How Green Was My Valley

Rating

Director

John Ford

Screenplay

Philip Dunne (Novel: by Richard Llewellyn)

Length

118 min.

Starring

Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, John Loder, Sara Allgood, Barry Fitzgerald, Patric Knowles, Welsh Singers, Morton Lowry, Arthur Shields, Ann E. Todd, Frederick Worlock, Richard Fraser, Evan S. Evans, James Monks

MPAA Rating

Approved

Review

In support of the working class, director John Ford brings to the screen the celebrated novel How Green Was My Valley about the tribulations of a family of coal miners in asmall Welsh town.

Narrated by an older Huw Morgan looking back over his lifein the provincial mining town, How Green Was My Valley remains a despised film by many who feel it robbed Citizen Kane of the Best Picture award for 1941. The Orson Welles classic is easily superior, one has to look back at the atmosphere of the film industry at the time to understand why an inferior, though markedly good film like Valley could win the trophy.

An incredibly young Roddy McDowall plays Huw as he grows up trying to make his family proud. The Morgans are well respected in their community. The miners, who sing in unison as they march home from work each day, often look to the family patriarch Gwilym (Donald Crisp) to settle anydisputes or grievances with the mine. Being in the unenviable position, Gwilymhas only the town’s best interests at heart but angers his sons by supporting the mine’s decision to increase labor while decreasing wages.

The family schism impacts the entire community and as it begins to crumble, so does the town. It falls to the youngest Morgan, Huw, to change things. Although he’s an intelligent boy, he is nonetheless out of place going out of town to a school for more affluent kids.

Because of his upbringing, he’s immediately the target of the school’s other students. When he returns home bruised and battered, he’s taught how to defend himself and fight for his own survival. His teacher even gets in the act blaming him for trouble that’s caused and caning him badly.

Believing his family needs him and not desiring to deal with the world outside his community, Huw, despite his extremely young age, goes into the mine to work for his family.

How Green Was My Valley is definitely a good movie. Its view of working class families and the tragedies that befall them is inspiring. Ford doesn’t follow Frank Capra’s line of reasoning when it comes to filmmaking. Valley features plenty of happy occasions but much of the film is filled with depressing and otherwise dreadful situations. While the conclusion has strands of hope woven into it, the film refuses to conform to the happy ending.

With more performances under his belt than many of 1941’scrop of stars, McDowall displayed a great amount of depth in his role as the oppressed child Huw. Many of today’s obnoxiously cute child stars should take some tips from McDowall as even at the young age of 13, he was able to create characters of stirring depth and amazing tenacity. Although Crisp, who is certainly good herein, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it was McDowall who gave the film’s best performance.

The film also features the immeasurable talents of Maureen O’Hara who plays the Morgan family matriarch Angharad. For a film whose cast is predominantly male, O’Hara stands out starkly as the passionate and loving other. Nothing can deter her from standing up for her family, going so far as to risk her own life in a horrid blizzard by addressing a group of miners, including her sons, who are meeting to turn against her husband. After her rousing speech, she starts off home with Huw in tow but falls prey to a slippery bank of ice and crashes beneath its surface. These events help shape Huw’s life and also help to strengthen their bond as mother and son.

Certainly Citizen Kane is the better film and had it not been so clearly a jab at the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, it might have won the award. Suffice it to say that the press was against Kane and the Academy followed suit honoring the weaker, though still admirable picture How Green Was My Valley.

Review Written

October 17, 2006