How Green Was My Valley

Film

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<strong>Rating: </strong>4/5
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Time Out says

The backlot mining village (impressive as it is) and the babel of accents hardly aid suspension of disbelief in this nostalgic recollection of a Welsh childhood, based on Richard Llewellyn's novel. An elegant and eloquent film, nevertheless, even if the characteristically laconic Fordian poetry seems more contrived here (not least in the uncharacteristic use of an offscreen narration). Its tale of the calamitous break-up of a traditional way of life - with immigration to America offering a despairing hope of salvation - looms larger in the mind if you think of it (as Ford obviously did) as dealing with Ireland rather than Wales.

Author: TM

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Release details

UK release:

1941

Duration:

118 mins

Cast and crew

Director:

John Ford

Cast:

Patric Knowles, Barry Fitzgerald, Anna Lee, John Loder, Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Pidgeon, Arthur Shields

Music:

Alfred Newman

Art Director:

Nathan Juran, Richard Day

Editor:

James B Clark

Cinematography:

Arthur Miller

Screenwriter:

Philip Dunne

Producer:

Darryl F Zanuck

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Comments & ratings

Rated as: 4/5 (1 rating)

  • I enjoyed this film. Technically, I believe Ford's crew did an unbelievable job of re-creating a foreign country as well as culture. Believable or not - a movie is a story being told just as an actor or actress is a storyteller - nothing more or less. This movie tells the story it was intended to tell very well indeed. Maureen O'Hara at her most beautiful, a young Walter Pigeon, the Ford stock company, and introducing Roddy McDowell. Well Done.

    JR Wed Sep 30 2009
    Rated as: 4/5
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