How Green Was My Valley (1941)
When film historians look back at some of the biggest Oscar debacles, many gripe about how Citizen Kane, one of the most revered and daring films of all time, lost Best Picture to the more stately, conventional How Green Was My Valley. Citizen Kane was ahead of its time, and its genius was really not recognized until much later. Still, the controversy unfortunately plagues John Ford’s affecting drama, which is often not recognized as the terrific film it is.
Like Gone With the Wind, the beloved winner a couple of years earlier, How Green Was My Valley is adapted from a long, encompassing novel. The film tells the story of a family from a coal-mining village in Wales, and it feels very lived-in. As a glimpse into the hardships of working-class life and the hard love of a family, the adaptation is filled with moments of power and poignancy.
Appropriate for a novel with so many central characters, the film is carried by its entire cast, not anchored by one or two big stars. (The only major standout is Donald Crisp, the sole actor to win an Academy Award for his performance, as the stern patriarch.) Director John Ford, one of Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers, filled his Oscar winner with harsh, striking imagery that evoked the despair that the characters encounter. Evocative and emotionally rich, this is one of a great director’s greatest works, and one that should be more than a footnote in Citizen Kane’s enduring legacy.