:Mrs. Miniver:
In the event you’ve ever wondered where the “Keep Calm and Carry On” motto comes from, well, this movie might as well be it (although that motto does not actually appear in this flick).
The movie is a bit of war propaganda, shining a light on the best that our posh WW II British allies had to offer to us and to the global war effort. The family displays equanimity in the face of Dunkirk, armed German airmen showing up in the kitchen and the death of family members in air raids.
It’s a good although not great movie but for it’s time it’s just what was needed to create feelings of warmth in the American populace for the people of England when that was a national priority. I hear Churchill loved it.
Here’s a little more about the motto:
Urban Dictionary: The Ministry of Information was formed by the British Government to be in charge of publicity and propaganda during World War Two. In 1939, after the outbreak of War, the Ministry of Information was appointed by the Government to design a number of posters to boost public morale.
The posters required a bold backround, to be similar in style and feature the crown of King George VI along with a simple yet effective font. The first two posters read ”Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution, will Bring Us Victory” and ”Freedom is in Peril. Defend it with all your Might” and were produced by His Majest’s Stationary Office (HMSO).
The final poster of the set simply read ”Keep Calm and Carry On”. The plan for this one was to hold it in reserve and issue it only if Germany invaded Britain. As this never happend, it was only ever seen on a few office walls and never public.
It is thougt that almost all of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters were destroyed at the end of the War in 1945. However nearly 60 years later, Stuart Manley, a bookseller from Barter Books rediscovered one amongst a box of dusty old books.
More recently a hoard of over 100 original posters were found in an old printers workshop and were put up for auction.
Sadly no record remains of the unknown Civil Servent who designed the quintessentially British Keep Calm and Carry On poster.
Wikipedia: Mrs. Miniver won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actress (Greer Garson), and Best Supporting Actress (Teresa Wright).
:Sullivan’s Travels:
Filmsite.org propels Sullivan’s Travels into the spotlight for our consideration and I tried to watch it. I even tried to watch a commentary to see what I was missing.
I just couldn’t get into it and for once I’m not going to force myself to sit through a movie that doesn’t appeal to me. Taking a pass.
:The Magnificent Ambersons:
This is another Orson Welles production based on the 1919 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington. Filmsite.org suggests it was better than the winning Mrs. Miniver.
It follows the falling fortunes of the privileged Amberson family in a fictional Indianapolis.
George is the young, spoiled dandy of the family with no interest in the practical realities of maintaining his family fortune, more satisfied to rely on his family name for his all-important social position than to put his sites on what he might be able to accomplish in a profession.
What’s important to him is to Be an Amberson, not to Do anything in particular, including holding a job of any kind. It’s his goal to be a yachtsman and to carry on in a plethora of amusements.
When George’s father Wilbur dies and his mother Isabel resumes courting Eugene Morgan, a man she was in love with before marrying as a young woman, George is appalled although he himself has been trying to win the hand of Morgan’s daughter Lucy. He does everything he can to keep them apart.
His mother died without her much hoped-for reunion with Eugene and George’s life quickly takes a nosedive. First, he loses his family home (a mansion). A town lawyer he goes to to find quick work in the chemical trade (a job with an immediate and substantive paycheck so he can support his remaining family member, an aunt) goes so far as to call him “practical” for the first time in his life.
The original ending was cut, by the studio and without Welles’ input, in favor of a happier one and nearly an hour was excised from the final edits. The ending felt a bit sudden to me, and somewhat unsatisfactory, although I haven’t read the book so I don’t actually know what I’m missing.
Given the sudden ending I’m hesitant to place The Magnificent Ambersons ahead of Mrs. Miniver which was so roundly and robustly feel-good. Who can’t get on board with appreciating the stiff upper lip of the Brits during World War II? So it is Mrs. Miniver for me.
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