I trade books at a little lending library near my place and a copy of this novel came into my grubby mitts last year. There was a dedication on the frontispiece in Welsh, and it was basically a love note. Honestly, it's a damn sad story, but the fact the dedication was in Welsh and the book was a 1942 edition, complete with crappy paper just made it all the more charming..
Request: “to serve them all my days.” The entire British tv series is 13 hours. I discovered it and watched it for the first time straight through all night until morning about 14 years ago and have watched it again many times since. I could not stop watching it that first time, it was so good. I had never heard of it and it was made about 1973. Request: The original “upstairs, downstairs.” Awesome British hit tv show from aprox 1973. Love it!!!
It's a straight-up "weepie" as they once called such drama films back then---but unfairly maligned because it topped "Citizen Kane" for Best Picture. Personally, I woulda voted for "Kane" for various reasons, but it doesn't mean "Valley" needs to be diminished. That's a young Roddy MacDowell as the kid, years before becoming immortalzed in "Planet of the Apes." Around the time "Valley" was filmed, his family narrowly escaped the London Blitz early in WWII. Not sure whether Ford filmed in actual Welsh coal mines, but if you watch classic Doctor Who series from the '70s and '80s, pretty much anytime it was set in caves or underground, they filmed in old Welsh coal mines----sometimes even using the old mine cars and tracks.
Citizen Kane is a truly magnificent technical exercise but it does not have the emotional punch that How Green Was My Valley has. If you vote with your head, you will choose Kane; if you vote with your heart, Valley is perhaps the better choice. We must also not forget that it was not a two horse race. The Maltese Falcon, Hold Back the Dawn, and others were also under consideration. Ten excellent films, any one of which would have been a worthy recipient, were nominated for Oscars that year. The winner could have received as little as 10% plus three of the vote.
@@TedLittle-yp7uj The debate over "Citizen Kane" and "How Green Was My Valley" at the Academy Awards gets echoed later with "Annie Hall" and "Star Wars IV: A New Hope" and with "Shakespeare in Love" and "Saving Private Ryan."
John Ford wanted to shoot in Wales, but as World War II was raging, he couldn't. He shot the movie at a country club in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu. He would shoot "The Quiet Man" in Ireland a decade later.
It makes me SO happy to see a young person like yourself taking the time to view and appreciate these wonderful mastepieces made in a time when filmaking was still an art and not just a vehicle for selling merchandise. If not for people like you, these beautiful films could just fade from memory and be lost forever. Again, THANK YOU!
The singing at the beginning and the visuals we see from your film reaction are beautiful! I had never really heard about this film before, but it does look really beautiful. And I love that it got you so emotional over it in the end as well. Beautiful films are so lovely. All for preachers calling out toxic church culture and gossip!! Should be more standard practice tbh, church ladies and folk LOVE their gossip more than they should. The child acting looked really good I agree! Agree, sometimes parents aren't right and the best way to show them that is by fighting against them in some ways.
