted to show the American audience of the stubborn, stiff-upper lipped efforts of its British allies, from the soldiers on the front lines, to the defiance of the women and the elderly at home.As World War II draws inevitably nearer, middle-class housewife Kay Miniver (Greer Garson) journeys home after shopping to learn that station-master Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers) is naming his potentially prize-winning rose "Mrs. Miniver". Her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) has just indulged in an expensive new car and the two patter around admitting to their lavish spending. Their son Vin (Richard Ney) returns home from Oxford and falls in love with Carol (Teresa Wright), grand- daughter of aristocrat Lady Beldon (Dame May Witty). But when war is announced, Vin joins the Air Force, and Clem volunteers to assist in the Dunkirk evacuation.What is most surprising about Mrs. Miniver is its depiction of Britain. With an American director and a cast made up mostly of American and Canadian actors, the film is alarmingly successful in its realism, and doesn't look out of place amongst the many British films made during this era with similar settings. The cast border on perfection (apart from the slightly hammy Richard Ney), and Pidgeon, Wright, Witty and Travers all receiving Oscar nominations for the efforts, with Garson winning. They manage to juggle a mixture of middle-class kitchen-sink drama and some naturalistic humour, with some playful scenes managing to alleviate the doom-and-gloom subject matter.The film is keen to explore themes of social divide, and how this apparent barrier seems to vanish and diminish during wartime. Vin arrives home from his college spouting a new-found enlightenment about his fellow man, and how the wealthy live comfortably in ignorance while the lower-classes suffer, but has nothing to say when challenged as to what he's doing about it by Carol. It is only when he goes to war when he is truly with his fellow man, a revelation shared by the snobbish Lady Beldon (in a powerhouse performance by Dame Witty) during the village flower show in an extremely moving scene.A true milestone film, now admitted to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, that President Roosevelt heralded as being as important to the war effort as the soldiers on the ground, as he rushed it straight into theatres shortly after being completed. The film's famous final scene that shows a powerful speech on the country's unity by the Vicar (Henry Wilcoxon - whose brother Robert was killed in the Dunkirk evacuation), was transcribed and translated by Roosevelt and dropped into allied territory as a morale builder, and is now known as the Wilcoxon Speech. Historically important, but a magnificent film in its own right.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com