How Green Was My Valley

Rating: 4/5

Prior to my project of watching every Academy Award Best Picture Winner, I had seen How Green Was My Valley, but I couldn't remember much about it. I knew it starred Maureen O'Hara and that it centered around a coal mining town, but that was about it, so I couldn't say definitively how much I truly enjoyed it.

Upon a second viewing, I can say I found How Green Was My Valley to be quite heartfelt and pleasant. A little slow moving, but overall a good a story. Maureen O'Hara has, overtime, grown to be one of my more favorite classic era actresses, so I was looking forward to revisiting this film just for her performance alone, but I'd forgotten how great Sara Allgood was as the matriarch of the Morgan family. Her character must be fiercely strong, but also nurturing and kind. Allgood's performance hits on all accounts, and along with O'Hara, are the two best pieces of the movie. Walter Pigeon adds in a perfectly adequate performance as well, but just wasn't the most memorable in my opinion.

Now, if you look at the year that How Green Was My Valley won its Oscar for Best Picture, it is more than a little shocking to see that it won against such a legendary film as Citizen Kane. Many would say that it didn't deserve its win, especially considering how few people nowadays remember How Green Was My Valley, but Citizen Kane remains to be thought of as one of the greatest films of all time. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I have yet to see Citizen Kane, but it is high on my list, because I want to watch it before seeing Mank, so I can't say for sure whether or not I find Citizen Kane to be the better film, though based on the clips I've seen of it, I would hazard a guess to say it probably is.

Now, with all that being said, even if How Green Was My Valley may be a little sluggish at times, I still really enjoyed it. It's another entry into a fantastic decade of film, my favorite so far in my Oscar Best Picture journey, and due to being so behind on my reviews, I'm up to the '70s as I right this review, so I've watched multiple decades worth of movies since seeing this. It's a simple story about the importance of family sticking together through hardship and change, and that's typically a fairly bulletproof formula, a concept proven in this film.

1942 Best Picture Winner- How Green Was My Valley

1942 Best Actor in a Supporting Role Winner- Donald Crisp

1942 Best Director Winner- John Ford

1942 Best Cinematography, Black and White Winner- Arthur C. Miller

1942 Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White Winner- Richard Day, Nathan Juran, & Thomas Little