How Green is my Valley

[coopfan]

I thought I would start a poll on the movie that beat out three of Gary's best movies for best picture in 1941 and also beat out three of Bogart's best pictures. Does anybody have a clue as to what this movie is? I have never seen anyone on any message board post anything about this movie that won the academy award in 1941 for best picture.

[coopsgirl]

I've heard of this movie but never seen it. Here's a short plot synopsis I found on imdb.com

How Green Was My Valley

This story of a Welsh valley's turn-of-the-century descent from pristine paradise to despoiled coal mining region, is told in flashback form by Huw Morgan, an old man who has decided to leave the valley forever. Huw is the youngest in a family of 6 brothers and 1 sister and the film centers on his struggle toward manhood amid conflicting demands of faith, economics, education and family loyalty in a Wales caught in an irreversible shift from a pastoral to an industrialized society. The story, based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn, is accented by an impressive background of Welsh choral music and quaint patterns of speech. Written by Joe Jurca

I love the show Mystery Science Theater 3000 where a guy and his robot pals make fun of bad movies from a satellite orbiting the earth (I know it sounds crazy but it's my fave show of all time). In one episode they are watching an old b+w movie that begins with a bunch of people who work on a dude ranch standing a top a hill looking out over the land. The credits come up and one of the robots says "How green was my credits". That is what I think of when I think of that movie

[*~Mrs. Cooper ~*]

Never heard of it.

Maybe I'll rent it at the library

[CoopFanDan]

I have seen this movie now and it is a good movie but certainly did not deserve to win best picture over Sergeant York.

[butterscotchgreer]

well dan as much as i loooove walter pidgeon, i must agree with you on this one. i thought how green was my valley was a great movie, but not good enough to win over srgt york. i love that one too much.

[CoopFanDan]

Yes Walter Pidgeon was great in that movie but not good enough to beat out Gary Cooper in Sergeant York for that year.

[butterscotchgreer]

agreed!!! you might like walter's performance in blossoms in the dust, again with greer. it was actually made the same year as how green was my valley. i love him as sam gladney!!!

[*~Mrs. Cooper ~*]

I saw a clip of this film on YouTube and now I MUST see it!

Thanks to Theresa for getting me addicted to Walter

I also saw the most crucial point in "The Miniver Story" and bawled my eyes out. I have to find that one, too! But Netflix doesn't have it

[butterscotchgreer]

ithe miniver story is on VHS, that i know, i just dont know where.

[CoopFanDan]

Here's something I found very interesting as it relates to the movie Sergeant York. It would seem that John Ford himself thought that Howard Hawks and not himself should have won the academy award in 1941 for best director over Ford's directing for the movie "How Green Was My Valley". I agree with this whole whole heartily.

On Howard Hawks:

"Although John Ford--his friend, contemporary, and the director arguably closest to him in terms of his talent and output--told him that it was he, and not Ford, who should have won the 1941 Best Director Academy Award (for "Sergeant York"), the great Hawks never won an Oscar in competition and was nominated for Best Director only that one time, despite making some of the best films in the Hollywood canon. The Academy eventually made up for the oversight in 1974 by voting him an honorary Academy Award, in the midst of a two-decade-long critical revival that has gone on for yet another two decades. To many cineastes, Howard Hawks is one of the faces of American film and would be carved on any film pantheon's Mt. Rushmore honoring America's greatest directors, beside his friend Ford and Orson Welles (the other great director who Ford beat out for the 1941 Oscar). It took the French "Cahiers du Cinema" critics to teach America to appreciate one of its own masters, and it was to the Academy's credit that it recognized the great Hawks in his lifetime."

This was not the only reference to this as I found it on several other web sites:

"Film-maker Howard Hawks was born in Amish country, Goshen, Indiana. Hawks received an Oscar* nomination in 1941 for "Sergeant York" in the category of Best Director. He received an honorary Oscar* in 1975, and continued making films until 1970. His box-office success was practically unrivaled during his 50's and 60's heyday, and he was one of the earliest directors to frequently have his name put in front of a film. Even the great John Ford acknowledged that Hawks, not Ford, should have won the 1941 Oscar."

There are also a ton of web sites that believe the biggest travesty was John Ford winning best director over Orson Welles and How Green Was My Valley winning over Citizen Kane.

Anyway you look at it the choice for best director and best picture for 1941 may be the least popular one in film history. My personal view on this is that How Green Was My Valley should not have even been nominated for a single oscar let alone win all the one's that it did. Here are a list of films that were better than this film:

Sergeant York
Meet John Doe
The Maltese Falcon
Citizen Kane
The Little Foxes
Suspician

[*~Mrs. Cooper ~*]

I just finished watching this movie and I thought it was great.
I loved it but some parts got me confused. The ending...was that him with his father

I'll probably have to watch it again. I'll give my full thoughts on it after the second time around.

[senta]

I've never seen this picture, even if I always planning to do it. Because John Ford is my favorite director. I saw all his movies with Wayne and some others. And this movie is considered to be one of his very best. I only heard that it is quite depressing. But the stills I've seen in the book about Ford is sure beautiful.

[*~Mrs. Cooper ~*]

It's a wonderful movie; if you ever use Netflix, it's a great way to see all these hard-to-get movies. Do you have any kind of rent-out like that where you live, Senta?

[senta]

No, I can't rent it. I'm planning to buy it, but still have so many new for me Gary's movies in my wish list and so many already bought at the fall of the year, so temporary run out of cash, but I will certainly do it at the beginning of the next year.
It is the favorite movie of one of my friends (but unfortunatly he is living in USA so I can't take it to watch from him either).