How Green Was My Valley
USA, 1941. Directed by John Ford. 108 min. PG
Guest curator Tyler Adair selects a classic favourite!
Based on the best-selling 1939 novel of the same name, John Ford directs Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon in the 1941 film.
It tells the story of the Morgans, a hard-working Welsh mining family, from the point of view of the youngest child Huw, who lives with his affectionate and kind parents and his sister and five brothers in the South Wales Valleys during the late Victorian era. The story chronicles life in the South Wales coalfields, the loss of that way of life and its effects on the family.
Nominated for a total of ten Academy Awards, winning five, famously beating Citizen Kane, Sergeant York and The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture, while Ford won for Best Director.
“What remains in memory and in spirit triumphs—and what on the surface is a tender and sad film becomes instead joyous and robust.” The Reader
“Moving and impressive in a big-Hollywood-picture-way.” -The New Yorker
