1941: How Green Was My Valley

Maureen O'Hara and Walter Pidgeon

The Best Picture Oscar for 1941 was awarded to 20th Century Fox's "How Green Was My Valley." It also won Best Director (John Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Arthur Charles Miller), and Best Black-and-White Art Direction, Interior Design (Richard Day, Nathan H. Juran, and Thomas Little).  It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (Philip Dunne), Best Supporting Actress (Sara Allgood), Best Film Editing (James B. Clark), Best Dramatic Score (Alfred Newman), and Best Recording Sound (Edmund H. Hansen).

"How Green Was My Valley" is an epic snooze-fest of a family portrait of the Morgans, who lived in South Wales in the 19th century.  The family's patriarch is Gwilym Morgan (Donald Crisp), and the matriarch is his wife Beth (Sara Allgood).  They have six sons - Huw (Roddy McDowall), Ivor (Patric Knowles), Ianto (John Loder), Davy, (Richard Fraser), Gwilym, Jr. (Evan S. Evans), and Owen (James Monks) - and one daughter, Angharad (Maureen O'Hara).  The action of the film (such as it is) is seen largely through the eyes of Huw, the youngest son.

There are a lot of plot-lines that get started and then never really go anywhere.  Central to the town is the nearby coal-mine, where all the Morgans work.  When the owner of the mine suddenly decreases wages, the older Morgan boys, in defiance of their father, organize a strike.  Beth Morgan makes an impassioned speech that no one had better bring harm to her husband, then promptly falls into a freezing creek.  That's pretty much the end of that plot-line.

But then Huw jumps into the creek to save his mother and as a result is temporarily paralyzed.
 Meanwhile, the town's new preacher, Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon) and Angharad share a mutual attraction.  Mr. Gruffydd helps with Huw's recovery, which only heightens Angharad's attraction to him.  But, as a member of the clergy, Mr. Gruffydd won't marry, so Angharad marries the son of the owner of the mine, relocates out of the country, and that's pretty much the end of that plot-line.

Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, and Sara Allgood

After Huw is rehabilitated, he is sent away to school, where he immediately gets his ass kicked by not only his fellow students, but his teacher as well.  A boxing instructor with the very Star Wars name of Dai Bando is called in to teach Huw to defend himself.  Huw takes care of the school-boys, and Dai Bando takes care of the teacher.  When Huw is offered a scholarship to continue his education, he declines, and joins his father and brothers in the coal mine, thus ending that plot-line.

In the end, the idyllic valley where Huw grew up is forever polluted by waste from the coal mine, so Huw leaves, never to return to again.

Zzzzzzzzz.