Best Actress 1942: Katharine Hepburn in "Woman of the Year"

Going through Katharine Hepburn’s filmography it becomes apparent very soon how closely the milestones of her career are connected to her various Oscar awards and nominations. She won her first Oscar for one of her first movies in which she played a character that surely many considered an alter ego of herself, an aspiring young and arrogant actress who comes into town with big ambitions and even bigger dreams and turns into an overnight success on the Broadway stage. Later she was nominated for the role that officially ended her period as box office poison, for her first motion picture in color and for various variations of her famous spinsters who unexpectedly experience a live-changing romance late in their lives. She was also the female lead in the movies that brought screen legends Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart their only Academy Awards – even if Katharine Hepburn initially wanted to see Spencer Tracy in the part of Macaulay Connor in The Philadelphia Story. But the first pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on the screen would only be postponed for two years and started one of the most famous professional and personal relationships in Hollywood history. They appeared together in nine movies and the most important cornerstones of this collaboration would bring Katharine Hepburn again the blessing of the Academy Awards as she received her second Oscar for her final performance opposite Spencer Tracy in Guess who’s coming to dinner and was nominated for their first pairing in the romantic comedy Woman of the Year. And even though Guess who’s coming to dinner was a groundbreaking movie on interracial marriage and Woman of the Year a popular comedy of the sexes, made in a time when Hollywood really knew how to bring the best out of this genre, both movies have secured a permanent place in movie history not because of their own virtues but rather because of their significance in the well-known off-screen relationship between these two performers. Guess who’s coming to dinner gave the world one last, wordless exchange that did not merely show two characters remembering their lifetime of love and affection but also two real people feeling the same sentiment simultaneously while knowing that their time together won’t last very long anymore. And just like Guess who’s coming to dinner gave audiences the chance to see Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy share a kind of final farewell moment on the screen, Woman of the Year did the opposite, allowing them to witness the first encounter of these two different personalities who fitted together so perfectly – the characters and the actors. Both Tess Harding and Sam Craig seem like copies of Katharine Hepburn’s and Spencer Tracy’s public images, making the love story on the screen almost seem like a public version of their private relationship – which only added to the overall standing of Woman of the Year as an integral part of Hollywood’s history. But does this strong standing really only come from the pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn or do their movies have their own qualities beyond this? The answer can probably be found somewhere in the middle. The fact that the chemistry between these two actors was based on a genuine affection certainly added an extra spark to all their movies but this does not mean that all of them turned into classics automatically. Woman of the Year, Guess who’s coming to dinner and Adam’s Rib deserve a spot on this list for one reason or the other, maybe Pat and Mike, too, but Desk Set, State of the Union, Keeper of the Flame or The Sea of Grass aren’t necessarily very high on the resume of either Katharine Hepburn or Spencer Tracy. And this obviously leads to the question: was the pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy truly so incomparable? After all, and despite their personal on-screen attraction, they were subject to the same circumstances as other on-screen pairs, showing that even a pairing of these two actors needed favorable material that used their different personalities to its own benefit or offered them a strong and engaging story to be able to truly shine. And most of all, even if Woman of the Year or Guess who’s coming to dinner are well-known motion pictures, none of Katharine Hepburn’s most famous classics Bringing up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen or The Lion in Winter featured Spencer Tracy as her leading man – and Katharine Hepburn never seemed to miss him for one second. So, why is the pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy always regarded so highly, considering that Katharine Hepburn always created wonderful chemistry with all of her male co-stars and that her most famous movie roles were not opposite him? Obviously, the famous backstory behind this professional relationship plays an important part in the reputation of their collaborations but the other reason might be the sheer fact that the legacy of this pairing is mostly based on their most famous collaborations, Woman of the Year, Guess who’s coming to dinner and Adam’s Rib. And the way Katharine Hepburn crafted her characters in regards to their personal relationships is visibly different from her other most famous characterizations. Throughout her career she was mostly known for creating somewhat farouche characters, women who either didn’t want a man or pretended to not need them and even if they did it was mostly in a rather unusual way. She was awkwardly desperate in Alice Adams, deliciously nutty in Bringing up Baby and a scheming opponent in The Lion in Winter. And in movies like The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen or Summertime, she started as a woman who saw herself above the affection of men only to slowly discover some unexpected feelings hidden inside of her. In all these cases, Katharine Hepburn never portrayed what could be considered a typical romantic heroine or a mature and loving partner. But Guess who’s coming to dinner and Adam’s Rib started differently – right from the first scene Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy portrayed a loving couple that has adjusted itself to the needs and demands of the other completely even if a murder trial or an unexpected son-in-law cause a brief rift in their relationships. Of course, even this life-long affection was something that Katharine Hepburn could portray without Spencer Tracy when she co-starred with Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond but these two actors didn’t have the love story behind the camera to make this pairing even more noteworthy. And in her filmography, Woman of the Year was also different from her usual screen personality – because even if the relationship on the screen was new and sudden, Katharine Hepburn’s Tess Harding showed no signs of the aloofness of Tracy Lord or Rose Sayer. Instead, her Tess Harding was warm and loving right from the start, curious of this man who unexpectedly attracted her attention, even if the usual feelings of arrogance and superiority were still visible. And so it does make sense that the on-screen chemistry between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy has achieved this legendary reputation because their most well-known relationships on the screen are so differently executed from those in other Katharine Hepburn pictures. But what has all this to do with Katharine Hepburn’s actual performance in Woman of the Year? Well, a closer and analysing look at the Hepburn-Tracy duo is an important step to not let its legendary reputation influence any judgment on her work but it also indicates that Woman of the Year offers a performance that resembles Katharine Hepburn’s most famous work but also offers something unexpected and surprisingly different.

In her own ways, Katharine Hepburn was not a true chameleon in her craft. Her strong personality always shined through her characters and she did not imperceptibly switch between different personalities, always putting her own distinctive stamp on the roles she played. But her versatility never suffered from this – instead, Katharine Hepburn belongs to the group of strong and unique actresses who all brought their own styles and personalities to their parts but still made each of their characters appear unique and unmistakably. Just like Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford or Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Hepburn could both dominate her character and let herself be overshadowed by it – they all delivered intriguing performances that lived from their star power but succeeded because of their talent. In the case of Katharine Hepburn, she often displayed a very recognizable acting style that seldom differed in her pictures but she still added small details and characteristic traits to the women she played and was able to bring them all to live with her own well-known but still inimitable determination. The reason for a lot of this familiarity might be the sheer fact that a lot of her parts often seemed to resemble each other on a first look – the spinsters from Summertime, The African Queen or The Rainmaker, the arrogant heroines from The Philadelphia Story or Morning Glory or the supportive but still self-determined wife in Guess who’s coming to dinner or On Golden Pond. But these roles all varied in their demands and challenges, Rose Sayer and Jane Hudson might appear like old spinsters but they are still completely different women and Katharine Hepburn's own thoughtful work constantly underlined their unique personalities and their different circumstances. And besides this she has also shown many times in her career that she could easily be completely different whenever she was given the chance – she could be hilariously nonsensical in Bringing up Baby, honestly concerned in Holiday, touchingly helpless in Alice Adams or grippingly scheming in Suddenly, Last Summer or The Lion in Winter. Or surprisingly earthy, approachable and human in Woman of the Year. It's startling that her Tess Harding is actually a character that seems to fit Katharine Hepburn like a glove because all the traits of superiority and arrogance are there and almost understandable – Tess Harding is not a cold heiress like Tracy Lord or an uptight missionary but an expert on the political scenes and an intelligent journalist with contacts around the world, deeply involved in the happenings during the war in Europe, a renowned and respected figure who can form the opinions of millions. Spencer Tracy’s Sam is presented in the rather opposite way – he’s a sports writer, not concerned with too much that’s going on in the world, enjoying a simple life without too many complications. Such a pairing of opposites was not even new in 1942 but it worked so well because Katharine Hepburn defied all expectations with her performance. In Woman of the Year, Katharine Hepburn’s Tess Harding can first be heard as a guest on a radio show and Katharine Hepburn uses her sharp and slightly pretentious voice to indicate right away that Tess Harding is a woman who knows about her own importance and self-worth. Taken by itself, this would not be a reason to expect her to be off-putting and unlikeable but the comments of the listeners, including Sam, and Tess’s opinion on Baseball is enough to cast a rather dubious light on her character – this is a concept that the movie will follow through until the end and even if Katharine Hepburn is always willing to go along with all the demands that are put before her she often cannot overcome the way her character is presented and shaped. In some ways, Woman of the Year unfortunately failed to make use of Katharine Hepburn at her most warmest and radiant (like co-nominee Bette Davis she reached the highpoint of her unique beauty in 1942) since it too often forces her back into the position of a battle ship constantly defending itself by attacking those who are in its way. But more on this later because Katharine Hepburn’s first scenes with Spencer Tracy show a Katharine Hepburn that has never been more relaxed or natural. Their famous first meeting already displays a playfulness in her work that has seldom been visible in her other performances. She doesn’t seem to see herself above Sam, instead she obviously finds him interesting right from the start. She delivers the line that she always likes to quit a battle when she's losing free from any fake friendliness and she has never been more charming than in her acceptance of Sam’s invitation to a baseball game – her short and immediate ‘Okay’ shows a woman who is much more appealing and endearing than anyone would have expected, especially considering that this whole first meeting could have been played completely differently, with a much slower approach and a Tess Harding that still would have preferred to listen to her head instead of her feelings. In some ways it can be speculated if Katharine Hepburn’s performance was actually intended to be so relaxed and light or if it was the novelty of working with Spencer Tracy that led to this acting style. Because, as just mentioned above, Woman of the Year displays like no other movie in her career that Katharine Hepburn’s famous independence and strength was often actually just portrayed as false arrogance and boastfulness or maybe even just too much confidence – and that she needed to be cut down to an acceptable size before there could be any hope for a Happy Ending. But more than that Woman of the Year constantly makes it clear that a relationship in which the woman appears to be the busier, more deciding or just more important person can only be completely illogical and that Tess never uses her role in this marriage for any good but only her own benefit. The first meeting between Tess and Sam, as charming as it might be, also rings false because of the way it makes Katharine Hepburn’s beauty almost surprising because, after all, who would expect an intelligent woman to be beautiful, too? Tess constantly turns into a self-centric monster, a woman who wants to wear the pants and therefore loses every bit of what would be considered ‘feminity’ or any maternal instincts – she adopts a child without actually caring for it or asking her husband and later wants to leave it alone at night and constantly insults her husband’s position without showing any sign of self-realization. And so it’s frustrating to see how Woman of the Year does it best to show that all the imbalance in this relationship is caused by this ‘woman of the year’ who apparently cannot be a woman at all. Of course, Katharine Hepburn is not to blame for any faults of the script but she often cannot catch up with the constant change of tone that has Tess loving and caring in one second and then selfish and distant the next – Katharine Hepburn plays all these moments accordingly but very often cannot connect them. Her part remains strangely underwritten for most of the time despite all the possibilities of a woman like Tess Harding.

But even with all the problems that Woman of the Year presents, it still remains an enjoyable experience thanks to the work of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn who both give the kind of light and charming performances that complement each other perfectly and make their characters themselves much more interesting than their actual actions. His humor and laxity work very well with her more serious approach to the part and throughout the movie it’s always easy to see the sparks flying between these two actors. And while Katharine Hepburn might often not be able to connect the different parts of her performance she still creates many strong moments in a movie that is usually not asking for them. And so there are mostly single moments in her work that stand out more than her actual characterization as a whole. She is absolutely winning in her scenes at the baseball game and for once benefitting from the dominant role that the screenplay is giving her because it allowed her to play Tess not as a typical love interest but a woman who is equal in the development of this relationship and that she is just as much a buddy as a love interest, not intimidated by the men around her and enjoying the game once she understood the rules. She follows those moments with equally memorable scenes and again she displays much more spontaneity and genuineness than in most other of her performances.  She’s honestly charming and delightful in her drunken scenes when she goes out on a date with Sam and later in the taxi and her apartment crafts the sort of intimacy that maybe could only exist truly between her and Spencer Tracy. What’s so refreshing about Katharine Hepburn in those scenes is that her Tess never shows any signs of arrogance and therefore she constantly remains a delightful surprise since the combination of a successful single woman and Katharine Hepburn seems to guarantee this characteristic almost by design. But Katharine Hepburn only displays a natural self-confidence that never pretends her from enjoying the possibilities that life is offering her. The idea of having a man in her life never rings an alarm bell for Tess – she may be strong and independent, but she is neither against marriage nor a husband. Her reaction to his unexpected marriage proposal and her delivery of the line ‘Plenty’ again shows Katharine Hepburn at her most unaffected and she finds a simplicity in those early moments that beautifully complements the complexity of the character even when the writing lets her down. She also never makes it seem as if Tess is swept off from her feet and marries Sam without thinking about it – instead she clearly demonstrates that Tess is aware of her own feelings and steps, showing her as strong and self-reliant enough to know what she wants and what she can handle. There isn’t the kind of virginal coldness in her that she displayed as Tracy Lords two years earlier – her Tess makes it easy to believe that she had her fair share of romance and flirts in her life but it’s the famous attraction of opposites that makes her want to marry this sports reporter who knows nothing about her world just as she knows nothing about his. In some way the fact that Tess afterwards turns rather often into an appalling partner does make sense – even if the marriage did not happen out of a spontaneous idea, Tess still apparently never realized what getting married truly means. But the script never finds the difference between a woman not being able to adjust herself and a woman not giving any thought about the feelings of others, a characteristic that has never been visible in Tess before. And so the previously mentioned statement that it’s questionable if Tess was ever supposed to be played with so much warmth in the early scenes comes back again – Katharine Hepburn apparently wanted to bring more depth and dimension to the part than the script intended to but she is not able to make Tess’s actions and behaviors completely believable. Still, it’s noteworthy that she decided to play her with such honesty and makes it even easier for Spencer Tracy to win the sympathy of the audience but while the chemistry between both actors is always right, the relationship of the two characters remains strangely pale. The attraction of these two opposites loses some of its fascination after the realization how big these opposites truly are and not even the careful direction, in which the screenplay is guiding both characters to let them realize how perfect they are for each other in the end, can re-create the sexual tension and almost magical power of attraction from the beginning of the movie. Nevertheless Katharine Hepburn uses the remaining dramatic opportunities of the script very well – the scene in which she realizes that the little boy she adopted prefers to stay in the orphanage instead of coming back home with her is a very powerful moment of self-realization but even more memorable is Katharine Hepburn’s close-up during her father’s wedding. She later tells Sam that she truly listened to the words spoken by the priest for the first time – and her face touchingly makes this obvious even before. Her sadness, understanding, self-doubt and quiet desperation certainly create one of Katharine Hepburn’s most unforgettable moments on the screen. Later, she again fights a lost cause very bravely in her final scenes when Woman of the Year again wants to show how ‘un-woman’ Tess Harding actually is when she cannot even make her husband breakfast – Katharine Hepburn’s confusion and anger are certainly portrayed well but she is again unable to overcome the limits of the role in those scenes.

Overall, the work with Spencer Tracy clearly had a strangely appealing affect on Katharine Hepburn, letting her open up her usual screen personality without losing all her qualities that made her such a natural choice for the character of Tess Harding. Besides this, she could make complete use of her talents for comedy and drama even if she sometimes feels uneven in the way she brings this character to life. Her work may always feel fresh and Katharine Hepburn has rarely been so loveable but the script too often leaves her helpless and even contradicts her own intentions. So when all is said and done Woman of the Year and Katharine Hepburn’s performance benefit mostly from the undeniable chemistry between the two leading stars – Katharine Hepburn might have worked with other co-stars just as well but the chemistry between herself and Spencer Tracy managed to be defined by friendship and honest support just as much as it was by sexual attraction and love. And this chemistry did more for the success of Woman of the Year than either the script or the two central performances. This shows that both actors could be held back by the same circumstances as other screen pairs but they were still able to use their appeal to the audience and to each other to turn deservedly into one of the most iconic screen couples and the creation of their chemistry should also not be underestimated in its difficulty – Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon worked together on eight pictures and they were often handed tailor-made material but they still never achieved the same kind of intimacy and attraction. So in the end, Katharine Hepburn gave a delightful, charming and sometimes multi-layered performance even if those layers often were not able to connect to each other. It is rather frustrating that Woman of the Year found Katharine Hepburn at her most natural and relaxedness in her career but gave her a part that never truly took advantage of it. All this is not to say that her other work, even if not as relaxed or warm, is less impressive – on the contrary, her most outstanding work has been created by her ability to be so strangely distant and Katharine Hepburn could always be a warm presence if she wanted to but rarely was she so completely willing to let all her guards down. Maybe Katharine Hepburn could not overcome all obstacles of her role and she also could not completely use her own characterization in the context of Woman of the Year but it’s still a beautiful, often amusing and touching piece of work.

Best Actress 1942: Teresa Wright in "The Pride of the Yankees"

In 1943, the Academy honored two women who both reached the peak of their careers with their co-starring and acclaimed performances in the World War II drama Mrs. Miniver. Greer Garson won the Best Actress statuette for her role as the noble and strong title character while Teresa Wright received the award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Carol, Mrs. Miniver’s charming, lovely and ill-fated daughter-in-law. These two wins not only reflected the popularity of Mrs. Miniver, which is one those Best Picture winners that managed not only to be both a critical and a financial success but also became a phenomena around the world, but also the popularity of these two actresses themselves who, during the first half of the decade, were among the brightest stars in Hollywood, enjoying a high level of success after having established themselves on the big screen quite effortlessly. Greer Garson received an Oscar nomination for her first film performance in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, later tied Bette Davis for the record for most consecutive acting nominations ever and ended her career with an overall amount of seven Oscar nominations to her name, putting her above contemporary actresses like Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland or Irene Dunne. And two years after Greer Garson, another newcomer to the screen established herself as a respected member of the film community right away and joined the club of performers who won Oscar nominations for their film debut – producer Samuel Goldwyn apparently offered Teresa Wright a contract the same night he saw her for the first time while she was appearing on the stage in the popular play Life with Father. Prior to this engagement, Teresa Wright had been the understudy for Emily in Our Town, a role she finally took over after Martha Scott left the production to star in the 1940 film version. It was a first-class entrance into the world of Broadway that Teresa Wright would copy again with a similarly first-class entrance into the world of Hollywood. Her unaffected personality and sweet-natured appearance combined with youthful idealism and thoughtfulness created a stark contrast to the more domineering or glamorous female stars of the time and Samuel Goldwyn apparently sensed that her naturalism on the stage could be effectively captured on the big screen, too. It was an investment that paid off immediately when Teresa Wright received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for playing the innocent daughter of Regina Giddens in the movie version of Lilian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. Starring Bette Davis and directed by William Wyler, The Little Foxes was a prestigious show-case for everyone involved and gave Teresa Wright the opportunity to display her talents for portraying unharmed innocence opposite a scheming and ruthless opponent – and not only the Academy but critics and audiences, too, reacted positively to Teresa Wright’s film debut which showed that Samuel Goldwyn was right in his assumption since her ability to hold her own against more established movie stars and her unusual blend of maturity and youthfulness turned her into an intriguing screen personality right away, leading to her further involvement in some of the most prestigious productions of the time. In 1942, she followed her work in The Little Foxes with her portrayal of Carol in Mrs. Miniver and of Lou Gehrig’s supportive wife in the popular sports drama The Pride of the Yankees, making her one of the most beloved female stars on the screen – also among the members of the Academy who blessed Teresa Wright’s first two years in Hollywood with several outstanding honors. After her nomination for her film debut, Teresa Wright became the second person ever to be nominated in both the leading and the supporting category one year later, therefore earning Oscar nominations for every one of her first three movie appearances ever – a record that is unlikely to ever be broken. So, even if Greer Garson was the most admired leading lady of 1942, winning an Oscar for the signature role of her career at the highpoint of her growing popularity, the Oscar win for Teresa Wright was just as well received by audiences and critics alike and signaled that it was ‘her year’ just as much as it was Greer Garson’s year, proving that she had established herself as an accomplished screen actress right away and it seemed only fitting that these two actresses co-starred in the year’s most popular and acclaimed movie and won Oscars for portraying women whose lives and relationships were affected by the Blitz during World War II. But beyond their effortless entrance into Hollywood and the simultaneous highlights of their work, Teresa Wright and Greer Garson also faced a similar fate later in their careers – that of slowly falling into oblivion. Greer Garson was a guarantor for healthy box office and Academy recognition year after year after year but she did not manage to maintain the same kind of popularity and critical acclaim as the other three women whom she had beaten for the gold in 1942, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell, slowly losing the admiration of audiences and her position as the first lady of MGM even if she continued to be praised for her work in movies like Sunrise at Campobello in 1960 or on the Broadway stage in productions like Auntie Mame. And after The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright also had to learn that Oscar nominations don’t come for every performance and she was dropped by the Academy just as quickly as its members had embraced her initially. But she nonetheless kept appearing in high-profile roles, playing the leading role and winning the admiration of director Alfred Hitchcock in his personal favorite Shadow of a Doubt and later giving another prominent supporting performance in the classic Oscar winner The Best Years of our Lives. She apparently was also the first choice for the starring role in the western Duel in the Sun but had to leave the production due to pregnancy, enabling Jennifer Jones to take over the role and win her third Best Actress nomination in the process. But even though critics continued to praise her warmth on the screen, personal disputes with Samuel Goldwyn eventually led to her release from her contract and the popularity of her films began to decline. Later ahe was the leading lady in Marlon Brando’s film debut and also acted opposite stars like David Niven, Spencer Tracy and Robert Mitchum but during the next decade she began to focus more strongly on the stage and on television where she was the first actress to portray the character that would bring an Oscar and a Tony to Anne Bancroft a few years later – Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. So, Teresa Wright had an undoubtedly exciting and interesting career, reaching the heights of her popularity and acclaim quite effortlessly and still leaving a distinct mark on famous classics and well-known characters even after the Academy had moved on. She was also able to constantly cross the line between a supporting and leading status in a time when these boundaries were still much stronger, accepting parts based on their challenges and opportunities and not on their screen time or position in the movie's structure. After her supporting nomination for The Little Foxes and her win for Mrs. Miniver, it could have been very likely that she would have continued to position herself as a typical supporting actress but the Academy embraced her work in The Pride of the Yankees quite as eagerly, nominating her for Best Actress, too, and paving the way for the further leading roles of her career. And so her nomination is an intriguing case of a supporting player joining what is often considered the more prestigious category and highlights the overall respect and admiration towards this talented newcomer in 1942, making her performance an important milestone in her still young career. But was her double-nomination truly a result of her outstanding artistry during this year or was it rather this respect and admiration that influenced Academy members in their decisions?

In all of her performances, Teresa Wright was able to portray an instant likeability, a natural charm and poise that helped to easily lighten up the screen whenever she appeared and made her characters honest, accessible and innocent. And it was most likely this likeability that helped her to carry out such a fast rise to stardom as she lacked the visible domineering self-assuredness of other female stars of her time and therefore never made her appear like a competitor but rather a companion and close fellow. And so it is no surprise that the Academy, too, responded very positive to her work during the beginning of her career, eager to embrace and honor her performances with its very own seal of approval. But besides her likeable personality, Teresa Wright also had the advantage of having given her first performances in movies that appealed to Academy members for other reasons, too – The Little Foxes was a prestigious adaption of a successful stage play, Mrs. Miniver one of the most popular movies against Nazi Germany during the Second World War and The Pride of the Yankees a strong monument to a baseball legend and to American virtues in general. And so the double nomination of Teresa Wright in 1942 was hardly a surprise and a testament to the strong impressions that she left in two of the most triumphant motion pictures of the year. It was an almost Cinderella-like story that allowed her to win an Oscar for bringing charm and grace to Mrs. Miniver while her work in The Pride of the Yankees put her right next to some of the biggest female leading stars of her time and enabled her to establish her own leading status that would be even more strongly defined one year later when she accepted her central role in Shadow of a Doubt. But even though Teresa Wright positioned herself quite effortlessly as the leading lady in many of her later pictures, she still stood out among her co-nominees Greer Garson, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell in 1942 – because The Pride of the Yankees did not offer her the same kind of central and deciding role that these more seasoned actresses were given in Mrs. Miniver, Now, Voyager, Woman of the Year and My Sister Eileen. Compared to those star-vehicles, The Pride of the Yankees was never intended to be a movie either for or about Teresa Wright – it was certainly a star-vehicle, too, but only for her co-star Gary Cooper who portrayed the baseball legend Lou Gehrig from his first days as an aspiring athlete to the end of his career when he was diagnosed with a fatal illness that would later carry his name. And even though Teresa Wright was clearly presented as the female star of The Pride of the Yankees, her role is essentially of secondary importance and poses the question if she would also had been nominated in the leading category if either Mrs. Miniver or The Pride of the Yankees had been released one year later – in fact, it seems rather likely that Teresa Wright would have turned into a perennial nominee in the supporting category and in the end, it is most likely that the Academy’s desire to recognize both of Teresa Wright’s performances in 1942 caused her leading nomination for The Pride of the Yankees. Of course, it is unlikely that her performance as Lou Gehrig’s wife would have been campaigned as a supporting actress but simultaneously it is debatable if her role would have made the necessary impact to enter the leading category without Teresa Wright’s sudden career peak and additional support by her work in the year’s Best Picture winner Mrs. Miniver. Because as Eleanor Gehrig, Teresa Wright does not enter The Pride of the Yankees until about 30 minutes after it started and the following story never focuses on her nor is it truly interested in her own point-of-view or personal experiences – instead, The Pride of the Yankees, as mentioned before, is always a movie about Lou Gehrig, his life, his profession, his dreams and ultimately his illness. His wife is only one part of this life, just like his parents, just like his friends and just like his teammates but in the context of the story even of less importance than his career as a professional baseball player. And so a classification of Teresa Wright as a supporting actress in The Pride of the Yankees would not have been illogical but at the same time it is not difficult to understand that she was presented as its female star because The Pride of the Yankees offered something to Teresa Wright that neither Mrs. Miniver nor The Little Foxes had given her – the central female character. Eleanor might be of secondary importance in the structure of the story but she is still its most important female presence. The importance and influence of Eleanor Gehrig may not differ too much from that of Carol Miniver or Alexandra Giddens but her supporting status in Mrs. Miniver and The Little Foxes was easier to determine since both movies circle around a central female character and offer a clear hierarchy of the remaining female parts – but with no Bette Davis or Greer Garson around, Teresa Wright alone held the position as the most noteworthy female presence in The Pride of the Yankees and therefore could create the illusion of Eleanor as a much more essential part to the story than she actually is. But even without another prominent female part, the male-dominated structure of The Pride of the Yankees was still working against Teresa Wright as it never tried to hide the fact that there is only one aspect it wants to give its full attentions to – Lou Gehrig and the central performance by Gary Cooper. So the questions is – was Teresa Wright able to overcome any limitations to her role and add a more intriguing inner life to her character that went beyond the supportive wife or did she stay within the boundaries of the script and dutifully fulfilled her purpose to add even more shining light on Gary Cooper without stepping into the foreground herself?

To provide this question with an answer, another question is actually necessary first: what did the script offer to Teresa Wright and what did it intend for the character of Eleanor? The answers to this question are unfortunately ‘little’ and ‘nothing’. Eleanor is never written as an independent human being but is always another vessel created to admire and respect Lou Gehrig’s simple nature, his honesty, his determination and his humbleness, with the ultimate goal of presenting her as the perfect wife for the perfect marriage of a perfect American hero. The role never provides any background to the character, Eleanor is the kind of movie wife who never seemed to have existed before getting married and who never had any dreams, plans or ambitions of her own. It’s a clear but therefore limited mission that Teresa Wright faced and it is hard to imagine that she was ever even allowed to explore Eleanor further, most likely constantly held back if she dared to try and reminded of her place in the structural context that positioned her as the either happy, sad or suffering wife, depending on certain scenes and how they related to the life of Lou Gehrig. And so, the script truly intended ‘nothing’ for Eleanor since the role remained an empty vessel that was clearly written to add a love story to the life of Lou Gehrig and therefore make the topic of The Pride of the Yankees more accessible to the general audience who might not have been interested in a story that focused too exclusively on baseball alone. And so this ‘nothing’ left Teresa Wright with ‘little’ to do – but she was still able to brighten up both her role and the relationship between Lou and his wife with her charming personality and genuine youthfulness and she was also generous enough to constantly step back and let Gary Cooper shine in his part until the script allowed Eleanor to anchor a scene or a single moment herself, gracefully slipping into the structure of The Pride of the Yankees and fill her role with the asked-for restraint and subtlety but still allowing Eleanor to become the desirable woman she is supposed to be. In these aspects, Teresa Wright’s performance indeed succeeded as she tackled the task of not only becoming the perfect female equivalent for Lou Gehrig but also turning Eleanor into a symbol of kindness, innocence, devotion, modesty and love, a simple yet unique person that stands for everything The Pride of the Yankees wants to portray – a task that was actually right in Teresa Wright’s comfort zone since charm and grace always came very easily to her and few other performers were able to be so instantly likeable and delightful, combining an idea of traditional womanhood with the sentimentality of true companionship. And so Teresa Wright was actually able to add her distinct style to the role and fill it with her appealing personality and furthermore managed to make the role of Eleanor an equal part of the central relationship even if she never became an equal part of the overall story – the part never allowed her to go beyond a graceful but ultimately empty sweetness and even if she filled Eleanor with a charming personality, she was nonetheless unable to also fill her with a life of her own, mainly because the script and the structure of the movie prevented her from doing so but also because Teresa Wright was an actress who used her acting style always in the context of her scenes, staying closely to the guidelines of the script to portray the demanded emotions and thoughts but rarely going beneath these ideas unless the script actively asked her to do so. Her sweet-natured innocence, charm, grace and lovely spontaneity helped her to craft memorable characters throughout her entire career and she always expressed an appealing comfortableness and relaxedness in her roles but Teresa Wright also often tended to appear too one-dimensional in the way she approached these roles – her work might have always been lovely and captivating and her poise could very often cover any emptiness that might have harmed her characters but her distinct style could also feel too inoffensive and sometimes downright unimaginative and repetitive. Overall, her strengths as an actress, her ability to craft a certain depth and feeling of unfulfilled hopes was always best visible if the writing used her screen personality in a way that supported her acting style and constantly demanded of her to take a more active approach in her own characterization. Because of this, Teresa Wright’s work in The Little Foxes and especially Mrs. Miniver felt much more exciting, accomplished and noteworthy than The Pride of the Yankees – all three roles might not differ in their overall weight and importance to the plot but both Mrs. Miniver and The Little Foxes offered her characters that went through an important change in their lives and were allowed to develop and grow as the story went on, clearly guiding Teresa Wright and letting her use her screen presence to their own advantage. Her Alexandra benefitted from Teresa Wright’s ability to mix youthfulness with thoughtfulness and therefore showed a believable transformation as she distanced herself from her own mother, recognizing her dangerous and scrupulous character during the run of the story until she found the courage and strength to leave her forever and Carol allowed her to take an active part in the relationship with Vin, taking charge whenever necessary and balancing his idealism with her more pragmatic view of life, and she also offered her the possibility to become a symbol for the suffering ‘war bride’, the young woman who married the love of her life before he had to go and fight for his country. In this role, she was able to clearly demonstrate how her feelings for Vin changed during the first half of the story and how her sweet and charming poise later changed not only him, too, but also formed and shaped their whole relationship. Here, the screenplay gave her a part that was not only suited for her personality but also actually improved it as the writing enabled her to go beyond her own surface and find more depth and dimensions in the character she was playing. As mentioned above, The Pride of the Yankees unfortunately offered her less and didn’t ask her to go beyond her charming personality but actively rested on this personality for the sake of letting Eleanor appear as innocent, harmless, devoted but ultimately one-dimensional as possible. All of this already indicates that Teresa Wright’s tasks in The Pride of the Yankees circled less around the question what she had to do but rather how she would realize the little that was asked of her. But since Eleanor so completely depended on what she did best – being charming and lovely without feeling forced – it must also be said that Teresa Wright’s performance, as limited as it might be, still succeeded inside those limits.

So, even if the part of Eleanor did never ask more of Teresa Wright than to fill it with her own personal style, she still managed to give the relationship a much-needed plausibility – but even more than that, she gave it importance and showed that, even if Lou Gehrig’s life is always about his profession, Eleanor is the one who truly influences and shapes his own personality and experiences for the better. And even if the script very quickly assigns Eleanor to the role of the supportive wife, it still allowed Teresa Wright a surprisingly absorbing entrance which she realized with a refreshing and unconventional tone. When Lou slips and falls down while he enters the playing field during a baseball game, Eleanor, who is among the viewers, decides to have a little fun and calls him ‘Tanglefoot’, a joke that angers Lou and leads to mockery from the audience, much more than Eleanor obviously expected. It could have been an unlikable entrance but Teresa Wright’s charm and immediate gentleness helped to make her character strangely approachable – in this one moment, Eleanor suddenly added a much-needed appealing quality to the movie that it had missed so far and her little, triumphant look at Lou or her way of seeing the whole situation with a healthy sense of humor demonstrates that Teresa Wright’s Eleanor could have been a wonderfully fascinating character if the movie had shown any true interest in her. In these first scenes, Teresa Wright let Eleanor appear like an independent and truly unique creation, a woman that would deserve a chance to fully develop and become her own person and she has never used her own personality more effectively to portray a thoughtfulness beyond the written words of the script. But this delightful presentation of a an unknown woman who gets familiar very quickly is unfortunately never allowed to expand during the rest of the story: a next scene that shows Eleanor again gives Teresa Wright one more chance to create a charming and relaxed personality who feels very much at home around all these baseball players and knows more about the game than people might think and she also finds one last moment of anger, after having been tripped up by Lou as a revenge for her little joke – but after this moment, suddenly all of her independence and almost all of her own life suddenly seem to escape from Eleanor as Teresa Wright replaces this independence and fascination with her usual charm and sweetness as the fairytale romance begins and Eleanor becomes less defined by her own character but rather by her relationship to Lou Gehrig – as mentioned before, bringing Eleanor to live with poise and grace while making her instantly likeable serves the character well in the context of the story, mainly because any added complexity or depth would most likely only have thrown the movie off-balance since it would not have known what to do with it and Teresa Wright’s charm and personality also help to make Eleanor much more noticeable than she would have been otherwise but this still does not change the fact that her performance from this moment on is reduced to a variety of smiles and devoted looks at her husband without any life of her own. Teresa Wright fills these aspects of her performance with maturity and professionalism but she cannot overcome the feeling of repetition that is haunting her work and the limits of the character become even more noticeable due to her position as only one part of Lou Gehrig’s life which causes her to constantly being pushed into the background of the proceedings which often results in scenes of Teresa Wright listening to the games of her husband on the radio or cutting out stories about his success from the papers. Teresa Wright might never fail to do what she has to do and her personal charm and grace help her to constantly add a bright light whenever she appears on the screen, but the script is constantly working against her since it makes it both impossible and unnecessary to find any depth in her character. As mentioned above, The Little Foxes and Mrs. Miniver allowed her characters to slowly and gradually go through an important change in their lives, enabling Teresa Wright to display her talent for subtly communicating an inner shift of different emotions – but The Pride of the Yankees was neither looking for any complexity nor for any true development, demanding of Teresa Wright to become a symbol of female kindness and devotion until Gary Cooper’s final close-up. His Lou Gehrig is constantly presented as a hard-working, good-hearted, honest and simple man who makes his way to the top but never changes his nature – he always remains the same loving, kind and gentle role-model he was at the beginning. And since Eleanor is the perfect addition to this perfect life, the perfect American woman who does her best to turn their relationship into a true storybook-marriage, Teresa Wright had basically nowhere to go with her role – everything is already as perfect as it is. Lou is perfect, Eleanor is perfect and their marriage is perfect, too. Their relationship exists only of happy or tragic times with no variation in between – tension between Lou and Eleanor never arises once they discover their love for each other and the biggest problem that Eleanor has to face before her husband’s fatal illness is the wallpaper that her mother-in-law chooses for her new bedroom. It’s an undoubtedly limited array of emotions that Teresa Wright is asked to express but she also finds some missteps in her work herself, too, especially in her inability to bring the needed humor to a scene when Eleanor pretends that her husband might be having an affair when he is actually playing baseball with a couple of children or when she later teases Lou's parents about his future as a baseball player. But these are nonetheless rather rare moments of failure from Teresa Wright’s side – for most of her on-screen time, she does her best to present Eleanor as a woman who actively seeks the passiveness of her own personality and therefore successfully establishes the marriage between herself and Lou as the most important aspect of her life. But even if the love between Eleanor and Lou is the movie’s most central human relationship, it unfortunately never turns into the kind of special love that the story is so keen to present – which is unfortunately caused by the lack of chemistry between the two leading actors, even if Gary Cooper is more to be blamed for this. Teresa Wright does her best to craft a strong relationship based on both love and friendship and wins her strength from her ability to let Eleanor not be completely swept off her feet but actually realize the sentiment of her own feelings and being aware of them. But the two actors still did not truly fit together, mainly because Gary Cooper always seemed to be most comfortable with actresses who either possessed a stronger personality than his own or who would take the lead in their relationship – but while Teresa Wright does manage to shape the tone of the love between Lou and Eleanor, the script never allows her to be the more decisive part in this marriage, always keeping her a reacting character who waits for Lou to set the tempo and the tone. Ultimately, Teresa Wright’s sweetness might be charming but it is not always satisfying and she also constantly retreats from the movie by choice to let Gary Cooper shine and by force since the screenplay drops her far too often, preventing her from meeting the demands for the perfect co-star for Gary Cooper.


So, even if the part of Eleanor did not allow Teresa Wright any artistic stretches, she was still able to add a warm and welcome presence to the proceedings. Taken by itself, her performance may not not truly satisfy but she still manages to craft Eleanor as a lovely, lively, intelligent and appealing young woman in the context of The Pride of the Yankees, And she finally got a chance to show more than just a beaming smile during her final scenes and actively crafted some of the movie’s most poignant moments. Her breakdown at the doctor’s office in which she promises that she will never let Lou know that she is aware of his fatal illness is a quietly done but still very effective display of human tragedy and later Teresa Wright delivers a classic ‘smile through tears’ scene, hiding Eleanor’s grief behind a masque of laughter and cheerfulness even if her display of those contrasting emotions sometimes feels a bit too obvious and forced. But her final moments on the screen certainly belong to the most unforgettable work of her career, remaining behind, letting Lou enter the spotlight on his own, underlining her role as the supportive wife in the background but crafting a haunting moment with her lonely close-ups, portraying love, grief, pride, misery and happiness in a single moment. So, to sum it up, there is no denying that Teresa Wright is an actress who can be beautifully natural in her parts and always feels completely comfortable in her roles – but she also tended to limit her own possibilities whenever a screenplay did not show her how to add depth and layers to her character. And in The Pride of the Yankees, the limitations of the character only added to the overall one-dimensionality of her performance. Overall, Teresa Wright’s approach to the part is charming and lovely but it is neither truly impressive nor challenging. Still, she created some of the movie’s most memorable moments and always adds a welcome change of pace whenever she appears. An appealing performance of a weak role.

Best Actress 1942: Rosalind Russell in "My Sister Eileen"

When she received her first Oscar nomination for the situation comedy My Sister Eileen, Rosalind Russell had not only achieved a status as an expert for portraying intelligent, sophisticated and wealthy women but also as one of Hollywood’s first-class comediennes, most notably due to her work opposite Cary Grant in the classic His Girl Friday. While the Academy did not nominate Rosalind Russell for her comedic performance that year, maybe feeling that one comedy turn per year is enough (Katharine Hepburn filled that spot with her comeback turn in The Philadelphia Story), she finally received recognition for her funny talents two years later with her performance as Ruth Sherwood, one of two sisters – one smart, one pretty – who want to find fame and success in New York but have to face various problems and obstacles before everything turns out well for the obligatory Happy End. Considering the nature of the two central female parts there could hardly be any suspense about which one of the sisters Rosalind Russell was bringing to life since her famous talents for wise-cracking, fast-talking and physical comedy were always used best when she was playing a smart, sassy and strong woman who knows what she is worth, what she wants and how to get it. And all of this was offered to her 'on a silver plate' in the part of Ruth Sherwood, an inspiring writer who always takes charge, not only for herself but for her sister, too, to enable them both to make it on their own in The Big Apple. In 1942, the nomination for Rosalind Russell was hardly a surprise – an actual Oscar win was certainly out of the question since Greer Garson’s Mrs. Miniver basically had the year to herself but it was an ideal opportunity for the Academy to welcome Rosalind Russell into its inner circle and show its respect for her considerable talents and her ability to carry whole pictures with her unique acting style that combines strong screen presence, precise comedic timing and the ability to toss around sarcastic one-liners with great effect. Furthermore, My Sister Eileen, even though not the kind of movie that usually collects a load of trophies, was a popular crowd-pleaser with healthy box office success which only further proved Rosalind Russell’s strong standing as a well-liked and respected movie star among Hollywood's film industry. And so, the combination of popular acclaim and her first Oscar nomination is already enough to call Ruth Sherwood one of the most defining roles of Rosalind Russell’s career – but there was still more to come. In 1953, Rosalind Russell brought the part back to where it had originally came from – to Broadway where Shirley Booth had been the first actress to bring Ruth Sherwood to life in 1940. This time, it was Rosalind Russell who played the part in front of live audiences in the musical version Wonderful Town, earning herself a Tony Award as Best Leading Actress in a Musical. But strangely enough, despite a Tony Award, an Oscar nomination and financial success, the character of Ruth Sherwood did not truly become the signature work of her career – instead, it seems to have almost disappeared behind her much better remembered work in movies like Auntie Mame, His Girl Friday, The Women or Mourning Becomes Electra. It’s a strange case of a performance that played an important part in an actress’s career and yet feels strangely neglectable at the same time. And so this evokes the question if Rosalind Russell’s work is unfairly put aside next to showier performances in more famous movies or if Ruth Sherwood is a role that maybe suits Rosalind Russell’s own personality and acting style, therefore making it easy for her to impress at the moment, but leaves too much to be desired when all is said and done, therefore fading away as time goes on which might also explain why the degree of familiarity has decreased over the years.

As mentioned above, the casting of Rosalind Russell in the part of Ruth Sherwood appears to be an ideal fusion of actress and character, a merging of identities in which both personalities can benefit from each other and use all the qualities they are able to offer to their own advantages. Rosalind Russell was an actress who could certainly adjust her own acting and talents to the characters she was playing but she could just as easily shape those roles to her own preference zone, forming them in a way that would suit her distinct style and abilities. And Ruth Sherwood is in many ways a white paper – it is a role that does not offer any complexity or true depth but it therefore allowed an actress different ways to substantiate her character. Essentially, she is the ‘straight’ person of the story, the one who understands and witnesses the craziness around her and who constantly comments on the behavior and characters of all those people that constantly enter her little apartment. But in this aspect, Ruth Sherwood is also a vessel for dry and sarcastic humor as she tries to distance herself from most of the events in My Sister Eileen, focusing on her own career as a writer, but finds that she is again and again drawn right into the middle of all different plot points. And so both Rosalind Russell and Ruth Sherwood offered the right ingredients for this fusion of identities – Ruth Sherwood gave Rosalind Russell the chance to fully use her talents for her distinct display of sarcastic and snarky comments and observations and additionally was underwritten enough to let her fill the remaining part of her personality with her own sharp-edged and sassy acting style that combines her talents for double-takes with exaggerated facial expression which resulted in a character who constantly both acts and re-acts, openly tells her mind and also shows how much the kookiness around her shapes her own behavior and way of thinking. All this means that Ruth Sherwood remained the straight character of the story, providing the most mature moments and thought-out decisions, but Rosalind Russell’s own embodiment of broad comedic tendencies also meant that she became the one providing all the humor and all the laughs, too, and who is no-nonsense without being serious, caring without being stern and funny without intending to be. In this aspect, Rosalind Russell was an obvious choice for Ruth Sherwood and the overall demands of the script which asked her to grab every comedic opportunity and also inject her strong personality into the character with the goal of crafting a woman who is a believable centre of reason but still a self-made part of all the exaggeratedness around her – like few other actresses, Rosalind Russell was able to work her way through any script and turn herself into the constant center of attention, injecting every moment and situation with her distinct style and screen presence. At a first look, this appears to be a rather logical decision for My Sister Eileen which is neither a very sophisticated nor an overly clever comedy, more than once forcing its own understanding of humor on the audience – from the Greek landlord to street cleaning vehicles shooting water into Ruth’s and Eileen’s basement apartment to Portuguese naval officer dancing their way through their front door, My Sister Eileen uses every opportunity to achieve its goal of entertaining and amusing its viewers by exaggerating and overdoing almost every single plot point, denying every bit of spontaneity and relaxedness. My Sister Eileen is not a race car but it still wants to be as fast as possible, adding one joke after another and depending on the cast to fill the moments between these jokes with their own personalities. Because of this, My Sister Eileen almost exclusively depends on the abilities of its two leading ladies to counterbalance the craziness around them with the more quiet moments of the script while also realizing their performances in harmony with the movie and adding their own ideas of humor, too – My Sister Eileen needed a certain amount of 'star power' to compensate for its lack of dramatic structure and content. But this amount was at first too reduced and as a consequence too excessive because even if the casting of Ruth Sherwood appears to be the ideal solution for this kind of character in this kind of motion picture, the actual realization of the role was still harmed by circumstances that were created both by the movie itself but also by Rosalind Russell who too often went too far in her own ideas and interpretation of the part and its place in the overall narrative context.

My Sister Eileen is a movie that can be a lot of things – it can be a star-vehicle for one, a star-vehicle for two and an ensemble piece at once. Considering the nature of the story, it would be most obvious to expect a well-balanced combination of a star-vehicle for two and an ensemble piece but the final outcome is, from start to finish, just supposed to be a showcase for Rosalind Russell in which not only the script gives slight focus to the character of Ruth but a rather pale supporting cast and especially the casting of an almost invisible actress like Janet Blair in the crucial role of Eileen  further underlined this impression,  making it almost too easy for Rosalind Russell to turn herself into the glorious centre of My Sister Eileen at which everything and everyone points to. An actress of Rosalind Russell’s stature surely felt confident enough to carry this picture and take over not only her own responsibilities to entertain but also those of her fellow cast-members, too, but this confidence often contradicted the intentions of My Sister Eileen – Rosalind Russell managed to constantly be its most noteworthy aspect, more than once saving it with unexpected laughs and absurdities but this constant domination of the production in every scene, no matter if suitable or not, was not only responsible for the movie’s best moments but also managed to harm both her work and the overall production, too. In some ways, My Sister Eileen was not the kind of movie that – despite appearing tailor-made for her kind of acting style – truly displayed all of Rosalind Russell’s talent. Or rather – it showed too little of some and too much of others. Because there is the Rosalind Russell who can find humor in almost every situation, who is able to maybe control the proceedings around her but never feels affected and who can combine fast talk, quirky line delivery and deadpan punch lines like few others. In this aspect, it was a wise decision of Rosalind Russell to add her own style to the picture – the lines ‘Yes, Mr. Banes’ and ‘Thank you, Mr. Banes’ don’t seem to offer much for an actress but Rosalind Russell’s weird and fast delivery combined with her exaggerated eyes result in what is probably the funniest scene of the movie. The character of Ruth Sherwood is already intended to be slightly sarcastic and observing but when Rosalind Russell flawlessly tosses out lines like ‘You…go away’ or ‘You’ll cool off’, she adds a special layer to this woman, going beyond the purely observing and commenting aspect and crafting Ruth’s own personality much stronger and decisive than the script suggested. But even if this script gives Rosalind Russell various lines that are perfectly suited to her comedic talents and even lets her add some of her own tics and tricks, too, it unfortunately doesn’t offer her anything else beyond this succession of sarcastic one-liners and quirky remarks. As it is, the part of Ruth Sherwood is not only underwritten but also extremely underdeveloped and she never turns into the kind of plausible human being a comedy like this needs to give the audience the chance to catch a break every once in a while and instead always remains a vessel for a constant display of the aforementioned sarcastic jokes or observations which not even Rosalind Russell’s constant efforts can change. Because of this, she is not allowed to display her usual ability to find true humans underneath her often eccentric creations and too often has nothing to do but overemphasize the comedic aspect of her acting, both exhausting and underwhelming the audience in the process. Rosalind Russell might be the raison d'être of My Sister Eileen but her screen presence and comedic acting also have another side as she often uses this screen presence to not only take charge but dominate her movie and her comedic acting can be overstated to an extent that makes any chance for human development impossible – because even if the script did not offer any true human being to play, Rosalind Russell still sacrificed her own possibilities in this aspect for the sake of playing Ruth Sherwood as a ‘human joke box’. So, Ruth Sherwood, as previously mentioned, is just too little and too much of Rosalind Russell – too little of her human talents, too much of her decision to use every second on the screen for maximum effect. This decision not only denied Ruth Sherwood of a more strongly developed complexity but it also harmed My Sister Eileen itself just as much as it benefitted from her strong comedic talents. Rosalind Russell’s dominance serves the movie by constantly breathing fresh air into the proceedings and harms it by taking the air back just as quickly as she gave it, suffocating everything and everyone around her. Her instincts can be very compelling and raise a whole production to a higher level but My Sister Eileen sometimes almost collapses from her tight control over the whole proceedings as she too often wants to make sure that My Sister Eileen never forgets who the center of its universe is during every moment of her onscreen time. She alone may be responsible for every laugh that My Sister Eileen is able to produce and her performance turned out as amusing as humanly possible under the circumstances but since the script doesn't present her with a truly challenging or thought-out character, she relies too much on her ability to ‘wink’ at the audience and very often simply feels too proud of her own comedic talents. She uses almost every line to be better than those around her, often seems to wait for the laughter of the audience to die down and when she is not delivering some kind of punch line, she uses the time between her dialogue to either wrinkle up her face as a reaction to the dialogue of the other characters or makes some other gesture to keep the attention of the viewers centered on her. During the scene in which she is having dinner with a man, Rosalind Russell reacts to his constant talking with one exaggerated exhausted face after another – this scene is almost representative of her whole performance since Rosalind Russell constantly displays her own awareness in the part of Ruth Sherwood, almost appearing boastful, as if she is playing with the viewers, telling them that she is as much aware of her own effects as everyone else and that she considers herself just as funny as everyone else does or should. In this aspect it is easy to imagine that Rosalind Russell won a Tony Award for her stage work since her acting style in this role constantly communicates with the audience, resulting in the kind of performance that makes its members go home after the show, saying ‘Wasn’t Rosalind Russell a hoot?’ Movie audiences probably thought the same in 1942 but Rosalind Russell’s constant domination of the entire production, her unwillingness to step aside for a single moment, still sometimes comes across as too arrogant and too contrived to really deliver a performance that feels honestly developed.

Overall, it is hard to criticize Rosalind Russell's work since she is in every way the most cherishable aspect of My Sister Eileen but everything that makes her ‘such a hoot’ also prevents her performance from becoming truly reasoned and fulfilled. She was certainly right in her assumption that if she would not entertain the audience, nobody else would since her fellow cast-members lacked both the energy and the personality to bring their roles to life with the needed amount of humor and credibility, but she was just as wrong to assume that the movie would only benefit from her domineering performance and its self-centered interpretation. It's a dilemma that certainly very few actresses could have solved effectively as the movie asks Ruth Sherwood to steal the show but suffers when she does it too much and Rosalind Russell needed to counterbalance the work of her co-stars with her own performance but threw the whole proceedings off-balance too many times in her efforts. But even with these disadvantages on her side, Rosalind Russell thankfully possessed the rare comedic gift to make her performance appear completely logical within the boundaries of My Sister Eileen and she is able to make the viewers laugh even if they are aware of her occasionally misplaced acting choices. And furthermore, even if Rosalind Russell was not allowed to let her talent for humanising her eccentricities completely shine, she was still confident enough in her own possibilities to find the chance to add another layer to her character, at least sometimes. She never forgot the title of the movie and that her Ruth Sherwood is not only smart and witty but also the responsible and dependable older sister who is used to take care of Eileen who, even though not dumb, is a little helpless in the world and needs Ruth as her guide and advisor. Thanks to Rosalind Russell’s mature personality, it is easy for her to play these aspects of Ruth very naturally – she shows that Ruth has always taken care of her little sister and is determined to help her to find her way in the world, giving her a little push if necessary, like writing a sensational review of her stage performance hours before the curtain actually rises. Ruth is well aware of her own importance in Eileen’s life but also has never-ending confidence that Eileen can make it on her own eventually. Rosalind Russell plays these more serious aspects of her character very well and, most importantly, in a very light way that always stays in touch with the light nature of the film and she always understands that Ruth and Eileen are not only sister but also best friends. These moments might be scattered throughout the movie but they still manage to bring a very welcome change of pace, a rare instant of quietness in the otherwise uproarious My Sister Eileen. In those moments, Rosalind Russell was able to bring an urgently needed human touch to the movie that would help to keep its story more grounded even if they cannot equilibrate all those events that are constantly happening around them. And even Rosalind Russell's dominant screen personality, that often overshadowed all other aspects of My Sister Eileen, was able to add positively to these scenes since her strength on the screen makes her presentation as the more mature, more deciding and responsible sister entirely believable. In this aspect, her pairing with Janet Blair does make a certain sense but overall, My Sister Eileen is a movie that would have benefited from a stronger co-lead or even an equal share of impressions at its top because it would not only have given the story a more balanced structure but also would have made it possible for Rosalind Russell to strengthen her own work and define it with more precision in the context of the story as well has her inpretation of her character, its place in all the ongoing events and in the relation to the other characters, therefore making a lot of Ruth’s actions more plausible in the process – and more importantly, it might have caused Rosalind Russell to reduce her own acting style instead of trying to do her own work as well as that of Janet Blair, too, enabling her to focus more clearly on the character she was playing instead of the effects she was hoping to achieve. In her performance, it is always obvious that Rosalind Russell has the strength and the power of persuasion to steal an entire movie and make it worthwhile but at the same time she cannot overcome the constant feeling of lost opportunities that haunt the entire production from start to finish.

In the end, Rosalind Russell worked her way through My Sister Eileen with a lot of confidence and competence and gave an amusing and harmless performance that got all of the comedy out of the material even it if missed a more human aspect. Her work does feel fine in the context of the movie and she, without a doubt, is its single source of energy. But her performance is similar to that of fellow nominee Teresa Wright in The Pride of the Yankees – in both cases, the script does not offer the actresses anything beyond a performance that mostly exists on the surface and leaves them with nothing to do but ‘do their thing’. In the case of Teresa Wright, this was beaming with charm and loveliness while she makes it clear that Lou Gehrig deserves every bit of the admiration she can give. In the case of Rosalind Russell, this was grabbing the movie and actively stealing every scene with her personal talents for domineering comedic displays. Essentially, Ruth Sherwood is a role that offered Rosalind Russell everything that she could do in her sleep – and apparently Rosalind Russell knew this, too. She often feels too self-assured in a role that could have used much more consideration to her own acting and much more devotion to her fellow players but at least she, unlike her supporting cast, knows how to entertain. It’s an overall mixed performance that never truly reaches a level of excellence and Rosalind Russell’s ability to find humor in almost every angle of the script is often as misplaced as it is delightful but she deserves some kind of praise for appearing strangely indispensable despite all the problems in her work. So to come back to the initial question – it is surely mainly the fault of My Sister Eileen itself that Rosalind Russell’s performance is mostly forgotten compared to some of her other performances since her resume offers various movies that leave a much stronger impression and are much better suited to her own acting style. But even with the quality of My Sister Eileen put aside, Rosalind Russell’s actual performance also does not provide enough to turn it into any kind of truly memorable experience. Still, if My Sister Eileen is worth watching, she is the only reason for it. A mixed performance that still manages to be effective as long as it lasts.

Best Actress 1942: Greer Garson in "Mrs. Miniver"

The Academy had not been paying a lot of attention to World War II during its first couple of years – while the armies in Europe were fighting against the terror of Nazi Germany, Academy members gave their blessings to the epic saga of the Old South Gone with the Wind, Alfred Hitchcock’s gothic romance drama Rebecca and John Ford’s ode to better childhood memories How Green was my Valley. But by 1942, America had become completely involved in the conflicts in Europe and Asia and Hollywood reacted accordingly, creating hymns to patriotism and the virtues of duty, often headed by the most popular stars in front of and behind the camera. But the time had not yet come for an American home front drama like Since you Went Away which portrayed the life of a family living without a father and a husband – in 1942, the threat of the war that was fought across both oceans might have become more tangible for the American population but the battle fields and air raids were still far away. And so to give this tragedy and danger a more conceptional dimension, director William Wyler took a different approach and showed the point of view of a family from a country that most Americans surely felt closest to during these times to portray the horror of war, the struggles of the people oversea, the importance of alliances and solidarity – and the courage and determination of the British people. His Mrs. Miniver not only showed a nation under attack, people whose lives were changed and destroyed by the Blitz but also made it clear to every American viewer that Great Britain would not give in to the threats of its enemies and that a fight at its side would be worth it – neither the soldiers nor the priests nor the British aristocrats nor the British housewives would ever accept anything less than a complete victory in this war and formed a strong and unusual bond to stand together against the German armies. It gave American audiences a stylized look at a familiar and yet unknown country, displaying a world of innocence and kindness which was suddenly and without reason exposed to hostility and death – Winston Churchill himself praised the propaganda effect of Mrs. Miniver, clearly understanding that this movie portrayed the British people both as fighters and victims, creating sympathy as well as admiration, making it easy to feel an urge to support them in their combat and marvel at their strength at the same time. And to make this concept even more accessible for American audiences, the central characters in Mrs. Miniver were portrayed by a cast of recognizable American and British actors who created the needed familiarity and closeness to fully communicate the meaning and the importance of this family and village from oversea in the overall events that happened across the Atlantic – rising star Teresa Wright brought a large amount of youth, charm and innocence to her role and the picture, character actress Dame May Whitty added a sly sense of humor and aristocratic pathos with her recognizeable sarcastic style that could combine light comedy with serious drama quite effortlessly, popular leading man Walter Pidgeon embodied the loving but also unflinching patriarch of the family who would always recognize the sacrificies that needed to be made in this fight and typcial supporting actor Henry Travers provided a different kind of humor and showed the importance of dreams and ambitions as well as the need to go on in times like this. These four actors received Academy Awards nominations (or in the case of Teresa Wright the Oscar itself) for portraying archetypes for certain characters whose fates intervened and were changed because of World War II with Teresa Wright embodying the young war bride who married the love her life in a hurry before everything might be too late, Henry Travers and Dame May Whitty symbolizing the new and unexpected connection of different classes standing together and Walter Pidgeon as the head of the family who might not be able to fight directly against the Germans but still does his best to help the cause and protect his wife and children. And in this structure of Mrs. Miniver, all these character are circling around its central aspect, the one person who seems to combine more than just one reflection of its time – Kay Miniver is the wife and the mother who does not stand only for a certain archetype but rather for the general perception of war, for courage and fear, she is the woman who holds everything together, who accepts and rises to the challenges put before her, who stands as the one connection between all these characters and who finally does all this without ever losing what could be considered a more traditional female role in the Miniver household. And a central female and British movie character could only mean two words in 1942 – Greer Garson. After having given her motion picture debut no more than a few years earlier and only appearing in a handful of motion pictures, she had established herself not only as the first British actress of the screen but basically the first actress of the screen period. Her prime during those years was an unmatched peak of financial and critical success, crowned by perennial Oscar nominations and an almost constantly rising level of popularity. And when she received the Best Actress award for her work in 1943, it was certainly one of the most logical outcomes in Oscar history as her win marked one of the few instances when an actress received the award both at the peak of her popularity and for the part that stands as the signature role of her career, not only because it saw her achieve the highpoint of her artistic composition but also because the part perfectly combined her own personality, her own background and the time around her as it was the only time during these years that her movie and her role actively concerned themselves with her home country and the battle it was fighting, making Kay Miniver a role that exists on a much more personal level in Greer Garson's filmography.

When Mr. Chipping climbed up the Austrian mountains and got caught in thick fog which prevented him from climbing down again, he not only found his future wife sitting on a mountain top and waiting like him for the fog to go away – he also found an actress who would soon turn into one of the most popular stars of the next decade and who charmed and fascinated audiences around the world with her undeniable poise and innocence which she smoothly mixed with British elegance and sophistication and turned into a combination of experience, wisdom, mature appeal and lovely youthfulness and who clearly filled some kind of need for American viewers during the time of World War II which corresponds precisely with the peak of her popularity and her career. Greer Garson specialized in movies that inspired the audience with the strength of her characters in a story that almost always included a fight for a greater good and love, movies without too many edges or complications that presented a wonderful distraction during these hardened times. And Greer Garson added to the overall innocuousness of these pictures with her inoffensive and charming screen presence that seemed to know no faults and she could be lovely without appearing flat and wise without appearing arrogant and found a sometimes maybe uneven but still engaging balance of a unique and distinctive style and a harmless and appealing everyday personality. Greer Garson had basically perfected this acting style from her first moment on the screen and even if she maybe did not truly develop in any way as an actress or tried to move her talents into a more challenging direction she still always brought her characters to life with charm, grace, humor and dramatic intensity – her characters may often have been one-dimensional and undeveloped but her acting always added a refreshing spark and aliveness which helped to make her performances much more engaging than they might have been otherwise. And her star power during the first half of the 1940s clearly indicates that her charm and loveliness was more than enough for movie audiences and even turned rather limited pictures like Mrs. Parkington or Madame Curie into commercial and critical successes. But by focusing on pictures that would make her performances their sole reasons d’être, Greer Garson unfortunately also tended to contradict one her strongest assets – her ability to be part of a team and to benefit from a movie and a story that offered more aspects than her central performance. Never in her career would she ever be again as charming as she had been in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a movie that never depended on her character and with Robert Donat offered her the strongest screen-partner of her career. And she was a formidable addition to Laurence Olivier in Pride and Prejudice, a movie that integrated Greer Garson into its universe instead of putting her at its center and enabled her to give one of her most praised and remembered performances besides Mrs. Miniver. But as Greer Garson’s popularity began to increase she also began to focus more strongly on movies that could be considered typical ‘star vehicles’ in which she would be the central and most of the time only noteworthy aspect, surrounded by a lacking script and a usually pale supporting cast. But throughout her career, the quality of Greer Garson’s performances mostly corresponded with the quality of her characters – she might have been able to deliver appealing work with substandard scripts, too, but her performances were always most worthwhile if they were given in a context that didn’t try to rest on them but support them instead. Like co-nominee and co-star Teresa Wright, Greer Garson possessed natural instincts for the screen which allowed these two actresses to fill their parts with spark and personality but they also depended on the support of the script to clearly establish their characters for them and fit them to their personality while also adding depth and an inner life that both actresses often were not able to add themselves, putting their own focus on the outer life of their character instead of their internal development. Greer Garson was a warm and engaging personality on the screen but she was also an actress who was in constant danger of repeating herself over and over, in both her acting and the kind of characters she played. She obviously clearly struck a chord with audiences, critics and Academy members, all of whom loved to see her ‘one woman shows’ but compared to contemporaries like Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck or Katharine Hepburn, Greer Garson was rarely able to lift her material to a higher level and be noteworthy for the honesty and depth of her characters instead of their constant goodness. And because she usually offered hardly any surprises in her performances, Greer Garson faced her biggest problems whenever she did what she loved to do the most – carry a picture on her shoulders. She pleased audiences with her frequent collaboration with Walter Pidgeon but they never achieved the same kind of effortless chemistry as so many other famous on-screen pairs like Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy or William Powell and Myrna Loy and Walter Pidgeon never seemed to have any interest in crafting memorable characters and was always more than willing to be just another aspect of a movie designed to only showcase its leading lady. But Greer Garson mostly excelled in an environment that was able and willing to rise with her and who also needed more than a central character to truly shine, most notably a well-written script and a supporting cast that would take some of the pressure from her shoulders and allowed the movie to re-focus its attention from time to time, letting the audience breath and Greer Garson find a chance to focus more strongly on the details and peculiarities of her own character instead of trying to inhabit the whole movie with her performance, therefore reducing the danger of repetitiveness. Unfortunately, Greer Garson too seldom chose this way for her career, enjoying her position as the central aspect of most of her movies, unchallenged by co-stars, writing or directing – but 1942 proved to be an exception to this rule when Greer Garson starred in two popular and critically acclaimed movies with co-stars who were all as dedicated to the success of the picture as she herself. She worked opposite an Oscar-nominated Ronald Colman in the romantic drama Random Harvest and opposite a whole cast of Oscar-nominated performers in the Best Picture winner Mrs. Miniver in which even Walter Pidgeon appeared much more alive and unconventional than usual. In Mrs. Miniver, Greer Garson found herself as part of a team instead of its unquestioned leader – which overall resulted in a performance that deservedly stands as the signature work of her career because it gave her the chance to display all the qualities that made her both an appealing personality and an accomplished artist even if the limits of her talents may have still been visible during certain moments.

Maybe it seems contradicting that Mrs. Miniver is one of the few films that didn’t completely rest on Greer Garson but that it is still named after her character – but even if Greer Garson is surrounded by a strong ensemble, the script still turns her into the one aspect of the movie that pulls everything together. Mr. Ballard names his rose after her, Carol comes to her and meets Vin for the first time, Lady Beldon talks to her about their marriage, she is the one who listens to the planes in the air, hoping for her son to come back, she is the one who maybe stays at home while her husband goes to Dunkirk but has to get involved in the war on a much more personal level than he does, fighting a German soldier in her own kitchen, she is the one who witnesses the death of others but she also remains the supportive wife and mother who gives comfort and advice to those around her. So Greer Garson may not be one to carry the picture on her shoulders alone but she is still presented as its center, the one character that is floating above all the proceedings, symbolizing the need for help and the courage more than anyone else – like the captain of a ship, she is the one responsible for the success of the journey, overviewing the proceedings without fulfilling all deeds herself. And Greer Garson was able to lead the cast while remaining a part of it, dominating the picture without suffocating it and her work effectively corresponded with the tone and style of Mrs. Miniver, making her character the one who is constantly affected the most by the happenings around her but who also helps to support this style and tone. Right from her first moments on the screen, her ability to portray women who are loving, kind and gentle sets the tone for the story to follow even if the subplot of a hat that might be too expensive for the Minivers rather contradicts many intentions of Mrs. Miniver – Greer Garson is able to create a familiar character in her feeling of guilt over spending too much money and wondering how she will tell this news to her husband but this goal to establish the Minivers as an average English family fails very soon as it not only wants to portray them as average but also as role-models, too, whose virtues and courage would even inspire the last row of the movie theatre. But because symbolizing those virtues is a task that demands full and complete attention all the time, the Minivers soon begin to lose their averageness when their maid takes care of their house, a new car is bought or their son comes back from the university. Beyond this, the script also wants to portray the innocence of the British people by focusing on the Miniver’s daily life and worries but denying them every thought about the political situation around them again lets them appear too constructed and bended for the sake of the movie’s overall message. And the character of Kay Miniver also occassionally suffers from this construction and she is not helped by the writing when it lets her list those things that she likes but are too expensive like ‘hats or good schools for the children’, letting her appear strangely ignorant without exploring her thoughts any further and these contradictions also influence Greer Garson’s work in various aspects – the script does help her by showing her exactly what to do and how to express her emotions at different times but while it knows what Kay Miniver has to do it has a much less clear vision of who it wants her to be. Kay Miniver is supposed to represent the average British housewife who lives up to the demands of war time but simultaneously the movie also too often puts her on a pedestal of moral superiority, emphasizing her almost saint-like perfectness in a way that’s supposed to turn her into an admirable role-model but sometimes distances Kay Miniver too far from this goal. Greer Garson’s own performance is caught somewhere between this – she possessed certain qualities that made her characters very approachable and believable, giving them a trustworthy earthiness among her elegant features, but her often stylized acting style and equally stylized personality also contradicted this earthiness very often and made her characters too noble and respectable for their own good. Overall, the script and Greer Garson herself established Kay Miniver somewhere between this averageness and role-model function, sadly letting her lose some of her credibility on the way. But even with those contradictions, the part of Kay Miniver still fit Greer Garson like a glove – precisely because this sometimes unbalanced combination came to her so easily and even if it sometimes disputed the purpose of this character, she still handled those aspects of her work with engaging precision and integrated them with elegant determination into context of the movie. And most of all, her charm and grace helped her to become the woman who is worth fighting for – she turns herself into a symbol of both courage and need for help, a woman who fights her own fights but who would also encourage the men around her to go out and protect her virtues. When her son comes home and sees his mother and his fiancée waiting for him, he makes it clear very quickly which woman is his number one, underlining the strong position of Kay Miniver in the story and Greer Garson's performance in the movie.

But even if Greer Garson was able to mostly handle Kay Miniver’s two different aspects, the truth remains that even the signature part of her career was not one that enabled Greer Garson to overcome all of her weaknesses on the screen. The script clearly guided her but it also left room for some of her melodramatic and affected acting choices which range from sitting in her bed as if she is posing for a painting to delivering certain lines and words with clear exaggeration of dramatic intention. Most of all this shows that even if the part of Mrs. Miniver was fitting Greer Garson like a glove she was still an actress with surprisingly visible limits, especially for an actress who received seven Oscar nominations during her career as she seldom tried to truly inhabit the inner life of her characters. She played her parts with confident and competence but offered little variations and most of all weakened her overall effect with the aforementioned artificiality in her acting. But beyond that the character of Kay Miniver is not only a product of contradicting intentions but also a presentation of deliberate limitation. The movie may be named after her but it is Mrs. Miniver instead of 'Kay Miniver', underlining that the character is never defined by herself, never allowed to develop her own point of view and always created in relation to others around her, may it be her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law or the unexpected visitor in her kitchen. And so the final result is a performance that is as contradicting as everything that went into it – Greer Garson suffers from the writing but also benefits from it like rarely again in her career, there are limits in her character and in her acting but she still handled all variations of her character successfully mostly because Mrs. Miniver is a movie that offered Greer Garson dramatic moments without forcing her out of her comfort zone and also opportunities to be lively and even humorous without appearing too misplaced. She can be disarmingly honest in her conversations with Lady Ballham and a little manipulative at the same time, she reacts to the fact that a rose will be named after her with the kind of charming delight that anyone would express at this moment and she knows how to both support her husband and take the lead whenever it is necessary. It is mostly the last aspect of her work that Greer Garson handles with beautiful conviction – she never steps out of her role as the wife and mother, the woman who prefers to stay in the background, but she still plays a much more crucial part in holding the family together even if she remains a rather passive character. Kay Miniver seldom takes a more active approach to the storyline, things instead happen to her – the German soldier in her kitchen, war, her part in the rose contest, all these things come to her and demand her response. But in this passivity she is still a much stronger force than Mrs. Miniver’s other main female character, Teresa Wright’s Carol, who might actually be a bit more active but still never suggests at the same inner strength like Greer Garson does. Most of all, Greer Garson uses this strength to portray how her husband and her children are the foundation of her life and her face wonderfully displays her constant worries that this war might take this foundation away from her. And it’s nice to see that despite the propagandistic nature of Mrs. Miniver, Greer Garson never portrays Kay as a woman who busts with pride as she watches her eldest son go and fight the Nazis – instead, Greer Garson lets Kay react like any mother would, with constant worries and fear for his life, unable to stop him or push her own fears aside. And so she lets Kay appear completely helpless when she looks at her husband after her son told them that he already finished his training and when he says ‘Soon I will be able to do…whatever it is they want me to.’, Greer Garson brilliantly delivers the simple word ‘Fighting.’, letting herself go in the context of the scene, believably showing a mother who knows that she can’t control her son’s life and that he must make his own decisions even if she doesn’t agree with them. All these worries for her children provide some of Greer Garson’s most memorable moments on the screen – she is able to reflect that her fear during a German air raid is always a fear for the life of her children instead of her own and when she hears some planes above her house and hopes that her son will be among the pilots, she displays a whole array of emotions from fear, hope and uncertainty to nervousness and anticipation without losing the foundation of her character. She may feel a little bit lost during her scene with the German soldier, unable to combine her usual dignity with the fear and apprehensions that Kay is experiencing in this moment but she improves vastly once Kay is in control of the situation, displaying an unforgettable look of disgust and horror on her face after she slapped the soldier to stop his agressive words and she again finds a chance to deliver a single line brilliantly when she sends a doctor away with a quick ‘Thank you’, trying to control her calm appearance and keeping up a display of quiet dignaty while feeling the urge to be alone as quickly as possible to let the shock of the situation unfold itself in the privacy of her own home. Furthermore, Greer Garson also beautifully controlled her performance – she isn't a natural actress but constantly keeps a tight controll over her emotions but she knew how to express this acting style without feeling forced and even within this approach, Greer Garson still was often able to add a spontaneous vitality and zest while avoiding any loud dramatic intensities. Greer Garson's personality on the screen often tended to feel too stylized for its own good but she always beautifully withheld a too exaggerated approach, prefering to grief or rejoice more quietly and often even naturally. And so her final moments with Teresa Wright are among the most touching she has ever given on the screen, restraining her acting to let the drama of the situation speak for itself, displaying the horror of the situation in her eyes and her haunting delivery of the line 'Oh God'. But still there remain some unfortunately moments in which Greer Garson also let her acting choices appear too controlled and found herself unable to inject them with her usually authentic demeanor, not able to truly let go and work with her instincts instead of her head, failing to bring the needed emotional intensity – this is especially visible in the scene when she learns that her daughter-in-law had been hit by a bullet, a bit of news she registers with a languid and vague ‘Oh no, darling…where?' that feels too stiff to be convincing at this moment. But these scenes are thankfully rare and Greer Garson beautifully balances the dramatic moments of her performance with a lighter touch whenever it is appropriate. She can be both proud and embarrassed of her son when he talks about his ideas of poor and rich people, she can watch the romance between him and Carol blossom with motherly delight and she can intriguingly tease her husband when she tells him that a rose was named after her. Her later scene with the German soldier also paved the way for one her most enjoyable and relaxed moments on the screen, when she tells her husband about the whole situation in a very nonchalant, playful and even sexy way – this single moment also shows that Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson have never been better together than in Mrs. Miniver because this was the only time they truly appeared to be a team of equals. Blossoms in the Dust had Walter Pidgeon leave too early and didn’t find any balance in their relationship, Madame Curie had him too timid and shy while he was bursting with unbearable arrogance and ignorance in Mrs. Parkington. But in Mrs. Miniver they are a true couple from beginning to end, showing their love but also a strong friendship for one another that serve as the movie’s most steady foundation – it's again a display of the fact that Greer Garson was always at her most relaxed on the screen when she could trust in a strong and dependable cast around her, one that was willing to work and keep pace with her. And so, the casting of Greer Garson as Kay Miniver is a welcome and intriguing merging of identities as both women quietly control the proceedings around them without dominating them – they are the center of their worlds but neither is feeling the need to stand out and both Greer Garson and Kay Miniver let her co-stars and her family be a group of equals, giving Mrs. Miniver a more realised intensity and enabling Greer Garson to be the kind of mother and wife but also actress and personality it required.     

Overall, Greer Garson played her role like she almost always did, by following the guidelines of her character without adding any depth herself but the structure of the script was enough for her to shine in a part that highlighted all of her strengths and allowed her to deliver some memorable and moving moments but also to become a strong symbol of maternal love, marital support and determined volition, for fear in the face of the enemy and the courage than can arise from it. Her performance is filled with the right amount of charm and seriousness, showing how Kay Miniver adjusts herself to the tasks she was given without losing the core of her identity, making the part not only tailor-made for her but also allowing her to embrace this portrayal of womanhood without scarifying the integrity of the character for the sake of sentimentality. Thankfully, Greer Garson never tried to steal or dominate the movie and instead flowed along with the story, holding back whenever the focus shifted, making her more real and three-dimensional than she might have been otherwise. It’s not a perfect performance in any way – for this, both Greer Garson’s acting and the quality of the writing lack the necessary substance but it’s a strong and thought-through portrayal that manages to impress despite its limitations.