Maureen O'Hara O'Hara beat Lauren Bacall to the role as she was busy with other engagements. Though the film was critically acclaimed, Crowther of "The New York Times" felt that the characters of O'Hara and the daughter could have been made "more humorous and spirited than they are". The following year, O'Hara appeared in the CBS television film, "Mrs. Miniver", but despite some critics approving her performance, most thought that the remake was ill-timed and that she could not top Greer Garson's performance in the 1942 Oscar-winning film. In 1961, O'Hara portrayed Kit Tilden in the western "The Deadly Companions", Sam Peckinpah's
Mrs. Miniver RAF fighters in the V-for-Victory formation heading out to face the enemy. The film went into pre-production in the autumn of 1940, when the United States was still a neutral country. The script was written over many months, and during that time, the United States moved closer to war. As a result, scenes were re-written to reflect the increasingly pro-British and anti-German outlook of Americans. The scene in which Mrs. Miniver confronts a downed German flyer in her garden, for example, was made more and more confrontational with each new version of the script. It was initially filmed before the