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How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Walter Pidgeon , Maureen O'Hara , John Ford  |  NR |  DVD
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (146 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall
  • Directors: John Ford
  • Writers: Philip Dunne, Richard Llewellyn
  • Producers: Darryl F. Zanuck
  • Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
  • Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish
  • Dubbed: Spanish
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: NR (Not Rated)
  • Studio: 20th Century Fox
  • DVD Release Date: January 14, 2003
  • Run Time: 118 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (146 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00006RCO3
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,420 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "How Green Was My Valley" on IMDb

Special Features

  • Audio Commentary by Anna Lee Nathan and Film Historian Joseph McBride
  • AMC Backstory Episode
  • Still Gallery
  • Theatrical Trailer

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

John Ford's beautiful, heartfelt drama about a close-knit family of Welsh coal miners is one of the greatest films of Hollywood's golden age--a gentle masterpiece that beat Citizen Kane in the Best Picture race for the 1941 Academy Awards. The picture also won Oscars for Best Director (Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography; all of those awards were richly deserved, even if they came at the expense of Kane and Orson Welles. Based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, the film focuses its eventful story on 10-year-old Huw (Roddy McDowall), youngest of seven children to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp, Sarah Allgood), a hardy couple who've seen the best and worst of times in their South Wales mining town. They're facing one of the worst times as Mr. Morgan refuses to join a miners union whose members have begun a long-term strike. Family tensions grow and Huw must learn many of life's harsher lessons under the tutelage of the local preacher (Walter Pidgeon), who has fallen in love with Huw's sister (Maureen O'Hara). As various crises are confronted and devastating losses endured, How Green Was My Valley unfolds as a rich, moving portrait of family strength and integrity. It's also a nod to a simpler, more innocent time--and to the preciousness of memory and the inevitable passage from youth to adulthood. An all-time classic, not to be missed. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

Sixty year-old Huw Morgan looks back on his life as a boy (Roddy McDowall) in a small Welsh mining town. His reminiscences reveal the disintegration of the closely knit Morgans, and his devoted parents (Donald Crisp, Sara Allgood), while capturing the sentiments and issues of their time. Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon co-star in this acclaimed screen classic, the story of one family's dreams, struggles and triumphs.

Customer Reviews

It is a movie you can watch over and over. Elizabeth Kuszewski  |  33 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
62 of 66 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Into The Valley February 21, 2003
Format:DVD
John Ford's 1941 film How Green Was My Valley tells the story of a Welsh mining family, the Morgans, through the eyes of the youngest member of the family, ten-year old Huw (Roddy McDowell). Mr. & Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp & Sara Allgood) have seven children and struggle to keep their family afloat. Mr. Morgan is a miner, but he refuses to join a newly formed union and join in on their strike. This creates tensions within the family and violence erupts. Through it all the family survives, but their hometown and culture begin to decline. Mr. Ford poignantly portrays the fading of childhood innocence and the good side and down side of life in a small town. The film is still relevant today as Mr. Ford shows how technology dehumanizes society as machinery that is more efficient and cost-effective starts to replace many of the mine's best workers and renders them unneeded and forces them into unemployment. The film beat out what is considered the greatest movie of time, Citizen Kane, to win the 1941 Academy Award for Best Picture and Mr. Ford beat Orson Welles to win his second consecutive Best Director Award (and the third of his total of four). The film won three other Oscars including Best Supporting Actor for Mr. Crisp. The film was to be shot in color on location in Wales, but due to the escalation of World War II, filming was moved to California and shot in black & white to help create the dreariness of South Wales. This worked out brilliantly as the lack of color helps create more a bleaker mood and Arthur C. Miller was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
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60 of 65 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:VHS Tape
This movie is impeccably crafted, written, performed, and directed. It's impossible not to be drawn in emotionally. Both HOW GREEN and Ford's pervious film, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, are realistic depictions of the effects of severe economic and social conditions upon a family. But while GRAPES centers more on the social conditions, VALLEY focuses primarily on the family itself. Indeed, it mourns the loss of family unity. The legendary Irish-American Ford was known for his gruff, crusty exterior, but pictures like this one show his sentimentality and his belief in the basic values of human life.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is about a large, close-knit family, the Morgans, in a small Welsh mining town. The family is headed by a firm father and a gentle, wise mother, and comprises six sons and one daughter. The five grown sons are, like their father, coal miners, and it is their hope that the sixth son, sensitive and intelligent Huw (Roddy McDowall), will become a scholar. It is through Huw's eyes that the story is told. He looks back as an older man and reflects on his family, his valley, and its people.

He grows up in a time of change, watching in confusion as a secure way of life is altered for the worse by mine owners who overwork the mines and alienate the miners, leading his brothers to call for unionism, a concept which his father abhors. This is the central decision from which the other threads of this compelling story evolve, and the film is ultimately a beautifully moving drama, one of the best films about family ever made.

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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars "Trees" Also Grow in Wales October 10, 2003
Format:DVD
Frankly, I had forgotten how excellent this film is until seeing it again recently. (It received the Academy Award for best film in 1941in competition with Citizen Kane and the other nominees.) The impact on me of a film at a given time is almost wholly dependent on how accessible I am when seeing it. I first saw How Green Was My Valley as a child and then again several years later. Probably because since then I have become a father and then a grandfather, I am much more appreciative now than I was before of what director John Ford achieves in his portrayal of a Welsh mining town and of a specific family there which struggles so courageously to enable one of its own, not only to escape from the mines but from the limits of a culture (albeit loving and supportive) to fulfill his human potentialities which would otherwise be denied. The film covers a 50-year period as an adult Huw Morgan recalls it (he is played by Roddy McDowell), with the primary focus on his ordeals as the youngest of several children. Donald Crisp received an Academy Award as best actor in a supporting role as Morgan family's patriarch. Many believe this is Ford's best film and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. It really has everything. With Philip Dunne's screenplay based on Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley combines superior acting and cinematography with Alfred Newman's complementary musical score. For me, this film's greatness is found in its graphic portrayal of hardship and despair in a bleak mining town which are offset by a proud family's enduring faith in Huw and their determination to protect and support him. Ford affirms their essential dignity with a respect and admiration he invites us to share.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Ford masterpiece
If John Ford had only directed this and "The Grapes of Wrath", he would be one of the greatest directors in film history. Read more
Published 1 day ago by s
5.0 out of 5 stars One of Ford's greatest films.
"How Green Was My Valley" is famous as the film that beat "Citizen Kane" for the 1941 Best Picture Oscar. That has dampened the film's reputation, undeservedly. Read more
Published 2 days ago by Miles D. Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding movie
This was a wonderful story of a struggling family in Wales coal-mining country. It's a 3-hanky movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it to anyone.
Published 6 days ago by Esther Sakakini
5.0 out of 5 stars How green was my valley.
Great film, beautifully shot and wonderful cast. Except that it cut the telecast on TCM long before it ended. Read more
Published 11 days ago by lewigie
5.0 out of 5 stars How Great Was This Film
A brilliant film in every way. Simply one of the greatest Movies ever made and, made by John Ford....the Greatest Filmmaker who has ever lived. Read more
Published 21 days ago by noozman5
5.0 out of 5 stars Great story, emotion and drama
Never tire of these movies of the 30's and 40's, there was innocence and moral value but still recognized human frailities and over coming problems. This is a family movie
Published 28 days ago by Nancy
5.0 out of 5 stars A must see movie
This movie will never get old. It is historical fiction at its best. Watching it was like stepping back in time to see how my, coal mining, ancestors lived and how their lives... Read more
Published 1 month ago by John Christensen
5.0 out of 5 stars One of John Ford's loveliest films...
It has become the in thing to denigrate this film over other films from 1941 such as THE MALTESE FALCON, THE LADY EVE, SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, SERGEANT YORK and especially, CITIZEN... Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. D. Heise
5.0 out of 5 stars Family Vaues
The movie is a wonderful story about family values and a must see for everyone. I highly recommend this movie.
Published 1 month ago by John P. Kane
5.0 out of 5 stars A definite Classic
I first read the book as a young child in the 1940's. The movie was the icing on the cake. The tension in the relationship with Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon is so wonderful. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ancient Admirer
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