"How Green Was My Valley" has the personal distinction of being the very last Best Picture Oscar winner I watched in order to be able to claim that I've seen them all. From the stinkeroos to the masterpieces (and there have been both), I can now claim that I know which way the Academy wind blew in any given year. Where does "How Green Was My Valley" fall on the list, you might ask. Somewhere between "there were better films that year" and "are you kidding me?"I mean come on. The 1941 Academy Awards, which would have been held in early 1942, took place soon after the U.S. had just been bombed at Pearl Harbor and pulled into WWII. Ok, so the Academy was never going to give the award to the rightful recipient of it, "Citizen Kane." But if they weren't going to give it to "Kane," why on earth didn't they give it to "Sergeant York," a film I don't even like but that would have at least had the stamp of relevancy. Instead, they vote for this turn-of-the-century yarn about a young man coming of age in a Welsh mining town. I mean, it's an ok film, but it has virtually nothing to say to me now, and I can't imagine it had much to say to audiences back then. The stars of the film are Richard Day and Nathan Juran, the art directors who admirably recreate a mining village. I also liked Sara Allgood, as a feisty matron who practically bitch slaps the entire town when they step out of line. As for the rest, I had some trouble keeping my eyes open.Along with Best Picture, John Ford won his third of record four awards for Best Director; Donald Crisp won the Best Supporting Actor award for playing one of the most recognized character types in this category, that of the world-wise dad; Arthur Miller took home the Best Cinematography award for his black and white compositions; and Richard Day and Nathan Juran won for Best B&W Art Direction. Allgood was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, as was the film's screenplay by Phillip Dunne, and its editing, score, and sound recording.Grade: B-

I finally watched this film after hearing about it for many years. John Ford was well respected for "The Searchers", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", and "The Grapes of Wrath" and several others. The black and white imagery is breathtaking, filled with shadows, reminding me of "Citizen Kane" by Orson Welles. Roddy Mcdowall is the narrator as an adult and he tells the story of his close knit Welsh family of his mother, father, and three brothers and sister. The men all work in the local coal mine and his sister, played by Maureen O'Hara, helps around the house. As happened here in America, the workers banded together to form a union in order to gain fair wages and work conditions. Along the way, there are love affairs and heart break involving the boys' sister and a local well meaning minister of the local church. Ford keeps it all moving as a compelling tale of family love and loyalty. A wise choice for best picture at the Academy Awards for 1941.

As a picture forever been cursed by critics as "the one undeservedly trumped CITIZEN KANE (1941) for BEST PICTURE in the Oscar game", John Ford's traditional family chronicle about the Morgans in the South Wales Valleys based on Richard Llewellyn's 1939 eponymous novel, is truly born in the wrong year, for all we can see, it has a solemn rigour with first-rate camera compositions and Black-and-White cinematography, but tellingly it is also dated for its musty Protestant sense of worth in certain ways, say, the grating small- town parochiality is too overtly in-your-face, the socialism slamming is rather political and the puritan doctrine that a love-struck romance can be a man's undoing of his belief in God, thus he cannot marry the woman he loves simply because he chooses a lifestyle of austerity as a preacher, and doesn't reckon that she can tag along, only results in misery of both, it's all the same old story detached from our times. Starts with an euphonious voice-over (by an uncredited Irving Pichel), Huw Morgan (McDowall) recalls his earlier life with his parents Gwilym (Crisp) and Beth (Allgood), as well as his five elder brothers and an elder sister Angharad (O'Hara). His father and all his brothers work in a coal mine, and Angharad grows an affection towards the new preacher Mr. Gruffydd (Pidgeon), and the feeling is mutual. After a happy marriage of the eldest brother Ivor (Knowles) and Bronwyn (Lee), life begins to show a stern face towards the family. In the spirit of beating the drum for the traditional family values, the Morgans stick together, against all the havoc, and as parents, Gwilym and Beth have to accept the departures of their children when mining jobs slump and an enveloping danger regards to the danger index of this line of work. For Huw, his rite-of-passage is also composed of violence and prejudice, McDowall is the sole leading actor here, a staggering child performance with earnest compassion and empathy; Crisp portrays a quintessential steely father with benevolence under his rugged surface, and Allgood is a great scene-stealer as the tough mother, abiding by her family relentlessly, occasionally, she can also give audience a good laugh to appease the daunting reality, both nominated for Oscar and only Crisp won the trophy. Although Pidgeon and O'Hara are first billed, but their story doesn't fill up too much screen- time to be considered as the lead, Pidgeon's indignant deliverance in the church before he leaves embodies an archetype of Hollywood machination of hyping up a catharsis during its climax, considerably it was soul-inspiring to behold at then, but retrospectively speaking, its gloss has lessened since the method has become universally in the cinematic realm, now, it is barely an asset for new audience. Winning 5 Oscars, including BEST PICTURE, DIRECTOR and SUPPORTING ACTOR, the film can be listed as one of the most embarrassing winner, not a bad movie at all, only it revealingly reflects that the academy is not as prescient as what we give its credits for, which is a rather unfortunate gauge befalls on this one, otherwise, we could appreciate it more as a John Ford's brainchild.

John Ford's How Green Was my Valley is a depressing story told in excellence about a Welsh father named Gwilym, (played by Donald Crisp in an Oscar winning performance) whose oldest sons are coal miners and wants his youngest son to find a decent job and then decides to be a coal miner like his brothers. The movie stars Walter Pidgeon as a preacher who thinks about whether he can be in love with Gwilym's oldest daughter Angharad (played by Maureen O'Hara) who is very much in love with but Pidgeon's character however doesn't believe that he can give her the life she deserves even after she comes back from New Zealand without her husband. Ford's movie also teaches us the times of hardship that Gwilym and his sons went through while working in the mine. Now that I'm reviewing the film that made John ford win his 3rd directing Oscar, as well as Clint Eastwood's favorite movie to me the film was very good being one of 1941's best and greatest achievements in film of that year and in film history.