1942 – Henry Travers
Mrs. Miniver
Henry Travers was a good actor. I believe he is most famously known as Clarence from It’s A Wonderful Life, but he did a fantastic job here, too. He had a very gentle manner about him that permeated his character. He played Mr. Ballard, the local stationmaster, and one of the bell-ringers at the church. His whole sub-plot in the film was a nice one. He played the part of the common peace-loving man. He was also a gardener who had grown a rose so beautiful that it rivaled the roses of the snotty aristocrat, Lady Beldon, which he names after the kind Mrs. Miniver.
Travers didn’t have a lot of screen time, but he made the most of what he had. Right from his first appearance on the screen, he shows us a man who is meek and kind-hearted. His manner is mild and polite. He is the kind of man anyone would love to know. And I have to think that this wasn’t just the way the character of Mr. Ballard was written. Much of that came from the actor, and must certainly have been the way the man really was. It seemed so natural for him.
His big scene was the one in which Lady Beldon is convinced that his rose deserves the top prize at a flower show, even though she has never lost since the flower show began. When she announces his name as the winner of the silver cup, his surprise and disbelief rendered him speechless, and he could only stand when his friends propped him up. As he slowly approached the dais, he was nearly in tears, and his abject humility as he accepts the cup was very touching. Travers really did a great job in that scene. I really believed his disbelief.
I’ve seen the film several times now, but this time I caught something I hadn’t remembered from previous viewings. The final scene where the priest is naming off some of those who have died in the bombings, Ballard’s name is mentioned. Apparently, his character died only two hours after winning the top prize in the flower show. It made the ending of the film just that much more powerful and poignant. Really paying attention to his performance in Mrs. Miniver makes me wonder what other kind of character Travers ever played in his career. He was a good actor, and this was the perfect kind of role to earn him an Oscar nomination.