Customer Reviews

How Green Was My Valley

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4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Of all the unforgettable classic b/w films made in the 40's during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, `How Green Was My Valley' released in '41 is my personal favorite. Who could ever tire of watching this timeless tale focusing on a poor Welsh coal mining community at the beginning of the 20th century. Done in narration style you will be transported back to a difficult, but simplier time to relive the life of young Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall) and his loving memories of family, friends and assorted members of the township. His lifetime unfolds before the viewer, moments of happiness and hardship, triumphs and failures, life and death.

Directed by the legendary John Ford and performed by a cast which includes some of the finest actors and actresses of that generation it's no surprise this film won numerous Academy Award in '41, including the Oscar for "Best Picture".

Starring Roddy McDowall, Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Donald Crisp and a myriad of notables. This is a film that belongs in everyone's DVD collection.

"How Green Was My Valley" is a rare, quality entry into that classic genre, the movie that is an unfettered, sentimental love letter to "days gone by." This particular Brigadoon is a small Welsh mining town, where every cause is righteous , where money corrupts and the very poorest have the purest of hearts and where the salt of the Earth earn their keep by digging deep in the coal mines.

If you are in the mood for it, if you can check you modern cynicism at the door, "How Green Was My Valley" is an excellent film. John Ford (The Searchers, The Quiet Man) is a master director, and creates an incredible authenticity of feeling and homesickness, especially for a man born in Maine. Young Roddy McDowall is a feisty Huw Morgan, and Maureen O'Hara is the tragic beauty Angharad Morgan. The film presents some interesting lessons on church morality, poverty and fighting back, though not always in the way expected.

There will always be room for this type of movie. "It's a Wonderful Life," "Madadayo" and "How Green was my Valley" are all in my movie collection. Sometimes you just need to sit back and let the nostalgia for "days gone by" wash over you.

I was reluctant to watch this movie. After all, I am 21 and am used to seeing John Ford movies such as "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon". I was sure I would be bored with this movie. Was I ever wrong. This movie touches you in every way. It is quite possibly the saddest and most emotional movie I've ever seen. The cast is very solid: Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Walter Pidgeon, and Roddy McDowall. There is something special about How Green Was My Valley that I cannot explain. I am glad it won Best Picture at the Oscars in 1941. I hope nobody tries to remake this film because no actor or director could do a better job. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

It's an impressive line-up that doesn't disappoint. John Ford directs from the Richard Llewelyn book and there's fine acting from Donald Crisp (the father) and Walter Pidgeon (the local minister). Perhaps young Roddy McDowell's performance is a bit too sympathetic, but this is a coming of age film.

The story is set in Cywm Rhonda, the famed Welsh coal mining valley. Despite the gorgeous cinematography and a soundtrack just full of fabulous Welsh men's choral singing, "How Green Was My Valley" is a real tear jerker, almost infinitely sad. No good milestone in young Huw's life is untouched by grief. You'll smile in places, as when Ty Bando gives the ghastly schoolmaster a boxing lesson, but mostly you'll cry, starting about 15 seconds in, and lasting until the last moment. If you can handle a real tear-jerker, you've GOT to see this. A favorite of mine for a third of a century now and still I discover new glories in it. It's stunningly well-edited, I realized in my latest viewing.

This is a beautiful movie! I am not a fan of "classic" black-and-white movies, but this has to be one of the greatest movies I ever saw, simply because it's a movie that explores whole ranges of emotions - love, anger, forgiveness, dispair, and more - without the need for scantily clad woman, or gazillion dollars in special effects.

If only modern movie-makers could capture the feeling of this movie, they would have true blockbusters. Not the rinky-dink movies that you forget about within a month. This one will stay with you, and if you're not moved to tears by it, well, you need some help :)

There's no nudity in this movie. Except if you count one scene where they're massaging a boy's stiff legs. There's no sex in the movie. Except if you count one innocent bittersweet kiss. There's no foul language. Except for some words that may make a you giggle from the lightness. There's no special effects. Unless you count the scene where the coal-mine blows up.

In short, this is a family movie, and one that should prod everyone into thinking about what is truely important in their lives. The love of Jesus is excellently portrayed by the "new" preacher man in the movie.

"How Green Was My Valley" is one of John Ford's best films, the sentimental story of the Morgans, a family of Welsh coal miners. Adapted by screenwriter Philip Dunne from Richard Llewellyn's best-selling novel, this is the story of a close-knit, hard-working family at the turn of the last century that sees its livelihood at the mine start to slip away and the family starts to fall apart. The story is told in flash back by the youngest boy, Huw (Roddy McDowall, with the actual narration by Irving Pichel), who wants to grow up to be just like his father (Donald Crisp, in his Oscar winning role) and older brothers, at a time when that way of life is no longer viable.

This is a gloriously beautiful black and white film, with several foundations for that beauty. First, there is the Oscar winning set design of Richard Day, Nathan Juran and Thomas Little, who recreated a totally believable Welsh town on the side the Santa Monica Mountains at Brent's Crags, near Malibu (plans to film the movie in Wales were abandoned when World War II broke out). This is one of the most memorable built sets in Hollywood history. Second, there is the Oscar winning photography of Arthur C. Miller, who would go on to win Oscars for cinematography of "Song of Bernadette" and "Anna and the King of Siam." Third, there is the singing of the Welsh Singers, who set the tone during the opening credits of the film (the same song that is song in a great moment in "Zulu," except this time it is sung in Welsh). Fourth, there is the young Irish actress Maureen O'Hara as the one daughter in the Morgan household. The only regret that this film is not in color comes from being denied the sight of O'Hara's red hair.

Beyond director Ford, who also won an Oscar, the key to this film becomes McDowell in terms of both his character and his performance. Huw is the character that brings the various episodes and plot threads together, and despite the deaths and departures that come during the film, the greatest tragedy in the film belongs to Huw. McDowell's simple and earnest performance is indeed the lynch pin of the film. The socio-political tone of the novel with regards to the labor union issue is toned down considerably, although the harsh realities faced by these Welsh coal miners are clearly represented.

"How Green Was My Valley" was the film that beat out "Citizen Kane" for the Academy Award for Best Picture (not to mention "The Maltese Falcon" and seven other films), although if you know the story of Orson Welles' masterpiece then you really have to be surprised the film was nominated (I bet it would not have been if there had been only five nominations allowed). This film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990.

There are some movies where you reach for your hankie at the end, like Melanie's death in GWTW, or Lassie's triumphant return Home, and then there's "How Green Was My Valley", where you find yourself choking back the tears every ten minutes or so. So many moments: matriarch Sara Allgood taking her first feeble steps outside after an arduous recuperation; Roddy MacDowall learning to walk again after the same accident that nearly killed his mother; daughter Maureen O'Hara as a windswept bride leaving her real love the minister behind at the church as she sets off in her loveless marriage with the colliery owner's son, and not to mention the BIG BAWLING SCENE at the end when all hands are on deck for the terrible explosion at the coal mine. This is an extremely affecting movie, the story of how the life of the Morgan family, so happy in their green valley, must change as the industrial revolution's aftermath must take its toll on the family as well as the land. Director John Ford plays on heartstrings like a virtuoso, but you don't care about that, only about the sad dissolution of this loving family as one by one the young people must find a life outside the valley. Get yourself a box of Kleenex and let it all out!