This film is part of a brief, awkward period in Oscar history: the two years following Hitler's invasion of Poland and preceding Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. From 1939-41, there was a very strong "America First" movement in the U.S., which opposed America's entry into the war, often because they were outright Nazi sympathizers. This demographic was not well-represented in the film industry, because many of Hollywood's leading figures, like Lubitsch, Wilder, Dietrich, and others, were German by birth. They'd fled the Nazi regime during the 30s, the so-called "Berlin Exodus" that ended up being the greatest gift Hollywood ever got: a bunch of bisexuals, socialists, and Jews who'd come up in a top-notch cinema culture and had stories they wanted to tell.
Which meant that for two years, the Motion Picture Academy would vote for anything that encouraged Americans to get involved and start shooting Nazis. Mrs. Miniver is in that category, a painfully didactic film about the struggles of the British people under Nazi aggression, as personified by an affluent Englishwoman who gets second-hand reports of how bad things are. It's mostly very stiff and on-the-nose, and is more something to sit through than enjoy.
The exception to that is the film's best scene, when a German pilot has been shot down over Britain, and turns up in the heroine's house when she's all alone, her husband away helping with the Dunkirk evacuation. The sequence that follows has a certain exquisite tension, as the war that's previously existed in noble abstractions and overwritten speeches is suddenly right there in her kitchen, pointing a Luger at her. The on-the-nose dialogue mostly disappears during this sequence, replaced with hideous silences. The desperation of the Nazi pilot, knowing he's surrounded on all sides, contrasts well with the utter terror of a woman for whom the war has suddenly ceased to be an abstraction.
And then, after that, we're back to a conventional tale of life as a very affluent Englishwoman in a small town, whose country happens to be at war for its existence. The film closes with a long, inspiring speech by the local vicar, delivered in a church where there are bomb holes in the ceiling. This allows for inspirational sunbeams, symbolizing hope, to come down and illuminate our heroes' faces as they pledge their faith that England will survive.
It's easy to take shots at this movie, from all the way over here in the 21st century, where we know that the Reich lost. It's equally easy to see why people voted for it at the time, trying to rally public sentiment against those evil fascist bastards who were, at the time, marching across Europe unhalted. I recognize that my critique is bound to its historical moment just as much as those votes were. But Jesus, this movie drags. It's got a genuinely superb scene of tension and danger in the middle, surrounded by a whole lot of... other stuff.
What did this beat?
49th Parallel
Kings Row
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Pied Piper
The Pride Of The Yankees
Random Harvest
The Talk Of The Town
Wake Island
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Another long, fairly impressive slate this year. It's got multiple films that are better than Mrs. Miniver, including 49th Parallel, which took Best Screenplay, and The Magnificent Ambersons, which was legendarily butchered by the studio, but still damned good.