Henry Wilcoxin | Through the Shattered Lens

1983’s Sweet Sixteen takes place in a small town in Texas.

Sherriff Dan Burke (Bo Hopkins) does his best to try to maintain the peace but it’s not always easy. Not when a good majority of the town is prejudiced against the Native Americans living on a nearby reservation. There’s a major archeological dig happening on the reservation, headed up by Dr. John Morgan (Patrick Macnee), but the town doesn’t care about any of the artifacts that Dr. Morgan and his team might discover. They’re too busy harassing local activist Jason Longshadow (Don Shanks) for stepping into the wrong bar.

However, a distraction from all of the casual racism has arrived in the form of Dr. Morgan’s daughter, Melissa (Aleisa Shirley). Soon, it seems like every teenage boy and young man in town is lusting after Melissa. Melissa, for her part, is only fifteen years old and is struggling to deal with all of the attention. Sometimes, she enjoys the attention. Sometimes, she just wants to be left alone. (Believe me, as someone who had adults hitting on her when she was 13, I could relate.) Melissa’s birthday is coming up and her mother (Susan Strasberg) is planning on throwing a big party and inviting the whole town to come over and celebrate. Sheriff Burke thinks it’s a great idea. “This town could use something to celebrate.”

The only problem is that any boy who so much as looks at Melissa ends up getting brutally murdered. When an old Native American man named Greyfeather (Henry Wilcoxin) is spotted near the scene of one of the crimes, the local redneck blame him for the murders and tragedy ensues. Sheriff Burke has to find the real murderer and, whether he likes it or not, he’s going to get some help from his kids, Hank (Steve Antin) and Marci (Dana Kimmel).

Hank and Marci really are this film’s secret weapons. In the past, I’ve been pretty critical of Dana Kimmel’s performance in Friday the 13th Part 3 and her insistence that her character be re-written to reflect her own religious beliefs and desire to be a good role model. However, Kimmel is really likable (and perhaps more appropriately cast) as the fiercely intelligent but still relatively innocent Marci, who reads murder mysteries and is totally excited about the prospect of getting to solve a real murder. Hank is perhaps a bit less enthusiastic about about crime-solving than Marci but he still helps out his sister because she’s his sister. Awwwwww!

Sweet Sixteen is a bit of an untraditional slasher film, one that is as concerned with social issues as is it was stalking and slashing teenagers. Perhaps that explains why it has a slightly better cast than the typical 80s slasher, with veteran actors like Patrick McNee, Susan Stasberg, and Bo Hopkins acting opposite equally capable but younger actors like Kimmel, Antin, and Aleisa Shirley. It’s also a surprisingly likable slasher film, due to the Dana Kimmel and Steve Antin’s engaging lead performances. Honestly, I think it’s kind of a shame that there weren’t a series of films featuring Marci and Hank solving crimes. Dana Kimmel and Steve Antin make quite a team in this above average slasher.

Mrs. Miniver, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1942, is often treated somewhat dismissively by film historians. The film tells the story of the Minivers, an upper middle class British family whose peaceful lives are changed forever by the start of World War II. When the film initially went into production, the U.S. was still a neutral country. As shooting commenced, the U.S. edged closer and closer to entering the war and, as a result, the script was continually rewritten to make Mrs. Miniver even more pro-British and anti-German than before. The finished film was released four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, by which point Mrs. Miniver had gone from being domestic drama to being both a celebration of British resilience and the Allied war effort. “If the Minivers can do it,” the film told audiences, “why can’t you?” As a result, Mrs. Miniver is often described as being merely effective propaganda.

Well, Mrs. Miniver may indeed be propaganda but it’s amazingly effective propaganda. I recently DVRed it off of TCM and I have to admit that, as a result of those previously mentioned film historians, I wasn’t expecting much. But I was in tears by the end of the film. Yes, World War II has long since ended. And yes, I could watch the movie and see all of the tricks and the heavy-handed manipulations that were employed to get the desired emotional response from the audience but it didn’t matter. The film is so effective and so well-acted that you’re willing to be manipulated.

(Of course, it helps that there’s not much nuance to World War II. As far as wars go, WWII was as close to a fight between good and evil as you can get. If you can’t celebrate propaganda that was designed to defeat the Nazis, then what can you celebrate?)

As for the film itself, Greer Garson plays Kay Miniver, matriarch of the Miniver Family. Her husband, Clem (Walter Pidgeon) is a successful architect. When we first meet Kay and Clem, the only thing that they have to worry about is the annual village rose show. (Henry Travers — who everyone should love because he played Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life — plays the eccentric stationmaster who is determined to win with his rose.) However, that all changes when they go to church and the vicar (Henry Wilcoxin) announces that Great Britain has declared war on Germany.

Life changes. Soon, Kay must hold her family together while bombs are falling from the sky. When Clem is away, helping out with the Dunkirk evacuation, Kay comes across a wounded German flyer (Helmut Dantine) in her garden. The flyer demands that Kay give him food and when she does, he snarls that the Third Reich will be victorious. He then passes out from his injuries, allowing Kay to take his gun and call the police. (Reportedly, this scene was rewritten and reshot several times, with the German becoming progressively more hateful with each new version.)

Kay’s son, Vincent (Richard Ney), joins the Royal Air Force. He also falls in love with Carol Beldon (Theresa Wright), the daughter of the aristocratic Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty). Over the concerns of Lady Beldon, Carol marries Vincent and she becomes the second Mrs. Miniver. They do so, despite knowing that Vincent will probably be killed before the war ends.

Of course, there is tragedy. People who we have come to love are lost, victims of the German onslaught. Throughout it all, the Minivers (and, by extension, the rest of Great Britain) refuse to give into despair or to lose hope. The film ends with them singing a hymn in a church that no longer has a roof and listening as the vicar tells them why they will continue to fight.

And yes, it’s all very manipulative but it’s also very effective. I did cry and the film earned those tears. In many ways, Mrs. Miniver is perhaps most valuable as a time capsule. It’s a film about World War II that was actually made during the war and, as such, it provides a window into the attitudes and culture of the time. But, if the film is valuable as history, it’s also just as valuable as a well-made melodrama.

I’m not sure if I would say that Mrs. Miniver deserved to defeat Kings Row for best picture of 1942. But it’s still an undeniably good film.