How Green Was My Valley

Richard Llewellyn told the story about how his novel came to be, recalling that it was mainly based on his own personal experiences while spending many summers visiting his grandfather in Gilfach Goch, a coal mining village in south Wales. It’s a good story and lends a sense of authenticity to his novel, something that he no doubt was capitalizing on. The problem is that that story isn’t true, and the truth was finally exposed after his death in 1983. Llewellyn spent little time in Wales, though he was of Welsh descent, and actually got the material for the book by holding conversations with local mining families. 

Fabricated back-story or not, there is no denying his novel struck a nerve when it was published in 1939, especially in communities like Gilfach Goch where mining was a major industry. The story about miners and the lack of safety, poor pay, and even worse job security rang in the ears of people like the Pennsylvania miners who were seeing their own share of problems in an industry where if you didn’t work for them, there was very little else available to you there. Whole generations grew up in that environment and felt they had no other prospects than to continue working in the mines, just like their fathers before them. With that much control, there was little incentive for the owners to improve conditions for the workers; there just wasn’t any profit in that. 

The community being depicted in the film found, though, that what they were seeing on screen didn’t look or sound anything like home. The actors were mostly Brits, Scots, and the Irish with accents to match. Likewise, because of the ongoing war, actually filming in Wales was out of the question. Instead, the filming took place in Malibu, California, a place that looked nothing like Wales. How Green Was My Valley had been planned for Technicolor, but having to film in California derailed that plan because it would betray the reality of the setting. Instead, many acres of land were altered to create the Welsh countryside and then filmed in black-and-white to hide it even further. It helped but is still less than convincing. 

The story is told from the vantage point of Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), the youngest child of the Morgan family. This is supplemented by voice-over narration from a much older Huw, reminiscing about this time in his life. Because of this first-person narrative, there are story elements that go unseen and untold simply because Huw doesn’t experience the resolution. It also means that we don’t get a traditional narrative but a series of moments with an overarching through-line. This is an intentional choice made by director John Ford based on the structure of the novel, and it is true to how someone would remember moments in their childhood, but it can be off-putting for someone wanting a resolution to every little bit of story on screen. 

Huw is presented as a gifted young boy whose circumstances put him in line to be just another miner alongside the rest of the men in the family. He lives with his father, Gwilym (Donald Crisp), his mother, Beth (Sara Allgood), his five older brothers, and a sister. The brothers, like his father, all work for the coal mine, but Huw has an opportunity for higher learning and a better life , something his father wants for him but his mother opposes, thinking higher learning is pointless nonsense. She sees nothing wrong with Huw working in the mines just like everyone else. His sister, Angharad (Maureen O’Hara), helps tend to the house and has fallen in love with Merddyn Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon), the new preacher. While Merddyn is also in love with her, he cannot bring himself to marry her for fear that his poor lot in life would prematurely age her. He believes she deserves a much better life than the one he could provide her. This ends with her entering into a loveless marriage to the son of the owner of the mine. Late in the film, she will return to the town without him, causing speculation and gossip that she may be getting a divorce.

Meanwhile, things have been turning sour at the mine. The first signs of trouble come in the form of salary cuts, forcing the already poorly paid workers to suffer because of it. This causes the men to go on strike and form a union. Gwilym refuses to join the striking workers, which makes him an unpopular man among his fellow miners. Beth and Huw, after interrupting a meeting with the strikers, fall into the freezing waters during a snowstorm and, even though they are soon rescued, both suffer by losing, temporarily, their ability to walk. Beth soon recovers, but Huw may never walk again. With the help of pastor Merddyn, though, he eventually recovers. 

When work commences at the mines, there are more workers than open positions. This leads to several of the Morgan men losing their jobs shortly afterwards, replaced by less skilled but cheaper workers. Huw is sent off to school, where he has to deal with bullies, both amongst his peers and also his teacher, a cruel man who beats Huw severely with a cane when the boy defends himself. Eventually, Huw earns himself a scholarship to study away from the town, but he decides instead to work in the mines alongside his family to help support them now that several of his brothers have been let go. 

There are other stories beyond this, but these are the main ones that heavily influence the themes of the picture. Upon its release, it was criticized in some circles for its pro-union politics, especially in Hollywood, which was fighting against the unions in favor of the studio system. The way it presents the mining company, with its lack of care for the worker or the working conditions, makes it appealing for the workers to unionize to protect themselves. We see very little of the management of the mine or its owners beyond a brief scene where one shows up at the Morgan household to ask permission for his son to court Angharad. In that one scene, though, we see how different in appearance the rich are from the working class. We get even more of that in the classroom scenes where Huw has to contend with discrimination for his background and family.

This is a truly amazing picture, one of the best to go through the Academy. Roddy McDowall carries this film and makes some impressive decisions with how he is conveying this character. He commands the screen, something hard to do when you are just twelve years old. This is not his first film, but it is the film that really introduced him to the world and made him a star for the rest of his life. Even in the quieter moments, when he is not the center of focus, it is interesting to just watch what he is doing. It is a talent that is hard to teach someone who doesn’t naturally have it. Roddy did, and it shows even at this young age.

How Green Was My Valley is remembered mainly as being the film that beat Citizen Kane for the Best Picture Award. Both are four-star films and both are masterpieces in classic cinema, but Citizen Kane is the movie most people, myself included, believe should have won that year. William Randolph Hearst campaigned against it heavily and tried to get the film removed from existence, and that probably contributed to its defeat at the Oscars. In the years since, this race has been dissected heavily, and the results questioned. Both are deserving of the Oscar, and I don’t begrudge How Green Was My Valley for winning. It’s not better than Citizen Kane, though, but it is a worthy film to hold the highest honor the Academy has to bestow. 

Academy Award Nominations: 

Outstanding Motion Picture: Darryl F. Zanuck (won)

Best Director: John Ford (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Donald Crisp (won)

Best Supporting Actress: Sara Allgood

Best Screenplay: Philip Dunne

Best Art Direction - Interior Decoration - Black-and-White: Richard Day, Nathan H. Juran, and Thomas Little (won)

Best Cinematography - Black-and-White: Arthur Miller (won)

Best Film Editing: James B. Clark

Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture: Alfred Newman

Best Sound Recording: Edmund H. Hansen

____________________________________________________

Release Date: October 28, 1941

Running Time: 118 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp, Anna Lee, and Roddy McDowall

Directed By: John Ford