14th Academy Awards · 1942
How Green Was My Valley
Directed byCooked up by John Ford
“Rich is their humor! Deep are their passions! Reckless are their lives! Mighty is their story!”
“Coal-mining family core, but make it emotional 😭⛏️”
The storyThe lore 📖
Huw Morgan, the academically inclined youngest son in a proud family of Welsh coal miners, witnesses the tumultuous events of his young life during a period of rapid social change. At the dawn of the 20th-century, a miners' strike divides the Morgans: the sons demand improvements, and the father doesn't want to rock the boat.
Young Huw Morgan grows up in a Welsh coal-mining village with his big, loving, very loud family ⛏️. His brothers want to strike for better pay, but his dad says don't rock the boat, so family dinners get tense. Huw is the smart kid on a school glow up arc while the mine slowly changes everything about the valley. It's a soft, sad, beautiful memory piece. Bring tissues, fr 😭.
What critics & audiences sayThe receipts 🧾
Tomatometer
93%
Fresh
#38 of 98 winnersFamous linesLines living rent free
Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still - real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my Valley then.
Someone would strike up a song, and the valley would ring with the sound of many voices - for singing is in my people as sight is in the eye.
…There is no fence nor hedge round Time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember.
…Alone you are weak. Together you are strong. But remember, with strength goes responsibility - to others and to yourselves. For you cannot conquer injustice with more injustice - only with justice and the help of God.
We are not questioning your authority, sir, but if manners prevent our speaking the truth, we will be without manners.
Angharad: …Look now, you are King in the chapel. But I will be Queen in my own kitchen.
Mr. Gruffydd: You will be Queen wherever you walk.
Beth: Huw boy, if you should ever leave me, I'll be sorry I ever had babies.
Huw: Why did you have them?
Beth: To keep my hands in water and my face to the fire, perhaps.
…If harm comes to my Gwilym, I will find out the men and I will kill them with my two hands. And this I will swear by God Almighty.
And how would you measure a man who would use a stick on a boy one-third his size?
…You know your Bible too well, and life too little.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Filming locationsWhere they shot it 📍
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Brent's Crags
Santa Monica Mountains, near Malibu, California
With wartime ruling out Wales, Ford had Fox build an 80-acre Welsh mining village here, later the Crags Country Club.
Fun factsFacts that go hard 🤓
- How Green Was My Valley famously beat Citizen Kane, Sergeant York and The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture. Some later critics have disputed that verdict.Wikipedia · Introduction
- Fox wanted to shoot in Wales in Technicolor, but that was impossible during World War II. Instead, John Ford had the studio build an 80-acre Welsh mining town in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu.Wikipedia · Production
- Novelist Richard Llewellyn claimed the book drew on his own experiences, but after his death this was found to be untrue. He was English-born and spent little time in Wales, gathering material from mining families in Gilfach Goch.Wikipedia · Introduction
- William Wyler was the original director and chose Roddy McDowall for the role of Huw after seeing his screen test, before John Ford took over.Wikipedia · Production
- Welsh dialect coach Rhys Williams recorded the narration, but John Ford had it re-dubbed by Irving Pichel, fearing audiences would recognize Williams' voice from his role as Dai Bando. Williams' narration survives in some prints, including the original British release.Wikipedia · Production
- Screenwriter Philip Dunne recalled reading Richard Llewellyn's novel 'in horror, turgid stuff, long speeches about Welsh coal miners on strike.'Wikipedia · Production
- The film's fictional village is based on Gilfach Goch, where Richard Llewellyn spent many summers visiting his grandfather.Wikipedia · Introduction
- Clint Eastwood has named How Green Was My Valley as one of his favorite movies.Wikipedia · Reception
- Despite its Welsh setting, the film has been criticized in the UK for the actors' poor accents.Wikipedia · Reception
- The closing narration, 'Men like my father cannot die… How green was my valley then', was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.Wikipedia · American Film Institute lists