Colloquial Speech

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Yeah, here I am expecting everyone to have British accents, when Walter Pidgeon speaks, it's totally American! For the next half hour of the movie, I was a bit distracted trying to find a way fitting that in to the context of the story. I came up with 2 likely scenarios: the first being that as a young architectural student, Clem Miniver decides to study in England, where he meets Kay and they get married. the other is that Clem was in the American army in WWI and while stationed in Engand, met Kay and they got married. Since Vin was born in about 1920 or so, it would make sense. Of course, the film makers never mentioned anything like that, so they probably just hoped nobody would notice his American accent!

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I guess I wasn't the only one! When I tuned into this movie on TV, not having heard about it, I assumed in all the opening scenes that it was set in the U.S., that it was an American family. It was only when mention was made of the son coming down from Oxford that I realized that it was set in England and that all these people with American accents were supposed to be English.

Actually, Walter Pidgeon was Canadian, born and raised in the city where I now live.

Greer Garson, Dame May Whitty, who plays Lady Beldon, and Henry Travers, who plays Mr. Ballard, the creator of the Mrs. Miniver rose, were all English, so there was no trouble with their accents. Teresa Wright did use an English accent, though it was not a very good one and she tended to slip out of it at points. Richard Ney, who was an American, spoke in a very clear and distinct English accent, but it was a bit too strong and really didn’t come across as genuine. Walter Pidgeon did not even attempt to use one, which is a bit surprising (something like Kevin costner as the American Robin Hood), but I suppose Wyler just assumed the American audience wouldn’t mind. So, as an American film set in England but filmed in America (one must bear in mind that this was due to the fact that World War II was raging in England at the time), and directed by an American of German origins, it was bound not to be entirely authentic. Other than Walter Pidgeon’s total punt on his accent, the accents of the other actors did not disrupt my enjoyment of the film (total authenticity is overrated, plus if you are so worried about whether eerything is exactly accurate, then you would really have difficulty “sinking into the dream”).

The accents didn't really bother me. You must remember that not everyone in England talks like a pirate. Further more, the opening scenes really felt like London to me. I was there a few weeks ago, and I was thinking "wow she almost got hit by a car just like I did." I guess if you went into the movie having no clue what you were about to watch you may get confused, but if you did know it was about a lady who gets bombed during the war you should probably assume it's England.

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