
| How Green Was My Valley | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
|
| Directed by | John Ford |
| Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
| Written by | Story: Richard Llewellyn Screenplay: Philip Dunne |
| Starring | Walter Pidgeon Maureen O'Hara Anna Lee Donald Crisp Roddy McDowall |
| Music by | Alfred Newman |
| Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
| Editing by | James B. Clark |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | October 28, 1941 (USA) |
| Running time | 118 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Welsh |
How Green Was My Valley is a 1941 American drama film directed by John Ford. The film was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, written by Philip Dunne, and based on the Richard Llewellyn novel of the same name. The film stars Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning five and beating out such classics as Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, and Sergeant York for Best Picture.
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 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Contents |
The story is told through the eyes, and with the voice-over narration of Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), now a middle-aged man leaving the mining town of Cwm Rhondda, recalling the events that most impressed his younger self. The boy Huw is played by Roddy, but the voice-over is not Roddy's voice.
His first memories are of the marriage of his brother, Ivor (Patric Knowles), and the burgeoning romance of his sister, Angharad (Maureen O'Hara) with the new preacher, Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon). Still too young to work in the local coal mine like his father, Gwilym (Donald Crisp), and his five older brothers, he 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. The film concludes with the death of the father in a mining accident.
William Wyler, the original director, saw the screen-test of Roddy and chose him for the part. Wyler was replaced later by director John Ford. Ford wanted to shoot the movie in Wales, but events in Europe during World War II made this impossible. Instead, he built a replica of the mining town at the nearly 3,000-acre Fox Ranch in Malibu Canyon.[1]
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Rebecca |
Academy Award for Best Picture 1941 |
Succeeded by Mrs. Miniver |
|
|||||
|
||||||||
Why are we here?
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License
This page is cache of Wikipedia. History