MovieChat Forums > Mrs. Miniver (1942) Discussion > Goof?

Goof?

posted 19 years ago by timandsally
17 replies | jump to latest

My wife and I watched this movie the other day and I saw what I think is a goof...
When she tells her husband about the German, she tells him that she took the German pilot's gun and gave it to the police. Her husband then repeats what she says, but he goofs it all up. Since I had the movie on my DVR, I watched that part again to be sure of what I thought I saw. Sure enough... It was so funny watching him completely botch the line! It had to be a goof. Anyone else notice this one?

[–] ArizonaKnightWolf 19 years ago

Just watched this on TMC. I think the goof was intentional. He was so nervous about his wife facing the German, he just got all discombobulated. But, your right. It is funny. Fits the movie perfectly.

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It's a tough universe...If you're going to survive, you've really got to know where your towel is.

[–] trpdean 18 years ago

I don't smoke a pipe - but when Mr. Miniver is smoking his pipe outside the makeshift air raid shelter behind their home - he has the pipe's bowl upside down the entire time. He seems well aware of it, looks at it; it doesn't seem accidental, and he isn't trying to tap anythnig out - it's firmly in his mouth while the bowl faces downward. When he removes it, he holds it still facing downward and looks at it.

It bothered me - do smokers hold their pipes with the bowl facing downward? Why won't the burning tobacco fall out?

[–] shalmayan-1 18 years ago

It's wartime and under blackout conditions.

This would mean you would not have any light showing, not even a lit pipe or cigar or cigarette--
anything that might give away your position to the enemy.

A single light would be seen very far away.

That's also why they had blackout curtains and if you notice you might see sometimes even headlamps on cars were painted out except for a slit, etc...

I would think that the tobacco would be tamped into the pipe bowl firmly, and so it would not fall out.

[–] trpdean 18 years ago

I should have - especially since they have that scene in the basement with the visit from the air raid warden complaining about the light showing at ground level (this is before they've built the shelter outside).

Thanks.

[–] shalmayan-1 18 years ago

You are most welcome. :)

I think every time I watch my favorite old movies,
no matter how many times I've seen them,
I see something new.

:)

[–] trpdean 18 years ago

It's interesting too that one reason I love certain movies is not really the plot or dialogue - but the atmosphere, place, manners. Thus, I like just having Mrs. Miniver ON while I do things around my home - and the same is true of many other movies - I like the kind of atmosphere, the sounds created, the music, the clothes when I happen to glance the ay of the film. It's sometimes a world that is evoked - a world of people I really want to be around - regardless of any story.

The people in Mrs. Miniver - the society in which they move, the looks of houses and cars and clothes, the assumptions, the humor, the routine they have as a couple, their several children, their relations to grocer and vicar and aristocrat, their relation to the cook, housekeeper, maid and piano teacher - the way Mr. and Mrs. Miniver deal with each other - are so loved. To the extent possible, I want to LIVE in that world - and I think this is a common reason why people like certain movies.

You can SEE the world in which you wish to inhabit and spend your life - the flower show and the railway station, the hat shops and the grand cars - they are the props of the world in which one's imagination can take up a long lease.

The same is true of many other movies for many people - e.g., Random Harvest or Best Years of Our Lives or White Cliffs of Dover (or for some, Andy Hardy movies or their own Sabrina world or a Paris that seems mainly to involve the Ritz Hotel). The plot may be irrelevant actually - they are the stuff of fantasy. And that fantasy may be to live in a world surrounded by people who have certain views or certain naivete or behave a certain way.

At any rate, I think the screenwriters committed a crime in disposing of Mrs. Miniver in the sequel! I wish there were as many Miniver movies as a James Bond franchise!

I'd still like to see sequels to some movies that even deal with the grandchildren of the characters we saw - e.g., Smilin' Through, the Robert Taylor character in Waterloo Bridge (say he marries when he returns from W.W.II!) etc.

[–] bethandblake 17 years ago

How reassuring, to know that I am not the only one who likes to turn on certain old films while I'm doing things around the house. Yes! I do want to inhabit that world -- even though it is a Hollywood version of a simpler world that probably has never existed. I love to study the set designs, cars, props, costumes, manners and expressions.

In films made in the forties and fifties, the living rooms look so ... *livable*. I love how everyone has a tea set. Nobody I know owns a tea set!
I even like the stupid doilies on the armchairs and neat polished tables and the way the bedrooms look so tidy and perfect. A far cry from my chaotic world, and a lovely escape.

[–] teaandoranges 13 years ago

Just as an aside, I collect tea sets. If you want to see any every mantle and some shelves in my house are loaded with them!

[–] justaudrey 15 years ago

I absolutely love this post. I completely agree with you. Even if it never existed, it's what makes that world so much more wonderful and it's why I love old movies. It was a simpler time. I know there are those that will dispute it, but as I collective whole I mean.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] robinhood43 17 years ago

re.Goof pipe bowl.In the war people smoked their pipes when outside,upside down so they would not be spotted from the air.

[–] stargazer1701-1 15 years ago

My wife and I were not sure if we saw Vin kiss his mother on the mouth as dropped him off at the air field.

:P

Smoke me a kipper. I’ll be back for breakfast

[–] abalone324 15 years ago

@ Stargazer

I'm pretty sure he did...I read that they were married in real life after this movie was made, so I was on the lookout for any odd interactions between "mother" and "son"...I noticed the smooch that you noticed, so that makes at least two of us who think they kissed on the mouth ;-)

[–] prfranco 12 years ago

I noticed 2 mouth-to-mouth kisses between "mother" and "son". Creepy.

[–] HeywoodJablomy 12 years ago

Kisses on the mouth between relatives weren't always seen as "creepy". It's not like they had their mouths open...

[–] pt100 12 years ago

Upside down pipe smoking shows up in other films as well. During the war it was for the blackouts. But people also often smoked pipes upside down in the rain and snow. I've done it before, many years ago when I was still smoking. One just has to tamp the tobacco down well in the bowl. There are also some upside down pipes designed to be lit from the bottom. At least there used to be, but I'm not sure they still make them.

[–] edsevern 18 years ago

I also believe this is a slip on Pidgeon's part, as I explain on my Greer Garson Glorification web site.

There is a more obvious goof made by Greer herself very early in the film when she's on the phone to "Sophie".

"I'll tell him after night -- after dinner tonight."

...Ed