Trivia for
Mrs. Miniver (1942) More at IMDb Pro »

• Winston Churchill once said that this film had done more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.
  
  
• Greer Garson's Best Actress acceptance speech lasted an incredible 5 1/2 minutes, making it a Hollywood record.
  
  
• After first-choice Norma Shearer rejected the title role (as she refused to play a mother), Greer Garson was cast. Although she didn't want the part either she was contractually bound to take it, and won the Academy Award for her performance.
  
  

• Greer Garson married Richard Ney who played her son in the movie!
  
  
• The vicar's speech near the end was reportedly re-written by William Wyler and Henry Wilcoxon the night before it was shot. It was translated into various languages and air-dropped in leaflets over German-occupied territory, was broadcast over the Voice of America, and reprinted in Time and Look magazines at Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's request. This speech has come to be known as The Wilcoxon Speech, in tribute to actor Henry Wilcoxon's stirring delivery of it.
  
  
• First movie to receive five acting nominations at the Academy Awards.
  
  
• The Vicar's final rousing speech was printed in magazines like "Time" and "Look". President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered that it be broadcast on the Voice of America, and copies of it were dropped over Europe as propaganda. This speech has come to be known as The Wilcoxon Speech, in tribute to actor Henry Wilcoxon's stirring delivery of it.
  
  
• William Wyler openly admitted that he made the film for propaganda reasons. Wyler--who was born in Germany--strongly believed that the US should join the war against Nazism, and was concerned that America's policy of isolationism would prove damaging, so he made a film that showed ordinary Americans what their British equivalents were undergoing at the time. The film's subsequent success had a profound effect on American sympathy towards the plight of the British.
  
  
• After completing the film, William Wyler joined the US Army and was posted to the Signal Corps; he was overseas on the night he won his first Oscar. He later revealed that his subsequent war experiences made him realize that the film actually portrayed war in too soft a light.
  
  
• Jan Struther's book of essays, on which the film is based, was published in 1939. While some of the essays reflect the fear that England might be in a war, only the last essay occurs after war is declared. Some of the book's characters are the same as the movie's, but the events (the book has no plot) are completely different.
  
  

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