NFR Project: 'How Green Was My Valley' (1941)

 

NFR Project: ‘How Green Was My Valley”

Dir: John Ford

Scr: Philip Dunne

Pho: Arthur C. Miller

Ed: James B. Clark

Premiere: Oct. 28, 1941

118 min.

Winner of Best Picture, Director, and Cinematography Oscars in 1941, How Green Was My Valley is a moving epic – one of John Ford’s most emotional films.

The film is adapted from the 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn. It’s the story of the Morgan family, Welsh coal miners in the late 19^th century. In their small village, they live and go down to work in the galleries underground. (The entire village and mine were created on 80 acres in a California valley.)

They are a poor, exploited lot, and the story is unremittingly tragic. The narrator (voiced here by the great Irving Pichel) is leaving the valley, and reflects on his childhood there. He is Huw, played by Roddy McDowell in his first He  film, at just the age of 12. He has five older brothers, who all work at the mine, and a sister, Angharad (Maureen O’Hara) who keeps house with their mother (Sara Allgood). The father of the family (Donald Crisp in an Oscar-winning performance) is stern but loving, and rules benevolently over his family.

Tragedies abound. The men go on strike; the father opposes it and the brothers move out. The miners mutter against the father; the mother defiantly addresses a meeting in the winter and falls into a river with Huw; both are severely injured, Huw more seriously. It takes the intervention of the kind minister Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon) to inspire Huw to walk again.

Two of the brothers lose their jobs, and move to America. Angharad and Mr. Gruffydd fall in love, but he won’t ask for her hand as he’s too poor. She is soon courted by the mine owner’s son, and reluctantly marries him.

Another brother dies in a mining accident, after which his wife gives birth. Huw is picked on in school, and is taught boxing. He beats his tormentor, which leads his malicious schoolteacher to beat him. It takes the interest of a couple of ne’er-do-wells to stop the schoolmaster from running Huw’s life. Huw declines university and goes to work in the mine, supporting his dead brother’s sister-in-law and infant.

Meanwhile, Angharad returns to the valley alone. Gossips speak of the love between her and Mr. Gurffydd, and finally he is expelled from the post. That same evening, another mine disaster strikes, and Huw’s father is dead. The film ends with Huw clutching his father’s body, covered with soot and despair. (A brief glimpse of all the men in the family meeting in heaven tries to lift the film out of its gloom.)

Ford is unparalleled here in his reliance on close-ups, his camera lingers on the subtle reactions of all the performers. Ford loves to gaze into the souls of the actors, and we watch as the tragedies challenge them, or grind them down. The script masterfully tames the material, and Arthur C. Miller’s cinematographic is luminescent.

A convincing portrayal of a vanished world and life.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Kannapolis, N.C.