The Best Picture of 1941 is…..”How Green Was My Valley.” This is the story of a hard working coal-mining family in Wales during the late 1800’s from the point of view of the youngest son. Director John Ford (“The Grapes of Wrath” 1940) and screenwriter Philip Dunne worked hard to put together a film with good productions values, adapted from the 1939 novel of the same name by Richard Llewellyn.
However, the movie comes across as overly-sentimental and even sappy. This causes the film to be a bit on the boring side throughout the nearly two hour running time. The cast includes Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp, Anna Lee, Roddy McDowall, Barry Fitzgerald, Rhys Williams, and Patrick Knowles. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning five: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography/Black and White. “How Green Was My Valley” was successful in theatrical release for director Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox.
It is amazing that the mediocre “How Green Was My Valley” beat out some of the outstanding classic motion pictures of the year, such as John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon” starring Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hawks’ “Sergeant York” starring Gary Cooper, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion,” and Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane.”
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
cinema
My Review
The Best Picture of 1941 is…..”How Green Was My Valley.” This is the story of a hard working coal-mining family in Wales during the late 1800’s from the point of view of the youngest son. Director John Ford (“The Grapes of Wrath” 1940) and screenwriter Philip Dunne worked hard to put together a film with good productions values, adapted from the 1939 novel of the same name by Richard Llewellyn.
However, the movie comes across as overly-sentimental and even sappy. This causes the film to be a bit on the boring side throughout the nearly two hour running time. The cast includes Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp, Anna Lee, Roddy McDowall, Barry Fitzgerald, Rhys Williams, and Patrick Knowles. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning five: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Crisp), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography/Black and White. “How Green Was My Valley” was successful in theatrical release for director Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox.
It is amazing that the mediocre “How Green Was My Valley” beat out some of the outstanding classic motion pictures of the year, such as John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon” starring Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hawks’ “Sergeant York” starring Gary Cooper, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion,” and Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane.”