"How Green Was My Valley" (1941)

 

Memories and Change: Part 1.  Nostalgia is a natural part of getting older. Over time, we discover some parts of our lives, that we used to take for granted, are different, or have gone away altogether.  We remember them with fondness, or maybe with relief at their passing.  We adjust, perhaps, and move on; or, we embrace the past, and dismiss the changes.   

Our experience of the coronavirus has accelerated the phenomenon, which normally takes a lifetime, of discovering how much of our lives has disappeared.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY

“Memory:  Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only his moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago, of men and women long since dead…  It is with me now, so many years later; and it makes me think of so much that is good that is gone…  Men like my father cannot die.  They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever…”    --Huw Morgan, narrating his life in “How Green Was My Valley”

John Ford’s sweeping, sentimental 1941 “How Green Was My Valley” has the unfortunate reputation as being the movie that stole the Best Picture Oscar from the almighty “Citizen Kane”.  While “Kane” has endured as a masterpiece of technique, “How Green Was My Valley” is an example of epic Hollywood moviemaking at its finest.  Taken on its own merits, it’s a moving and rewarding experience, whose subject matter and approach are still innovative.  It speaks to us, too, maybe more than ever, and it deserves to be seen.

In “How Green Was My Valley”, memory forms the narrative, and slowly leads us into the film.  The off-screen, adult Huw Morgan, 50 years old and packing to leave his once-beloved valley forever, narrates in flashback his years as a small boy in a Welsh mining town.  He tells of his strong, colorful parents (Donald Crisp and Sara Allgood), his brawny, protective brothers, his beautiful sister Anharad (19-year-old Maureen O’Hara) who is on the cusp of womanhood, and the new church pastor, Mr. Gruffyd (Walter Pidgeon), a poetic mentor to Huw who forms a difficult attachment to Anharad, who loves him.

Huw’s memories are free-flowing and vivid, describing the voices of old friends and those who have long gone as a “living truth within my mind”.  Huw’s narration, which is the only spoken dialog for the film’s opening ten minutes, introduces us to the characters and his town, the events that both inspired him and caused him sorrow, and the injustice and bitterness that slowly crept into his environment.

Playing the young Huw Morgan (pronounced “hugh”), Roddy McDowell, in his film debut, is the innocent observer through whom we see everything he remembers.  There are even some subplots in which Huw was not present, but we don’t question it; the film skillfully makes this feel plausible. 

It is amusing to watch McDowell, so open and compelling, his eyes wide with an expression of sincere anticipation, and realize he will somehow become this wise, educated narrator who leads us through his past, which is both sentimental and harsh. 

In spite of the relative safety of his boyhood, Huw also observes and relates to us the difficulties and misfortunes that led him to abandon what was once a beautiful, idyllic, “green” valley.   Philip Dunne’s intelligent, literate screenplay lets us revel in the sentiment, and the catharsis of memory, while drawing us into the crisis of the coal mines and the touching human dramas that unfold throughout the film.  

One major plot thread involves the physical danger, depressed wages, and unfair treatment of miners, some of whom risk family division in planning to organize a union.  The mine owners create emotional conflict in the Morgan family, too, especially for the romantically conflicted Anharad. 

We also follow Huw, a budding young scholar, through the cruelties of a new school, his recovery from a near-fatal icy plunge, and his striving to act grown-up for the object of his boyhood affection.

At first, Huw has the love and support of a whole community of parents, siblings, pastor, fellow miners, neighbors, and a full-throated Welsh men’s chorus which lends the film an atmosphere of invincibility.  Even the valley, filmed in exquisite black and white, with the entire village constructed on a studio lot, is like an Eden to Huw, at first.  (Due to the War ravaging Britain, the filmmakers decided not to film on location in Wales, as was originally planned).

Slowly, the petty conflicts, the meddling gossip, and the judgment of some ignorant townspeople seek to devastate Anharad and Mr. Gruffyd, and their most tender and decent of relationships. In a stirring, angry speech delivered by Mr. Gruffyd to his congregation before leaving the church and the town, he decries the “cowards and hypocrites, the idle tongues and poverty of mind”, and those that attend services out of fear of retribution instead of love.  

(The film may bog down for some in its melodramatic mention of divorce, which was a minor taboo subject in 1940s Hollywood; but the outrage reflects the time and place of the film, and so it feels accurate and authentic.)

Even the imagery of the film changes, from its pristine, spring-like clarity in the first half, to something gradually grittier, grimier as it goes along.

Surprisingly for a 1940s Hollywood movie, “How Green Was My Valley” indicts the hypocrisy of religion, where politics and human judgment are allowed to intrude on a divine sanctuary, and almost destroy the community, just as the “black fingers of slag” reach over the green of the valley and turn it ugly. Finally, it is a tragic disaster that unites the villagers at the end.

“How Green Was My Valley” is a near-perfect film, a prime example of popular entertainment with an intelligent edge and a devastating emotional pull.  John Ford, one of cinema’s most accomplished and popular directors, handles the logistics of large set pieces as well as more intimate scenes, revealing their humor and drama with equal skill.  Under Ford’s direction of Dunne’s script, Alfred Newman’s romantic and nostalgic score, and the impeccable work of designers and technicians, “How Green Was My Valley” is a highly rewarding film.

Best of all are the performances, especially McDowell, whose natural screen presence draws the viewer to him, and a cast of top stars of the era.  As Huw’s parents, Donald Crisp (Oscar winner) and Sara Allgood are among the movies’ sharpest, funniest, and strongest screen parents.  They are truly the head and the heart of the family and the film, and what their characters lack in education, they more than make up in good sense.  Walter Pidgeon, as Mr. Gruffyd, has the perfect voice as an orator of the pulpit, and is also a gentle inspiration to young Huw, in a role of quiet strength.  Maureen O’Hara as Anharad showed the promise of beauty and fire that would make her a star for decades.

While critics over the decades have decried “How Green Was My Valley” as maudlin and dated, and an unworthy victor at the Oscars in the year of “Citizen Kane”, I can understand why the Academy chose this film as the Best Movie of 1941.   “Citizen Kane” deserves its place at the top of the cinema pantheon, a film whose innovations paved the way for hundreds of movies to come. But it lacked the heart of “How Green Was My Valley”, which was also an impeccably made film of technical innovation which is harder to notice for blending so well with the narrative.

I would ask these critics to look at “Valley” again, and to be open to the deep, strong emotions the film elicits during the final ten minutes.  The filmmakers don’t resort to cheap effects; the emotions are honestly earned.  It can hit you on many levels, which intensifies its effect.

“How Green Was My Valley” was originally conceived as a 4-hour epic on the scale of “Gone With the Wind”, following Huw into adulthood.  That would have diminished the power of the final sequence, and its effectiveness as a narrative of memory. 

The film runs just under two hours. It is left for us to ponder what happened to Huw between the mine disaster when he was just a boy, and the opening narration in which he prepares to leave his boyhood home for good.