Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein would help the new Allies, Britain and America, to understand each other. He read and advised on early drafts of "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), the film starring Greer Garson as the heroic mother of a wartorn British family, which MGM made after a meeting of MGM executives with Bernstein in Hollywood. As the invasion of France loomed, Bernstein brought his friend Alfred Hitchcock back from Hollywood to Britain to work on two short documentary films for the post-invasion French audience. As the war wound to its close, Bernstein heard the first reports of extermination camps, visited Belsen himself, and was determined
William Wyler films that could be considered anti-Nazi were banned by the Hays Office. U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph Kennedy, told the studios to stop making pro-British and anti-German films. Kennedy felt that British defeat was imminent. But MGM producer Eddie Mannix disagreed, saying that "someone should salute England. And even if we lose $100,000, that'll be okay." "Mrs. Miniver" went on to win six Academy Awards, becoming the top box office hit of 1942. It was Wyler's first Academy Award for Best Director. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill both loved the film, said historian Emily Yellin,