Rating: 
Summary: WALES IS NOT IN ENGLAND!!
Review: Can we get this straight? Wales is in the UK NOT ENGLAND! So thanks to the reviewer who changed my nationality! Hmmmmmmmm......a very, very dated film which hardly does justice to the community it attempts to portray. Filled with cliche after cliche....none of the actors could conjure a Welsh accent between them. If you can forgive the appalling cod-Irish (well it's not Welsh!) accents, the failure to account for a language and culture in decline (Welsh) what you have left is a very boring tale which will entertain only by virtue of it's dated, non-PC antiquity. So says a Welsh-speaking Welshman!
Rating: 
Summary: Sentimental sweeping family drama
Review: Filmed in 1941, this is a sweeping family drama set in a small Welsh coal mining town at the turn of the century. The family is leading an idyllic life. Five of the six sons work in the mine alongside the father. All get good wages and there is plenty of food on the table. The townspeople even have a choir and there is singing throughout. The sixth son, a child, played by Roddy McDowall who was then 13 years old, narrates the story as events change their lives. He observes his brother's marriage, a strike at the mine, the unrequited love of his sister, played by a youthful Maureen O'Hara with the Minister, Walter Pidgeon, and some terrible mine accidents. Donald Crisp plays the father and Sara Allgood the mother and I could easily sympathize with the joys and trials of holding their large family together.As this film was adapted from a novel, it was packed with many episodes, not all of which were fully developed. However, there was enough to hold my interest throughout. Filmed in black and white without any of today's special effects, the cinematographers did an excellent job of depicting the small town as well as the work inside of a coal mine. While watching the video I couldn't help thinking about the particular changes that time has brought to the movies. Specifically I thought about the actors, most of them now dead or elderly and the power of film to capture them in time. I personally felt a distance from this film. My emotions stayed restricted to analyzing the actor's performances and thinking about how the film was made. Perhaps the story was a bit too sentimental for my tastes, but I never really got caught up in it. So even though this is a fine film, I don't know if it has stood the test of time well. It's a good film. I recommend it. It just doesn't make my "top films of all time" list.
Rating: 
Summary: Ford's Heartbreaker
Review: Ford was a great director. This story is a beautiful tragedy about a very difficult time in the life of a stouthearted people - the Welsh. Great music, too. Roddy McDowell was tremendous. The last scene with he and his father tells it all.
Rating:
Summary: "Trees" Also Grow in Wales
Review: Frankly, I had forgotten how excellent this film is until seeing it again recently. (It was selected to received the Academy Award for best film, instead of Citizen Kane and the other nominees.) The impact on me of a film at a given time is almost wholly dependent on how accessible I am when seeing it. I first saw How Green Was My Valley as a child and then again several years later. Probably because since then I have become a father and then a grandfather, I am much more appreciative now than I was before of what director John Ford achieves in his portrayal of a Welsh mining town and of a specific family there which struggles so courageously to enable one of its own, not only to escape from the mines but from the limits of a culture (albeit loving and supportive) to fulfill his human potentialities which would otherwise be denied. The film covers a 50-year period as an adult Huw Morgan recalls it (he is played by Roddy McDowell), with the primary focus on his ordeals as the youngest of several children. Donald Crisp received an Academy Award as best actor in a supporting role as Morgan family's patriarch. Many believe this is Ford's best film and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. It really has everything. With Philip Dunne's screenplay based on Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley combines superior acting and cinematography with Alfred Newman's complementary musical score. For me, this film's greatness is found in its graphic portrayal of hardship and despair in a bleak mining town which are offset by a proud family's enduring faith in Huw and their determination to protect and support him. Ford affirms their essential dignity with a respect and admiration he invites us to share.
Rating:
Summary: "Trees" Also Grow in Wales
Review: Frankly, I had forgotten how excellent this film is until seeing it again recently. (It was selected to received the Academy Award for best film, instead of Citizen Kane and the other nominees.) The impact on me of a film at a given time is almost wholly dependent on how accessible I am when seeing it. I first saw How Green Was My Valley as a child and then again several years later. Probably because since then I have become a father and then a grandfather, I am much more appreciative now than I was before of what director John Ford achieves in his portrayal of a Welsh mining town and of a specific family there which struggles so courageously to enable one of its own, not only to escape from the mines but from the limits of a culture (albeit loving and supportive) to fulfill his human potentialities which would otherwise be denied. The film covers a 50-year period as an adult Huw Morgan recalls it (he is played by Roddy McDowell), with the primary focus on his ordeals as the youngest of several children. Donald Crisp received an Academy Award as best actor in a supporting role as Morgan family's patriarch. Many believe this is Ford's best film and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. It really has everything. With Philip Dunne's screenplay based on Richard Llewellyn's novel, How Green Was My Valley combines superior acting and cinematography with Alfred Newman's complementary musical score. For me, this film's greatness is found in its graphic portrayal of hardship and despair in a bleak mining town which are offset by a proud family's enduring faith in Huw and their determination to protect and support him. Ford affirms their essential dignity with a respect and admiration he invites us to share.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest films of all time
Review: Grown tired of today's insipid action films heavy on raw violence and special effects and lean on believable plot? If so, this film is one to consider because it is the opposite of today's moronic films. John Ford brings to life Richard Llewelyn's poetic tale of the travails of the Morgan family in late-Victorian Wales. Simple, vital emotions pour out in front of the viewer's eyes- the sorrow of a mother whose boys gradually are forced to leave home due to the economic stresses of the coalfields, the raucus drinking after one of the boy's wedding, the death of ordinary, wonderful men in mine accidents etc., etc.. Ford is probably America's greatest director and this is probably his greatest work. END
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable as a classic.
Review: HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY is a story about a large, close-knit family, the Morgans, in a small Welsh mining town, in England. The family was head by a firm father and a gentle, wise mother, and comprises six sons and one daughter. The five grown sons are, like their father, coal miners, and it is their hope that the sixth son, sensitive and intelligent Huw (Roddy McDowall) can reach a better economic living through education. This actor recently died, (2000) he belongs to some of the initial child-actors like Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Ronnie, at that time. Huw become a scholar, but was rejected by his scholar mates, his low class origin does not was accepted by the other boys who makes his life impossible in the school, the prejudice is in his professors, also. It is through Huw's version, now as an old man, that the story told. He looks back on his family, his valley, and its people. His sister (Maureen O'Hara) is the beautiful, but unlucky woman, whose marriage with a rich man cannot compensate a new position in a high economic class society. Nevertheless, the real hero is the father who brings his life for their sons, in the final last dramatic moment of the film.
Rating:
Summary: Reflects Part of The Welsh Way of Life.
Review: How Green Was My Valley. One of my favourite films. I ran this motion picture in the 'New Theatre' West end Terrace, Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire in 1970. Despite all the rubbish that has been written about this classic John Ford production and Richard Llewellyn (author of the book).This was also the favourite film of my grandfather, the late John Joseph Price, who worked in the South Wales mining industry from 1911 - 1963. Many times he and I watched it on television and my grandfather was able to advise me what was in fact true and what was pure Hollywood. Also working underground, as my grandfather's 'boys', were the late Ron Evans - former parliamentary agent for Aneurin Bevan and Harold 'Tootsie' Jones. From knowing these people also I was able to learn, that despite this film's shortcomings John Ford managed to capture the spirit and the essence of the Welsh mining valley communities. This classic motion picture, made during the golden era of cinema when directors, producers, stars, technicians really knew their craft because they had to work at it to survive, and the word 'star' was not easily tagged on to any actor/actress as easily as it is today. I recommend that anyone really interested in cinema should study this film in depth because it presents an excellent example of the working. social and political conditions which once existed in the valley towns and villages of South Wales, which, has now entirely disappeared.
Rating:
Summary: A John Ford Classic
Review: I admit to having put off watching this film for some time, and only did so finally as "homework". Given that background, I was pleasantly surprised by How Green Was My Valley. On the plus side, I was totally blown away by the realistic look of the 19th century Welsh mining town (recreated right in the hills of Malibu!). To my utter surprise, the sets looked absolutely convincing throughout. Roddy McDowell, so uncharismatic as an adult, is fairly benign here as a youth, and his screen time is mercifully inconsistent. Donald Crisp (born in 1880) gives the standout performance as the Morgan family patriarch. While some might find this dated, my favorite part was when he called the organization of a union "socialism" and ended the entire conversation. Ford loved to evoke such old-fashioned Victorian morality, which although severely out of favor since around 1914, was the dominant worldview during the 19th century, the setting of so many of his films. This authenticity, despite however "dated" it may feel to us today, is one of the things which imparts such relevance to his films.
On the less than positive side, however, I must admit that Maureen O'Hara's acting was frequently terrible. She sounded like an undereducated American girl only half-trying to work a British accent. And Walter Pidgeon (aren't appellations like that what prompted the whole idea of stage-names in the first place?), despite an otherwise good performance, didn't even try to sound English, let alone Welsh. For heaven's sake, he didn't even sound Canadian! As for the story, while it had some wonderful moments, it could also be dull and unengaging. And Ford's characteristic preachiness occasionally showed up, as sure and as welcome as a drunken and disorderly uncle over the holidays. Finally, to me the ending felt a little contrived.
My recommendation: By all means see this film for yourself. Ford's marvelous tableaux images of the mine over the village alone merit at least one viewing. But I do feel it's primarily for diehard fans of 1940s cinema, readers of the novel, or the John Ford faithful. How Green Was My Valley is not a bad movie at all, it's just not a truly great one.
Rating:
Summary: I Was Too Quick to Judge
Review: I was reluctant to watch this movie. After all, I am 21 and am used to seeing John Ford movies such as "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon". I was sure I would be bored with this movie. Was I ever wrong. This movie touches you in every way. It is quite possibly the saddest and most emotional movie I've ever seen. The cast is very solid: Maureen O'Hara, Anna Lee, Walter Pidgeon, and Roddy McDowall. There is something special about How Green Was My Valley that I cannot explain. I am glad it won Best Picture at the Oscars in 1941. I hope nobody tries to remake this film because no actor or director could do a better job. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen.
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