Like many American children born after 1960, I grew up knowing Greer Garson only as the kindly old narrator on the Christmas classic, "The Little Drummer Boy." Not necessarily the best of introductions! Thanks to IMDb, however, I learned that she was once a legendary screen beauty and a major box office draw. Curious, I rented her most famous film, the wartime drama MRS. MINIVER.
What an astonishing artist Greer Garson was! Most "good" Hollywood mothers tend to be solemn, heavy-set, unappealing creatures, like Ma Joad in the GRAPES OF WRATH. Or else they're vacantly pretty but absolutely passive, like Donna Reed in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. But what's shocking in MRS. MINIVER is that Greer Garson plays the title character as a stunning series of contradictions. She's the good mother, but as seductive as any screen siren. She's brave but gentle, vain but modest, sensual but thoughtful, silly but kind. She's got courage, warmth, a sense of humor, and also quite a bit of feminine vanity about her stunning looks and quietly knowing sex appeal.
Just like GONE WITH THE WIND, this is an epic of women in wartime. But Mrs. Miniver is neither a temptress nor an angel. She's an honest woman supporting an innocent people with a just cause. Greer Garson has to combine the sweetness of Melanie Wilkes with the fire of Scarlett O'Hara -- and she pulls it off with breathtaking ease.
The movie is very daring in that it introduces Mrs. Miniver at her weakest and silliest -- gossiping with the local vicar and admiring herself in her new hat. But before long you understand why every male in the village from the train station master to the vicar to her own husband regards her with a mixture of worshipful admiration and lustful awe -- because she combines all of the traditional motherly qualities with a thoroughly bewitching and very modern feminine allure! Just about the only person in the village who isn't under her spell is the local aristocrat, a formidable old lady who can't quite make out what everyone sees in the strikingly pretty but cheerfully middle class Mrs. Miniver. By the end of the movie, though, after you've seen Mrs. Miniver stare down a sadistic Nazi pilot, comfort her sobbing children during an air raid, and even tease her adoring husband into giving her a quick, playful and provocative spanking in the bedroom, you understand why the local rose grower wants to name his most perfect flower "The Mrs. Miniver." And the dignified but lonely local aristocrat, (who wanted the rose named after her) ends up surrendering to Mrs. Miniver just like the German pilot.
The world we live in today is just as frightening and upsetting as the world these characters inhabit. But watching MRS. MINIVER you feel a terrible longing for a time when Hollywood made films like this.
When will Cate Blanchett play a woman like Mrs. Miniver?
What an astonishing artist Greer Garson was! Most "good" Hollywood mothers tend to be solemn, heavy-set, unappealing creatures, like Ma Joad in the GRAPES OF WRATH. Or else they're vacantly pretty but absolutely passive, like Donna Reed in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. But what's shocking in MRS. MINIVER is that Greer Garson plays the title character as a stunning series of contradictions. She's the good mother, but as seductive as any screen siren. She's brave but gentle, vain but modest, sensual but thoughtful, silly but kind. She's got courage, warmth, a sense of humor, and also quite a bit of feminine vanity about her stunning looks and quietly knowing sex appeal.
Just like GONE WITH THE WIND, this is an epic of women in wartime. But Mrs. Miniver is neither a temptress nor an angel. She's an honest woman supporting an innocent people with a just cause. Greer Garson has to combine the sweetness of Melanie Wilkes with the fire of Scarlett O'Hara -- and she pulls it off with breathtaking ease.
The movie is very daring in that it introduces Mrs. Miniver at her weakest and silliest -- gossiping with the local vicar and admiring herself in her new hat. But before long you understand why every male in the village from the train station master to the vicar to her own husband regards her with a mixture of worshipful admiration and lustful awe -- because she combines all of the traditional motherly qualities with a thoroughly bewitching and very modern feminine allure! Just about the only person in the village who isn't under her spell is the local aristocrat, a formidable old lady who can't quite make out what everyone sees in the strikingly pretty but cheerfully middle class Mrs. Miniver. By the end of the movie, though, after you've seen Mrs. Miniver stare down a sadistic Nazi pilot, comfort her sobbing children during an air raid, and even tease her adoring husband into giving her a quick, playful and provocative spanking in the bedroom, you understand why the local rose grower wants to name his most perfect flower "The Mrs. Miniver." And the dignified but lonely local aristocrat, (who wanted the rose named after her) ends up surrendering to Mrs. Miniver just like the German pilot.
The world we live in today is just as frightening and upsetting as the world these characters inhabit. But watching MRS. MINIVER you feel a terrible longing for a time when Hollywood made films like this.
When will Cate Blanchett play a woman like Mrs. Miniver?