1941--How Green Was My Valley, John Ford

1941--How Green Was My Valley, John Ford
Nominated: Blossoms in the Dust, Citizen Kane, Here Comes Mr. Jordon, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, The Maltese Falcon, One Foot in Heaven, Sgt. York, Suspicion
Should Have Won: Citizen Kane
Be Sure to See: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dumbo, Wabbit Twouble, The Wolf Man
"Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago," --Hue Morgan

    Perhaps after the ceremony for 1941's movies in is where we laid the groundwork when realizing there is a difference between “best” and “greatest”. Though, now, Citizen Kane is consistently considered the greatest movie ever made, back in the early '40s I guess the greatest picture didn't beat the best picture.

 

    This movie has one of the most curious decisions I've ever seen in a movie. It shouldn't have worked and yet it slides right on by: The youngest child never ages. Yet at the same time, this is never brought to attention to either us, the viewer, nor the other characters. As other characters age over the years, Hue stays the same.

    Told in reminiscing style (ala Stand By Me), How Green Was My Valley is the story of a mine-working family with news that the mine owners are lowering wages, causing the workers go on strike. The father does not support the strike though his sons do, and he banishes them from his house for being rude at the dinner table. Young Huw (played by Roddy McDowall, a quarter century before his iconic Planet of the Apes role of Cornelius) is a child picked on at school. A near tragedy occurs when he falls into icy water and nearly dies. He is bedridden until the following spring. The entire movie, particularly the first 45 minutes, I was depressed with the family's struggles and how Huw was bedded up for months. Then, when he can finally walk, it reminded me of the scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Grampa Joe starts dancing around after years in bed. That didn't happen here but I smirked.

 

    The family doesn't believe in banks so they keep all of their money pooled in a box. When the sons want to leave for America because they've had enough, they have to split up the box. The fact they want to leave is an interesting enough plot point but the fact they keep all of their money on a box in lieu of a bank seems like both a good and bad idea to me.

 

    Hew continues to be picked on at school and even the teacher himself beats him. So when he comes home with bruises, his brothers (who by the way are much older now) want to know how it happened. Hew says he fell in mud but they know better. His father gives him money for each black eye and bloody nose he gives and the brothers go to the school and beat up the teacher. Nice to know this family has its priorities straight. 

 

    Huw becomes a scholar and his parents want him to strive for better things like a doctor or lawyer (why is it always those two professions parents want?) but he'd rather work in the mines. Eventually one of the older brothers dies and Huw courts his widow. Odd because courting a dead brother's widow seems wrong enough but also he is still 10 years old...kind of. This storyline is like a comic strip or cartoon. The kid just never ages yet nobody ever mentions it. The only time Huw is seen as an adult is at the beginning as he is telling his story. Even at the end it doesn't go back to bookend the front. We never really know why he left home. Maybe he was looking for the mystery of Rosebud.

 

    In all, How Green Was My Valley is a decent movie but it really seemed like a knockoff of the superior The Grapes of Wrath. It is a little dull in parts though not necessarily boring. I don't recommend it unless you are a completist. How the “greatest movie ever made” didn't win best picture is one of film history's greatest mysteries.