Walter Pidgeon of his better known roles was in "The Dark Command", where he portrayed the villain (loosely based on American Civil War guerrilla William C. Quantrill) opposite John Wayne, Claire Trevor, and a young Roy Rogers. It was not until he starred in the Academy Award-winning Best Picture "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) that his popularity returned. He then starred opposite Greer Garson in "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Mrs. Miniver" (1942) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) and its sequel, "The Miniver Story" in 1950. He was also nominated in 1944 for "Madame
Mrs. Miniver Roosevelt as a morale builder and part of it was the basis for leaflets printed in various languages and dropped over enemy and occupied territory". Roosevelt ordered it rushed to the theaters for propaganda purposes. In 2006, the film was ranked number 40 on the American Film Institute's list of the most inspiring American films of all time. In 2009, "Mrs. Miniver" was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant, and will be preserved for all time. The film was selected for the following reasons: The film exceeded all