The Oscar Project #14: How Green Was My Valley (1941)

by Chris Marshall:

If you’ve followed The Oscar Project so far, or if you’re somewhat familiar with the early history of the Best Picture award, then you might have realized that the winners up to this point have been predominately focused on rich people. So far, only the two war films (Wings and All Quiet on the Western Front) and Mutiny on the Bounty have been primarily focused on non-wealthy protagonists.

In this sense, it was refreshing to see a movie that was about characters who are, if not necessarily poor, at least somewhere near the lower class. How Green Was My Valley centers around a family of coal miners in Wales, particularly the youngest son, played by Roddy McDowall, who you might know better as Caesar from Planet of the Apes.

Despite breaking socio-economic trends, it kept some others going. It was the fourth of five consecutive winners based on either plays or novels, and it stuck to the tradition of not using actors from the country the movie is about. Only one Welsh actor was used for this film, and it was a minor role. This resulted in some of the more bizarre accents I’ve heard. I’ll admit that I’m not an expert on Welsh phonology, but I’ve never in my life heard anybody talk like they do here.

It’s always risky to base a movie entirely around the performance of young actors. For every gifted child actor, there are dozens more who come across as hokey and unbelievable. McDowall , though not great, is competent enough not to be distracting, and he’s vomit-inducingly cute enough to keep you from holding his flaws against him. I kept expecting him to say “God bless us, everyone!” every time he showed up on screen.

This was John Ford’s final pre-war film; he would spend the next four years making war documentaries and propaganda films for the military. It came at the end of a remarkable run in which four out of seven his directorial efforts were nominated for at least one Oscar (Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Grapes of Wrath, and How Green Was My Valley); he won Best Director for the two latter films. His record of four total Best Director awards still stands.

Guy Pearce has been in the business a long time.

I felt some similarities between this film and The Grapes of Wrath. Though they take place in very different parts of the world, they both serve as a sort of celebration of the working class, demonstrating their ability to overcome all the economic challenges they face.  They also both contain many progressive values, which is strange, because John Ford was by no means a leftist himself. But he still stayed true to his source material in both cases, even though he might not have necessarily agreed with the causes himself.

How Green Was My Valley is at times overly sentimental. Sometimes it’s cheesy. But it has a way of making its characters grow on you. Some people do die in this film, and you always feel like it actually matters. This wasn’t the greatest movie, but it had plenty of positive qualities. Will I ever watch it again? Probably not. But that’s not to say it was unpleasant the first time through.

Next year’s winner is Mrs. Miniver, making it the second year in a row that Walter Pidgeon appeared in the Best Picture (he was a preacher in How Green Was My Valley). My favorite part of his acting style is that he doesn’t even try to emulate the local accent. In these two films, as both a Welsh preacher and an English reservist during WWII, he still uses a straight Canadian accent. Believe me, it sounds better than the fake Welsh accents on display in the former.

I haven’t said much about the plot; it’s not that interesting. Nor are the performances that great, for that matter. It is a nice looking movie, though, and that counts for something, right? Another film came out this same year; it was called Citizen Kane.  Come to think of it, I’d probably recommend you watch that one instead. But that’s just me.