How Green Was My Valley

The story of quaint hard-workin', hard-drinkin' Welsh folk who heartily sing quaint Welsh songs. And when they're not singing, the soundtrack is absolutely DRENCHED in syrup and treacle. Ford has no faith in his audience, constantly telling them how to feel. Nor does he trust them to accept complex characters. The antagonists have no redeeming qualities and the protagonists are paragons of virtue and wisdom. But while I may have been annoyed, I wasn't bored. And there's stunning cinematography.

This has got to be the best-looking maudlin trite I've had the discomfort of sitting through. Only a few of the performances really bothered me but this lays the voice-over narration and stupid Ford mythologies on thick. A few moments work, the lot does not.

Not sure if serious or rhetorical question.

"If I were to see her again, I couldn't find the strength to leave." At once raw and polished, cinematic and lifelike, this is - for me - not just Ford's best, but one of the best movies of all time. Heartbreaking, heartmending, heartfelt.

The longing narration, Ford's workmanlike filmmaking design, acting - all pointed toward the lushness of humanism under adversity, a poetry of the common. But this is constantly undercut by the harshness of society, the brutality of living under labor and culture, that didn't feel like characters maturing, only growing callouses - nostalgia as salve but not the cure. The reprieve comes from Ford's Irish-Catholicism: sacred rituals of family, community, and honor succeeding where we fail.

John Ford directs with his usual superb craftsmanship, but I don't believe in these characters at all

An odd yet effective blend of sentimentality and realism, it touches on a lot of subjects and while it doesn't delve deeply into most it still manages to say some meaningful things about them. The main themes of family, progress and childhood memories are actually quite intricately presented and much more nuanced than I would have expected. It's also a treat on a technical level with beautiful shots, strong acting and a storytelling method appropriate to its scope.

Uma história bem no estilo do livro Germinal (Zola), sendo algumas cenas e situações muito parecidas com o proprio filme adaptado Germinal. Porém, os aspectos técnicos ganham da adaptação e a velha história da luta de classes em uma mina de carvão fica muito poética.

Ford's followup to The Grapes of Wrath continues with the theme of working class plight, sans Henry Fonda and with a weaker script. This time we have the hardships of a Welsh coal-mining family spun to the sound of folk choral singing. While meticulously directed and generally wholesome, it recaptures little of the relative subtlety of its predecessor. How Green Was My Valley shamelessly drips with sentimentality, with only the occasional flourish of mild humor to redeem it.

A family struggles with changing social and economic climate. Being John Ford, sentimentality is expected, but this time it isn't hammed up and feels appropriate. It's easy to empathize with the Morgans, and presenting them from a child's perspective gives a sense of hope to an otherwise dismal chain of events. As the 12-year-old Huw, Roddy McDowell performs well, believably projecting emotion. It's also beautiful to look at, with gorgeous landscapes and dense, textured patterns of light.

Sentimental, optimistic, but with a heartfelt melancholy at bottom. The sorrow (introduced in the second half) does not result in despondency or total gloom but seem to become something 'inevitable' and an 'acknowledgement - and never does it overshadow the film's rather optimistic world-view. Rarely greatly engaging and thought-provoking, but masterly in so many ways, filled with persevering pathos and some really potent images...

Loved this the second time through. I appreciated the father character for his firm, knowledgeable, and wise way of leading his family. Also loved Ford's compositions throughout--his placement of the actors, use of space, and the lighting both in the frame and through the many windows.

Admirable in its message but also boring and poorly adapted.

Or Innocence Crushed, to give it another title. I took it as a representation rather than factual story, so the more cardboard characters didn't bother me. It's a decent watch, I could live without the voiceover.

It's an incredibly beautifully shot film with plenty of scenes that bring things come alive even if we don't actually get to see things in color. I just didn't feel much for the characters and there's a lot happening in the fairly long runtime of this movie. It still just feels too packed and the usual 40's movie melodrama feels a bit too over-the-top now. Still, it's a decent old period piece. It just wasn't entirely for me.

I can finally, personally confirm that Citizen Kane was, in fact, robbed

Shot with photographic beauty and bares some strange resemblance to the silent era in its stillness, this is the most affecting of Ford's films I've seen. Its thematic interest on nostalgia/memory is almost certainly the reason. I'm not sure how I feel about the sequence regarding the brutality of the school Huw attends.

Chiefly remembered for getting Best Picture over Citizen Kane, this doesn't offer much to contemporary viewers besides revealing the depths of Ford's bizarre romanticizing of Celtic culture through an American prism. If you want a much better, bleaker Nordic version of this, watch Jan Troell's The Emigrants.

It would be easy to write this off as emotional manipulation, showcasing "nostalgia" of better days from the past. Interestingly, quite of few of these memories aren't particularly happy ones (a long labor strike, many in the family leaving, being beaten up at school). It's a strong family drama, showing their ups and downs, but with all those characters, it probably needed to be a bit longer. Good movie to watch with your grandparents.

Very little valley talk, all things considered. Ford shoots for a kind of frightfully mundane sensibility and succeeds in spades. It is very much a slice of life, albeit a unique one that easily lends to melodrama. Still, it's easy to admire, especially for the sheer amount of craft and talent on display. Not hard to see how this beat Citizen Kane. It probably still would.

A well direct, well acted and excellently paced drama set in a small town. The thing about a movie like this is that it could have taken place in any small town nearly anywhere in the world and still been the same story. Swap out coal mine for steel mill or small time farm and its still the same. Small towns always have this wholesome, friendly mystique that nearly always turns out to be only skin deep.

86.50

Little Roddy McDowell shines in a maudlin yet melancholy ode to the rare auld times. (Yes, the story takes place in Wales, not Ireland, but the comparison remains apt.)

Huw Morgan: "Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then."

Story of hardship, tragedy and of pride. Serious to the bone, it deals with cold leaders, cruel teachers and fear-inflicting preachers. Some may find this preachy, and that's because it is, for the reason it has a point to communicate. Very dignified from all involved. While it'll never be my favorite John Ford movie, How Green Was My Valley (1941) is one I'll respect him for.

Ford's classic about a Welsh mining community is more known now as the film that beat Citizen Kane at the oscars, which is unfortunate because it remains a moving eulogy for a bygone era that balances hard nosed realism with romantic sentiment, memorializing the lives of a small community that becomes increasingly fractured. A heavy feeling of nostalgia and loss dominates the proceedings, and Ford captures the beautiful struggle to consist in luminous shades of warm painterly light.

How Green Was My Valley is the film infamous for winning Best Picture over Citizen Kane, and while it's certainly the lesser of the two films, it's still pretty good. It's sentimental and melodramatic but in way that seems sincerely reflective and thoughtful rather than just the typical Hollywood manipulation. My largest complaint is that it felt too short; there seemed like a lot of room for the story to grow and the film ended before it could explore into those spaces.

Star Rating: ★★★★1/2

Pretty dry but impossible not to love.

How this ever managed to win Best Picture against the likes of Citizen Kane is beyond me. I will admit that the filmmaking is wonderful for its time, but this is one of the most boring movies I've ever sat through in my life. I just didn't see much reason to care.

Interesting little Welsh story, but pretty long.

What always gets me to return to the trusty John Ford well? Music and scenery are easy answers among others. And here we get two hours of wonderfully shot pastoral countryside thrown together with an enchanting chorus. That's about all it takes to keep me engaged. As bonuses, Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara do a brutally effective job of evoking the the old reliable trope of unconsummated love, and there's also plenty of labor struggle which is just up my alley.

watched: 2013, 2016, 2018

Incredibly quaint and unbelievably sappy, so I love it, of course! Also beautiful photography by dp Arthur Miller, composition, etc. Oh, and all the Welsh people have Irish accents for some goddamn reason...

The flowery voice-over and quaint characters give the film a distinct mood that could easily be called cheesy, but I personally find it endearing. It has the same distinctive energy and idealistic commitment as old Soviet propaganda, but it also smacks of neo-realism. Great cinematography, too. Unfortunately it's dry as a bone, and the thick layers of manipulation don't exactly captivate the viewer.

A complex story about growing up into a cycle of poverty, and the things that get us through the day.

#328

Mise en scene par excellence. Beautiful, picturesque shots. Breathtaking cinematography; some of the best in cinema. I would have preferred it without sound. The acting is weak and over-the-top and the story is too sentimental.

One of the worst scores ever. It overpowers everything, even the narrator who, y'know, you kind of have to hear.

Beautiful and heavily sentimental film on family drama in a Welsh mining community.

easily deserves the oscar it stole from "citizen kane", a great depiction of the effect that a coal mine has on a small town family and the town it's self. mcdowall shows that he even knew his way around a camera at the age of thirteen, and donald crisp impresses as well.

307

Very good film although it didn't strike a cord within me, I left empty.

A heart-felt glimpse at the lives in a Welsh mining community.

355

A tremendous Film about family growing up. With small things effecting me as the film went on (such as the towns people speaking less and less welsh). It is a great reminder today of what we forget was lost as times changed the world

# 367

Stellar acting and a wonderful setting make How Green Was My Valley one of John Ford's best. There are few films that capture the sentimental position one must take in order to love their family but do right at the same time. It's one of the best movies of the 40's which makes it one of the best of any decade, surely.