Posted on 03/01/2025 3:05:36 PM PST by Twotone
When the 15th Academy Awards kicked off at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub at the Ambassador Hotel on the evening of March 4, 1943, MGM's Mrs. Miniver was up for a staggering dozen nominations, and ended up walking away with six, including top of the marquee trophies for best picture, director, actress, supporting actress and screenplay. Greer Garson gave a record-setting six-minute acceptance speech; the next longest was given by Hilary Swank in 2000, winning best actress for playing what we'd now be obliged to call a trans man in Boys Don't Cry.
Mrs. Miniver was up against The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles' troubled sophomore film, whose reputation is far brighter today than it was at the time, while the rest of the best picture field was full of lesser pictures (49th Parallel, The Talk of the Town, Yankee Doodle Dandy) by top tier talent (Michael Powell, George Stevens, Michael Curtiz).
The war had not yet come to dominate the nominations (along with 49th Parallel, Wake Island was the only other war movie up for best picture), though it was all over the best documentary winners (a four-way tie with John Ford's The Battle of Midway, Prelude to War by Frank Capra, Moscow Strikes Back, a Soviet entry, and Kokoda Front Line!, a newsreel from Australia). The best cartoon Oscar went to Disney's Der Fuehrer's Face.
In the decades to come only three films (All About Eve, Titanic, La La Land) would receive more nominations than Mrs. Miniver until this year, when Emilia Perez was awarded thirteen, including a best actress nomination for Karla Sofía Gascón, a trans woman (born Carlos Gascón). While it looked like Gascón might have had a chance to deliver an epic acceptance speech, reaction to the film has been intensely divided...
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
However, my favorite Greer Garson movie has been Random Harvest, where Paula, the Garson character, is much more complex and much better presented by her. She steals the movie from Ronald Colman, who was good but not great.
One of my favorite films as well as The best Years of our lives—which were th same director, William Wyler.
Mrs. Miniver, 49th Parallel, and Wake Island were all fantastic films.
Goodbye Mr Chips.
Probably the best “small boats to Dunkirk” scene ever. William Wyler was a truly great director.
I never understood why we bail out the Brits. What have they ever done for us? They got mixed up fighting the Germans, alongside their forever enemies the French, and couldn’t finish the deal. The same three powers, four if you count Russia. If we let them slog it out, they go home lick their wounds, and maybe learn something. WW 2 was the result of the European powers punishing Germany. We bailed em out again.
They are our friend ONLY because they are weak. If they were strong, they would dominate us. Imagine that scenario now, with the Muslims in charge.
I never understood why we bail out the Brits. What have they ever done for us? They got mixed up fighting the Germans, alongside their forever enemies the French, and couldn’t finish the deal. The same three powers, four if you count Russia. If we let them slog it out, they go home lick their wounds, and maybe learn something. WW 2 was the result of the European powers punishing Germany. We bailed em out again.
They are our friend ONLY because they are weak. If they were strong, they would dominate us. Imagine that scenario now, with the Muslims in charge.
But Miniver and Harvest both came out during the same year. It's as if the Academy knew she had to win Best Actress, but they made the parriotic gesture in giving it to her for Miniver.
She knew, they knew, and we know. Right, Smithy?
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My two favorite moments:
1. She's delivered the terrible news that Smithy cannot accompany the troupe after all and then watched him dissolve. The camera is tight on her as, without a word, she processes this and then we see her reach a firm decision, her countenance suddenly resolute--I think she won the Award right there.
2. In the bedroom after the Prime Minister's party, comparing her new empress's necklace with her "cheap little beads" and reasoning with Charles and then utterly breaking down: a master class in acting.
If we had stayed out of WWI, the war would have eventually been settled after the belligerents had punched themselves out.
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