The movie industry may not always accurately represent history, but it has played a role in shaping it.
by Melvin Rhodes
Most people today won't remember Mrs.
Miniver, but she played a major role in swaying American public opinion
toward Great Britain immediately before Pearl Harbor.
Who was Mrs. Miniver? A figment of somebody's
imagination, as played by actress Greer Garson.
Mrs. Miniver, in the film of that name, was
a middle-class English housewife in a remote country area caught up in
Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, when Nazi Germany came very close to
adding Great Britain to its lengthening list of vassal states.
America was neutral during the first 27 months
of the war. Hollywood wanted to change that. The movie capital was then
in its greatest and most influential period. The year war broke out in
Europe, 1939, is still often referred to as Hollywood's greatest year,
the year of Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach, Gunga Din, Wuthering Heights and The
Wizard of Oz.
Hollywood had so many English actors that
the city boasted its own cricket team and the phone directory, oblivious
to the ban on titles dating back to the beginnings of the American republic,
carried a long list of titled stars. The younger actors deserted the city
at the outbreak of war, returning to Britain, Canada and Australia, volunteering
to fight for "King and Country." The women and older male actors were
encouraged to remain to influence American public opinion.
They were not the only ones wanting America
to enter the war-the movie moguls had the same idea.
Many were Jewish and were deeply concerned
about Hitler's anti-Semitic policies, even before details of the extermination
camps were revealed.
These movie moguls set about changing public
opinion, not an easy task when the 1940 election was fought on the issue
of keeping America out of the war. Eventually they were helped, of course,
by Pearl Harbor, but not before they had made some very influential movies.
Patriotic movies, drawing on British and American history, were made throughout
the war, inspiring the people to victory. Winston Churchill was so inspired
by the 1941 movie That Hamilton Woman (British title: Lady Hamilton)
that he watched the movie every night as he crossed the Atlantic to meet
with President Roosevelt. The movie was set during the war against Napoleon,
a previous European despot set on conquering the world.
