Best Picture: #14
Original Release Date: November 26, 1941
Rating: Not Rated
Runtime: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Director: John Ford
Quick Impressions:
This Best Picture project I’m doing with my daughter has revealed staggering gaps in my own film viewing history. I honestly never realized before how many Best Picture winners I had not seen. Since I spent my entire childhood watching classic movies round the clock, this truly surprises me. I suppose the answer must lie in the fact that my mother isn’t crazy about the types of films that win Best Picture now, and she wasn’t thrilled with the type that won in any other era either.
I thought I had seen How Green Was My Valley as a young child. As soon as the movie began, I realized that not only was I mistaken, but I also knew nothing about this film at all. All these years, I’ve confused it with another movie, and I don’t even know what that movie is! (But it was in color, and my guess is, it prompted one of the adults watching to mention How Green Was My Valley.)
I’m certainly no stranger to collaborations between Maureen O’Hara and director John Ford. I’m sure we watched The Quiet Man 150 million times when I was a child. (It was, as my grandma liked to say, “a good one.”)
I love Maureen O’Hara, and who doesn’t like Roddy McDowall? (Seriously, he’s a good actor and was so well liked as a human being. Typically a cloud of scandalous, malicious gossip surrounds every movie star, but I’ve never read a bad word about Roddy McDowall. Apparently, he was a great guy, and everybody liked him.) He’s certainly a superb child actor, one of the things that makes this movie work so well.
The Plot:
In late Victorian era Wales, young Huw Morgan lives with his large family in a small mining town. His father and five adult brothers spend every day going down to the colliery to mine coal. They have always made their living this way and always made a fair living until recent changes have threatened their way of life. Huw’s beautiful sister Angharad falls in love with the local pastor Mr. Gruffydd. He loves her, too, but worries that as a servant of God, he won’t have the means to support her in the manner she deserves. Tragedy strikes often, but the family remains strong as long as it can.
The Good:
My grandpa always told me he came from a family of Welsh coal miners. As it turns out, he may have been more Irish than Welsh, but once they got to America, his family were coal miners. He would frequently tell us how his father would come home from the mine in the evenings, and his mother would carefully prepare a tub of hot water for him. As he would sink into his bath, the coal dust would come off of his body, blackening the water completely. This was a daily ritual in their household for many years. I never met my great-grandfather because he died before I was born of emphysema.
I’m sure my grandpa could relate to many elements of this film, and I wish I had watched it with him. We lived together for seventeen years and hung out together constantly. I’m surprised we never once watched How Green Was My Valley. I would love to hear his take on it. I wonder if he had the impression that his family were Welsh coal miners because of this movie. (When he was a kid, apparently, he had the nickname Frenchie because he told the other kids he was French after reading The Three Musketeers and wishing he could have adventures like “Dee-Art-igan” as he called him. He also didn’t want people to think he was Italian and beat him up.)
One thing I did actually know about How Green Was My Valley was that it beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture. This is generally considered a scandal and an outrage by people who talk about it, but—brace yourself for a shock—now that I’ve seen the movie, I like it better than Citizen Kane. (I must admit, though, to being dismayingly underwhelmed by Citizen Kane. After I watched it, I thought, “That’s it? I liked The Simpsons version better.” The cinematography is great, yes, but the rest I found lacking, empty. I’m not some deliberate contrarian, though. I’ll admit, perhaps I need to give Citizen Kane another try.)
How Green Was My Valley has great cinematography, too, though. I was extremely impressed by its shot composition. In fact, I don’t have the technical vocabulary to praise it adequately. After the movie, I looked up its filming locations and discovered it was shot entirely in California, which makes me even more impressed. These sets were built on purpose. This look was cultivated deliberately.
On the most basic level of story, we totally believe that we’re in a valley because there are steep inclines everywhere. But these shots show us something more, too. In young Huw Morgan’s world, everybody is always going one of two places—down to the colliery or up to God. (Besides heaven itself, the church building and the hillside covered in daffodils where the pastor helps Huw to walk again are also up.) Coal mining is life here. You either go down to work or up to heaven. Everyone who makes a life here eventually goes down. Everyone whose life here has ended eventually goes up. (You either die or you leave, but to leave, you’ve got to go up, because you’re starting in a valley.)
In practically every frame of this film, we see people going down or up. Usually, we get some people going down, others going up in the same shot. The ground floor of the Morgan home is the exception. Everyone is together there on one level…usually. When Huw’s mother is injured, she spends her time up in bed. She could go up farther, to heaven. But instead she comes down, into the family home once again. (She was injured, incidentally, by going down, into the icy water, where Huw holds onto her, foreshadowing another dramatic family incident which will happen later.)
The film’s story progresses through this constant up-and-down, and the camera takes our eyes on the same kind of journey. In almost every scene (unless the family is gathered inside their home in peace, eating or talking) some are up, others are down. I love the shot composition, the way each scene looks. I see now that Arthur C. Miller won Best Cinematography, and the film also won an Oscar for Best Art Direction. Good. (I guess it is surprising that Citizen Kane didn’t win Best Cinematography. I wonder if that’s because it’s such a showcase for deep focus photography, and Rebecca also used that technique just the year before. I don’t know.)
Considering that this is filmed almost entirely on sound stages, the immersive atmosphere created by these carefully staged shots is also impressive. In terms of atmosphere building, the film’s visuals are helped along by the frequent vocalizing of The Welsh Singers (listed as themselves in the end credits.) There’s definitely a poetry, a visual rhythm to what we see, so this choral accompaniment enhances the hypnotic world building, carrying us through the action of the film, helping us imagine ourselves in the world of the story.
Another reason How Green Was My Valley is so good is that it’s a character-driven story full of people we care about. One reason that we care so much is that the actors are all giving excellent performances. Particularly key to the film’s success is Roddy McDowall as the young Huw. Sadly, not every child actor can act, but McDowall can. He’s extremely engaging and sympathetic as the young Huw with his emotive eyes and timorous voice. I’ve seen many young performers from the era overact in similar roles, but McDowall does not. And the character he plays is so courageous and virtuous.
As Huw’s father Mr. Morgan, Donald Crisp also gives an excellent performance. I was pleased to discover after the movie that Crisp won Best Supporting Actor. His Gwilym Morgan is so strong and admirable. It is easy to see why his young son adores him, seeks to emulate him, and looks to him for approval and strength. For the audience, he’s a tragic figure. He gives his life loyally to the coal mine.
I also liked Sara Allgood as Mrs. Morgan, a character who is also notable for her moxie (though I think her husband makes safer choices in many cases). These two certainly have strong values and courageous hearts. They managed to raise extremely exemplary children, particularly Huw and Angharad.
Barry Fitzgerald also has a small part in the film.
We’re given an intimate look at such a particular world, a world that is now gone, yet so much we see there remains highly relatable. The strong family unit, complete with loving, principled patriarch and fiery, devoted mother could exist in any era. Similarly, anxieties about unions and the gutting of wages remain talking points for blue collar workers even now.
Best Action Sequence/Best Scene:
We watched this movie in two uneven parts, and I wish we hadn’t. My daughter gets tired, and breaking up the films into pieces is a satisfactory solution—for movies I’ve already seen. I would have much preferred to watch How Green Was My Valley all in one piece. That said, the ending is by far the best piece of this film.
The strongest scene is Huw’s late descent into the colliery with Mr. Gruffydd. This is absolutely riveting.
Second Best Scene:
This is not actually a single scene. Maureen O’Hara gets a wonderful part in this film as Huw’s older sister Angharad. When she reacts to something that happens in the church, she reveals such character, principle, and courage. In another scene, she makes a similarly bold attempt to take control of her life by revealing the depth of her feelings to the man she loves. I must say, I do not understand what is wrong with this person. This move should appeal to him. The gesture is so Biblical. It’s like a scene from my mother’s favorite movie, The Story of Ruth. I see his point, but I’ve known so many women happily content in the situation she proposes for them. These women don’t choose their spouse hoping that he will be able to afford an opulent mansion with servants and stables. They know the life they’re choosing, and they’re usually quite happy and satisfied with the life they get. Personally, I think his character is crazy. If Maureen O’Hara broke into my house under similar circumstances, I can assure you, things would end very differently. Angharad deserves better. I’m quite curious about what happens after the end of the film. Perhaps I’ll have to read Richard Llewellyn’s novels.
Second Best Action Sequence:
Huw’s lessons with Dai Bondo (played by the actually Welsh Rhys Williams) certainly improve his experiences at school, and Dai Bondo’s lesson for the teacher is compelling. (Were all Victorian schoolmasters really such sadists? They always seem to be in literature!) At first, Dai Bondo’s lesson seems oddly satisfying, but soon it becomes vaguely horrifying. Roddy McDowall is excellent in these scenes.
Best Scene Visually:
I love the moments when the men enter and leave the colliery. The whole screen is filled with their progress.
The Negatives:
My daughter didn’t care for the narrator. She found his voice off-putting and remarked more than once that he sounded like he was narrating a Christmas special. She also grew frustrated by his decision to over-explain obvious moments but let situations she found more confusing pass without comment. So she didn’t like the use of narration. She didn’t like how the narration was used. She didn’t like the style of narration. And she didn’t like the voice of the narrator himself. Basically, she hated everything about the narration. And she commented on this very frequently.
Had I been watching alone (or even in silence), I don’t know that I would have reacted to the narrator in this way. I tend to take things as they are. At least, I spend some time determining what something wants to be before I pass judgment. But her persistent critique influenced my thoughts. And once she had pointed out these annoying aspects of the narration, I couldn’t hear it without noticing them myself.
I do not care for the narrator’s voice, either. To be clear, Irving Pichel has a perfectly lovely, resonant voice. But his line delivery does make the narration seem dated and far away. I know he’s remembering his own distant past, but that past seems so vivid, urgent, relatable. Shouldn’t the narrator be closer to the audience in time than the past he’s remembering is? I feel like he’s the one who’s far away from me, not the people living out these events that happened sixty years ago (for him). Maybe the fact that the film came out almost eighty years ago complicates things. But I don’t think so. Every member of the Morgan family feels alive, vital, present. The narrator might as well be speaking to us from Queen Victoria’s nursery. He seems to exist sixty years earlier than the action of the film, not sixty years later. But maybe in 1941, this was the sort of narration the audience would have expected.
At one point, I thought, “Maybe the problem is, Irving Pichel’s voice sounds nothing at all like Roddy McDowall’s.” And then I thought, “Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if McDowall himself had recorded a new version of the narration for a 60th anniversary release of the film?” I guess he didn’t live quite long enough to make that happen, but I would love to hear McDowall’s own aged voice narrating the movie.
Also, I have nothing against Walter Pidgeon in general, but I find his character in this movie so frustrating and exasperating. It isn’t Pigeon’s performance. That’s fine. In fact, he’s very convincing as the good-hearted, truth-loving pastor, Mr. Gruffyd. But the character makes a choice that exasperated me so much that it set me on edge through Pidgeon’s entire performance.
Overall:
How Green Was My Valley is a beautiful, immersive film. I recently read that it’s Alex Trebek’s favorite movie, and I can easily see why it could be anyone’s favorite. It gives us a vivid peek into a forgotten world, an incredibly specific place and time, yet it shows us a sympathetic, strong family that could exist in any place, in any era. Donald Crisp makes a wonderful patriarch, and we both feel his young son’s admiration for him and understand it. Huw himself is such a remarkable, admirable, courageous boy. He has such character, and Roddy McDowall plays him perfectly. This film also has a wonderful part for Maureen O’Hara, who certainly makes an impression as Angharad. If she broke into my house in the middle of the night to profess her love for me, we would be married now with ten children.