Bringing the War Home: William Wyler and World War II

Hoppenstand, Barrows, and Lunde | Bringing the War Home: William Wyler and World War Il Gary Hoppenstand, Floyd Barrows, and Erik Lunde Michigan State University Bringing the War Home: William Wyler and World War II The famous concluding scene in Mrs. Mn/Verwhen theVicardelivers his "We Are the Fighters" sermon. From leftto right-Clem Miniver(Walter Pidgeon); Mrs. Kay Miniver (Greer Garson); youngest son, Toby Miniver (Christopher Severn); daughterJudy Miniver (Clare Sandars); and eldest son, RAF. fighter pilotVin Miniver (Richard Ney). Conspicuously absent is Vin's bride, Carol (Teresa Wright), who has recently died during a Luftwaffe raid. (Note: In the actual scene in the film, Vin is dressed in his RA.F. uniform. In addition, young Judy, inexplicably, is not present in the actual scene. 108 I Film & History World War II in Film | Special In-Depth Section When director William Wyler's The Westerner was released in September, 1940, the war in Europe had been underway for more than a year. Wyler's next film was based on a W. Somerset Maugham story set in the Singapore ofthe British empire—without a suggestion ofthe hostilities engulfing both East and West. The Letter (1940) would be followed by The Little Foxes (1941) where Wyler and cinematographer Gregg Toland would argue about the camera. Should it retain the sharp image ofRegina's face as her husband died in the background (Madsen 209)? Was Wyler oblivious to the larger world around him—to the reality that Europe was being torn apart by a war that had been going on for virtually six years in fact? Hollywood certainly had gotten into the act by then: Confessions ofa Nazi Spy (1939), The Great Dictator (1940) and Sergeant York (1941) were among the eighty or so movies about the storm blowing over the world. Wyler's opportunity to speak out filmatically about the war would come with his next four films directly addressing the war and its conflicts: Mrs. Miniver (1942), Memphis Belle (1944), Thunderbolt (1947), and The Best Years ofour Lives (1946).1 Mrs. Miniver(1942): Social Melodrama as Propaganda - "We Are the Fighters" William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver opened in early June, 1942, and the critics loved the film. In his June 5, 1942 New York Times review, Bosley Crowther called the picture "the finest film yet made about the present war, and a most exalting tribute to the British ." It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards winning—best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting actress, and best screenplay, grossing some six million dollars at the box office (212). Winston Churchill once remarked that the movie provided more assistance to Britain than a "fleet of destroyers." Some sources contend that Churchill's statement was that Mrs. Miniver was more valuable than six military divisions to the war effort; or "propaganda worth a hundred battleships" (Herman 235). President Roosevelt was so swayed by Wyler's efforts that he reportedly asked MGM to begin immediate national distribution of the film (rather than waiting on MGM's normal distribution practice); Roosevelt had the vicar's concluding sermon broadcast over the Voice of America in Europe and printed on fliers that were distributed by plane over Germanoccupied territory. At home, Mrs. Miniver was the most commercially successful film of 1942, and it was second only to Gone with the Wind in box-office appeal for that period (235). Although Jan Struther's novel was the basis for the screenplay written by George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, and Arthur Wimperis, the novel actually contributed little to Wyler's film (Anderegg 116-17); Christopher Sergei's play (1942) reveals even less of a relationship with Wyler's film. The film verson ofthe story owes very little to its literary predecessors, and Wyler and his screenwriters correctly dismissed both the Struther novel and the Sergei play because both failed to achieve synthesis as effective dramatic propaganda British sentiment concerning the war. Mrs. Miniver's ability to move its audience emotionally is a tribute to William Wyler's abilities as both a great filmmaker and a great storyteller . Wyler's shooting ofthe film often departed from the original script, reinforcing scenes that emphasized anti-German propaganda. For example, the...