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How Green Was My Valley

How Green Was My Valley

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
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.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A very dated film
Review: If the true test of a great movie is its ability to stand the test of time, then this film falls a little short. The deliberate pacing and sluggish plot will turn off modern viewers, many of whom will find this "masterpiece" to be nothing short of "boring."

"How Green Was My Valley" will always be remembered as the film that beat Citizen Kane for best picture (routinely mentioned as one of the great Oscar travesties). It occupies a contentious place in film history. Some call it a remarkable achievement, but others believe its early critical success was undeserved (it failed to make AFI's top 100 list, despite the appearance of 12 other films from the 1940s)

Some of the photography is nice, and the depiction of a Welsh mining town provides a unique insight into an interesting community. Overall, however, I found the viewing of this film to be laborious and would not suggest it to anyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AND TO THINK WE HAVE WW II TO THANK FOR THIS MASTERPIECE!
Review: If the war hadn't intervened, Mr. Zanuck's intention was to make How Green Was My Valley a four-hour, full color production -- and it would have been a real turkey!

Instead, Mr. Zanuck, using black and white film, was able to substitute the brown hills of Malibu for a green valley in Wales, where German bombers were relentlessly using those bucolic little townships for target practice -- and he kept the running time in sync with human bladders and gave us one of the greatest movies ever made.

Much praise to John Ford's impeccable direction. Mr. Ford knew when too much sap turned to way too much goo. It was his favorite movie and it's one of my top five. Buy this movie while you still can. They don't make them like this anymore.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If you are Welsh
Review: If you are welsh and have heard stories from your childhood, watch this film, the love of a family, what they had to endure, life's lessons, roddy Mcdowell is great. I know I will watch again and again. You will know what it was like in a welsh mining town

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Into The Valley
Review: John Ford's 1941 film How Green Was My Valley tells the story of a Welsh mining family, the Morgans, through the eyes of the youngest member of the family, ten-year old Huw (Roddy McDowell). Mr. & Mrs. Morgan (Donald Crisp & Sara Allgood) have seven children and struggle to keep their family afloat. Mr. Morgan is a miner, but he refuses to join a newly formed union and join in on their strike. This creates tensions within the family and violence erupts. Through it all the family survives, but their hometown and culture begin to decline. Mr. Ford poignantly portrays the fading of childhood innocence and the good side and down side of life in a small town. The film is still relevant today as Mr. Ford shows how technology dehumanizes society as machinery that is more efficient and cost-effective starts to replace many of the mine's best workers and renders them unneeded and forces them into unemployment. The film beat out what is considered the greatest movie of time, Citizen Kane, to win the 1941 Academy Award for Best Picture and Mr. Ford beat Orson Welles to win his second consecutive Best Director Award (and the third of his total of four). The film won three other Oscars including Best Supporting Actor for Mr. Crisp. The film was to be shot in color on location in Wales, but due to the escalation of World War II, filming was moved to California and shot in black & white to help create the dreariness of South Wales. This worked out brilliantly as the lack of color helps create more a bleaker mood and Arthur C. Miller was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Cinematography.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best picture winner
Review: John Ford's nostalgic film of a Welsh mining town in late Victorian times is a cinematographic masterpiece. It was filmed in the hill's of Malibu because WWII made filming it on location impossible. It so resembles what one would imagine an old Welsh mining town to look like that the settings itself make this a great movie. The story centers around the Morgan family, a close knit mining family held together with what today we would refer to as rock solid "family values." Donald Crisp plays the pricipled, loving patriarch of the family. Roddy McDowall plays his youngest son Huw. Maureen O'Hara is Angharad, the only daughter in this large family.

The Morgan family goes through it's trials and, at one point, the family appears to become unglued as the elder sons move out but, ultimately, the bonds of this strong family hold it together. Th narrator is Huw, as an adult, who is leaving the town many decades after the saga takes place. Most of the people he knew had died and the character of the place had changed. Although it had always been a mining town, the growth of the industry took away the valley, which had earlier survived in all it's beauty, despite the existence of the mine; thus the title of the film. Certainly, there is melancholy in this film as both Angharad and Huw fail to reach their destinies. Huw was a good student who could have accomplished much, and Angharad never fullfills her romantic destiny with the local preacher played by Walter Piggeon. The poignant taste of an era gone by and the depiction of close relationships make this a deserving academy award winner.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: my husband's uncle won for art direction
Review: Last Saturday, we had the opportunity to visit my husband's great uncle Nathan Juran. He is 94 years old and lives in the South Bay of Southern California in a beautiful hillside home with his wife, Auntie Katherine. While looking around the home, I noticed an amazing doorstop. It was an Oscar. On closer inspection, I found it was for Art Direction for the movie "How green was my valley", one of my all time favorite movies. What a new respect I found for Uncle Nathan!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT DVD TRANSFER
Review: Nothing else to say about this truly majestic, deeply emotional film that hasn't already been better said. The added good news is that the DVD transfer, released last week, is a very fine one indeed. Run out and buy it - and cherish it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ONE OF THE THREE GREATEST FILMS EVER MADE
Review: One of Ford's best. 1941 was a magical year for film and "How Green" was one of the reasons. Ford was a master of the B&W medium and his use of shadow, light, and detail in "How Green" is nothing short of absolute genius. Every single frame of the 169,920 total is a masterpiece.

I envy anyone who will see this film for the first time. It's pure joy. I've seen it more than a hundred times and marveled at its magnificence each time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: hingnekar"s selections
Review: see these movies.enjoy your life. create a family relation+mutual understanding++love ================================================================= these pictures even though old but they are gold. no violence,not too much sex,+entertaining in its own way. worth to be seen by all from the family.


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