One of his minor successes, winning Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (James Hilton, Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel & Claudine West), Photography (Joseph Ruttenberg) and for Greer Garson and Theresa Wright. Dame Mae Whitty, Henry Travers and Walter Pidgeon were nominated as was Harold Kress for editing and with less long takes than other Wyler films he has more to do (Daniel Mandell won for Pride of the Yankees). Not a bad choice for the night before the Oscars.
Here, the story was a little different - my Dad reporting that the British public did not take kindly to it, figuring it was patronising and artificial. Fair enough.
Still love the sequence where Wyler holds on the back of Garson and Wright's heads, as they wait for the son (Richard Ney, the only weak actor in it) to reappear at the top of the stairs (the same trick is pulled later on); and the very claustrophobic air raid shelter scene; and the scene where Whitty comes over to complain about the engagement; and of course the rose competition.
There's a couple of 'musical numbers' at a flower show and church I would have cut.
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