Mrs. Miniver

1942 film by William Wyler
the film

Christopher Severn as Toby Miniver
Brenda Forbes as Gladys (Housemaid)
Clare Sandars as Judy Miniver
Marie De Becker as Ada
Helmut Dantine as German flyer
John Abbott as Fred
Connie Leon as Simpson
Rhys Williams as Horace
Mary Field as Miss Spriggins (uncredited)
Peter Lawford as a pilot (uncredited)
Charles Bennett as milkman (uncredited)
Harry Allen as William (uncredited)
Billy Bevan as bus conductor (uncredited)
Eula Morgan as Glee club member (uncredited)

The film entered pre production in the autumn of 1940, when the United States was still a neutral country. Over the several months the screenplay was written, the U. S. moved closer to war. As a result, scenes were rewritten to reflect Americans' more realistic view of the war. For example, the scene where Mrs. Miniver confronts a downed German pilot in her garden was made more confrontational in each revision. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the U. S. into the war, the garden scene was re filmed to reflect the tough, new spirit of a nation at war. The key difference was that in the new version of the scene, filmed in February 1942, Mrs. Miniver was allowed to slap the pilot across the face. The film was released four months later. Wilcoxon and director William Wyler "wrote and re wrote" the key sermon scene the night before it was shot. The speech "made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory". The sermon dialogue was reprinted in Time and Look magazines.

Mrs. Miniver had a profound impact on British audiences. Historian Tony Judt wrote that it was "a very English tale of domestic fortitude and endurance, of middle class reticence and perseverance, set symptomatically around the disaster at Dunkirk where all these qualities were taken to be most on display—[it] was a pure product of Hollywood. Yet for the English generation that first saw it the film would long remain the truest representation of national memory and self image." On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "An excessively sentimental piece of propaganda, Mrs. Miniver nonetheless succeeds, due largely to Greer Garson's powerful performance." In 2006, the film was ranked No. 40 on the American Film Institute's list of the most inspiring American films of all time. In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant:
This remarkably touching wartime melodrama pictorials the classic British stiff upper lip and the courage of a middle class English family (headed by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon) amid the chaos of air raids and family loss. The film's iconic tribute to the sacrifices on the home front, as movingly directed by William Wyler, did much to rally America's support for its British allies. Of the 592 critics polled by American magazine Film Daily, 555 named it the best film of 1942.

Mrs. Miniver exceeded all expectations, grossing $5,358,000 in the US and Canada and $3,520,000 abroad. In the United Kingdom, it was named the top box office attraction of 1942. The initial theatrical release earned a profit of $4,831,000, making it MGM's most successful film to that time.

In 1943, the film was adapted into an episode of the Lux Radio Theatre. That episode in turn was popular enough to inspire a 5 day a week serial, starring radio veteran Trudy Warner on CBS. In 1950, a film sequel, The Miniver Story, was made with Garson and Pidgeon reprising their roles. In 1960, a 90 minute television adaptation directed by Marc Daniels was broadcast on CBS, with Maureen O'Hara as Mrs. Miniver and Leo Genn as Clem Miniver. In 2015, a musical adaptation was written and presented at a community theater in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The Early Bird Dood It! : the bird and the worm encounter a billboard for the "film" Mrs. Minimum, a spoof on Mrs. Miniver. Jackson & Perkins introduced medium red hybrid tea rose "Mrs. Miniver" in 1944, named after Mr. Ballard's rose. In 2015, one remaining plant was located in Germany. It was successfully propagated by St Bridget's Nurseries in Exeter in 2016 and returned to commerce in 2017. Downton Abbey, "Best Bloom Title": Violet Crawley gives her award away at a flower show, à la Lady Beldon. A Raisin in the Sun: Brother, Ruth, and Beneatha give Lena a gift with the note "To our own Mrs. Miniver".