145: How Green Was My Valley

US  118m  Dir: John Ford  Key Cast: Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara

I've spent a fair bit of time in Wales over the years and it's clear that I know it a lot better than anyone involved with the film did. Hardly any of the cast even attempt a Welsh accent and those that do still don't even sound vaguely Welsh. Indeed, the film seems to think that Welsh people only really speak grammatically bad English. Welsh names are utterly butchered throughout and there's at least one sign with an Americanized spelling ('labor'). The whole thing stinks of Hollywood failing to portray a real place realistically. 

The film tells the story of the Morgan family, in a Welsh mining village, from the point of view of the youngest child Huw and follows life in the Welsh coalfields and how that way of life died out and how that affected the family. 

Famously, How Green Was My Valley was awarded Best Picture at the Oscars, somehow beating Sergeant York, The Maltese Falcon and even Citizen Kane. This seems like a very strange decision today and I think it's this film which has aged worst out of those nominees. 

The film is overly sentimental and there's no real story. One thing happens and then another thing happens but there's not really a narrative that runs through the film. 

It felt to me like a soap opera complete with all the best and worst things that soaps have to offer. It certainly does feel like a portrait of everyday life in that specific time and place like a soap does but at the same time the people live absurdly dramatic lives and every event that happens is really melodramatic. 

I was however really impressed with the way the village was created, built in painstaking detail on the Fox backlot rather than going anywhere near Wales. It's almost too perfect though, displaying an idyllic, almost dream-like version of a Welsh village rather than really being anything like reality. 

Maudlin, sentimental and dated, this was a bit of a slog to watch. Despite being very firmly based on Wales it fails to portray the people and places with even the slightest thought of accuracy.