by Chris Marshall:
We are now into the heart of World War II. Mrs. Miniver was the first Best Picture
winner produced after the United States became involved in the war, and it was
also the first winner to mention the war at all. Casablanca and The Best Years of Our Lives will also involve the war, but they are set before and after
American involvement.
Mrs. Miniver, on
the other hand, takes place right in the middle of wartime London. Miniver
herself is a housewife, her son is in the Air Force, and her husband was an
architect who volunteered his boat (and himself) to evacuate some troops from
Dunkirk. As you might expect, the son is called off to war and thus separated
from his girlfriend, who is the daughter of a rich person they know somehow or
another.
Is any of this sounding familiar? It’s very different in
form and tone, but the storyline of middle-class child (whose family still
somehow has its own maid and cook) falling in love with the child of rich
family is basically the same thing as You Can’t Take It With You. Yes, the genders are reversed, and neither actor
has the charm of Jimmy Stewart or Jean Arthur, but the similarities are still
striking, right down to the feelings of superiority displayed by the wealthy
parent(s).
