How Green Was My Valley (film)
How Green Was My Valley | |
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File:How Green Was My Valley poster.jpg | |
Directed by | John Ford |
Screenplay by | Philip Dunne |
Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
Starring | Walter Pidgeon Maureen O'Hara Anna Lee Donald Crisp Roddy McDowall |
Narrated by | Irving Pichel |
Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
Edited by | James B. Clark |
Music by | Alfred Newman |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 118 minutes |
Country | Template:Film US |
Languages | English Welsh |
Budget | $1.25 million |
Box office | $6,000,000 |
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 drama film directed by John Ford. The film, based on the 1939 Richard Llewellyn novel, was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and written by Philip Dunne. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards,[1] winning five and beating out for Best Picture such classics as Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Suspicion and Sergeant York.
The film tells the story of the Morgans, a close, hard-working Welsh family at the turn of the twentieth century in the South Wales coalfield at the heart of the South Wales Valleys. It chronicles a socio-economic way of life passing and the family unit disintegrating.
In 1990, How Green Was My Valley was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
The story is told through the eyes and with the voice-over narration of Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), now a middle-aged man leaving his home, a mining town in the Rhondda Valley, and recalling the events that most impressed his younger self. The boy Huw is played by Roddy, but the voice-over is that of unseen actor Irving Pichel.
Huw's first memories are of the marriage of his brother, Ivor (Patric Knowles), and the burgeoning, unspoken and ill-fated romance of his sister, Angharad (Maureen O'Hara), with the new preacher, Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon). Because of the forbidden nature of the romance, Angharad marries another man (whom she later divorces), and Mr. Gruffydd leaves the chapel in disgust after being subjected to untrue town gossip - his romance with Angharad is never consummated, nor do they ever marry. Still too young to work in the local coal mine like his father, Gwilym (Donald Crisp), and his five older brothers, Huw senses the seriousness of an imminent strike by the rift it creates between his father and the other boys when three of them move out of the family abode.
During the tensions of the strike, Huw saves his mother (Sara Allgood) from drowning and in so doing temporarily loses the use of his legs. As Gruffydd aids in Huw's recovery, insisting on a positive attitude, he suggests that it is only the first of many trials the boy will have to face. Other subplots are explored in the film, which concludes with the death of Gwilym Morgan in a mining accident.
Cast
- Walter Pidgeon as Mr. Gruffydd
- Maureen O'Hara as Angharad Morgan
- Anna Lee as Bronwyn, Ivor's wife
- Donald Crisp as Gwilym Morgan
- Roddy McDowall as Huw Morgan
- John Loder as Ianto Morgan
- Sara Allgood as Mrs. Beth Morgan
- Barry Fitzgerald as Cyfartha
- Patric Knowles as Ivor Morgan
- Morton Lowry as Mr. Jonas
- Arthur Shields as Mr. Parry
- Ann E. Todd as Ceinwen
- Frederick Worlock as Dr. Richards
- Richard Fraser as Davy Morgan
- Evan S. Evans as Gwilym Morgan
- James Monks as Owen Morgan
- Rhys Williams as Dai Bando
- Lionel Pape as Evans
- Ethel Griffies as Mrs. Nicholas
- Marten Lamont as Iestyn Evans
Background
William Wyler, the original director, saw the screen test of McDowall and chose him for the part. Wyler was replaced by John Ford. Fox wanted to shoot the movie in Wales in Technicolor, but events in Europe during World War II made this impossible. Instead, Ford built a replica of the mining town at the nearly 3,000-acre (12 km2) Fox Ranch in Malibu Canyon.[2]
The cast had only one genuinely Welsh actor - Rhys Williams, in a minor role.
Awards
The film was nominated for ten awards.[3]
- Best Picture - Darryl F. Zanuck (won)
- Best Director - John Ford (won)
- Best Supporting Actor - Donald Crisp (won)
- Best Black-and-White Cinematography - Arthur C. Miller (won)
- Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration - Richard Day, Nathan H. Juran and Thomas Little (won)
- Best Adapted Screenplay - Philip Dunne
- Best Supporting Actress - Sara Allgood
- Best Film Editing - James B. Clark
- Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture - Alfred Newman
- Best Recording Sound - Edmund H. Hansen
Other awards
- New York Film Critics Circle Awards: NYFCC Award; Best Director, John Ford; 1941.
- Argentine Film Critics Association Awards: Silver Condor; Best Foreign Film, John Ford, USA; 1943.
- 1990—National Film Registry.
Adaptations
How Green Was My Valley was adapted as a radio play on the March 22, 1942 broadcast of the Ford Theatre, with Sara Allgood, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowell, Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon. It was also adapted on three broadcasts of Lux Radio Theater: on September 21, 1942, with Allgood, Crisp, O'Hara, McDowell and Pidgeon; on March 31, 1947, with Crisp and David Niven; and on September 28, 1954, with Crisp and Donna Reed.
In popular culture
In the 1996 Frasier episode "High Crane Drifter" (3.17), Frasier is trying to watch How Green Was My Valley, first in a theater, where he was disturbed by "old ladies" who kept repeating, "Look how young he looks. He's dead you know." Later, he attempts to rent the movie from Friendly Video, where he describes the movie and is beaten to the rental by a woman who was standing in line behind him. He says "You're renting How Green Was My Valley?" She answers, "Yeah, I heard it was great." Frasier answers, "You heard it from me!" Frasier finally returns home and finds that he still cannot watch the movie after having visited three video stores to find it because he is interrupted by his heavy metal-playing neighbor.
See also
References
- ^ "NY Times: How Green Was My Valley". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-12-13.
- ^ Reel Classics
- ^ "The 14th Academy Awards (1942) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
External links
- How Green Was My Valley at IMDb
- How Green Was My Valley at the TCM Movie Database
- How Green Was My Valley at AllMovie
- How Green Was My Valley at Rotten Tomatoes
- How Green Was My Valley at Reel Classics
- How Green Was My Valley at Film Site web site; contains plot detail.
- 1941 films
- 1940s drama films
- American films
- American drama films
- English-language films
- Films directed by John Ford
- Best Picture Academy Award winners
- Black-and-white films
- Films set in Wales
- Films based on novels
- Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winning performance
- Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award
- Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award
- Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
- United States National Film Registry films
- 20th Century Fox films