How Green Was My Valley holds the dubious distinction of being the film that beat out Citizen Kane for Best Picture—but if you’ve read my original intent for this blog, you know I won’t attempt to rank movies from best to worst or reduce my opinion to a “who should have won instead” contest. That’s the easy route, and it’s not my style. For any number of reasons, be it politics, popularity, or passion, the fact remains that How Green Was My Valley received the top award in a year that included what many consider to be the best film ever made.

I might suggest to you that while Kane holds its place of honor as the pinnacle of filmmaking, particularly for those who lead with their minds, Valley packs a heartfelt wallop that resonates decades after I first saw it. In other words, Citizen Kane is the intellectual winner while How Great Was My Valley is the emotional winner. Now enough about comparisons.

This top-grossing hit from 1941 tells the story of a Welsh mining family in the 19th century. The Morgans are a close-knit, hard-working, devout group, led by patriarch Gwilym Morgan (Donald Crisp) and matriarch Beth Morgan (Sara Allgood). Together they have seven children, six of them boys. Their lives are reflected through the eyes of the youngest, named Huw (pronounced Hugh), and he’s played by 12-year-old Roddy McDowall in a star-making turn. At the beginning, we hear Huw as a grown man (in voiceover by Irving Pichel), introducing us to his beloved valley as he prepares to leave it for the last time. What follows are flashbacks, the reminiscences of his childhood with the people and events that shaped his life.

Roddy McDowall as Huw and Walter Pigeon as Mr. Gruffydd.

My own father was nine years old when this movie came out, and it left a big impression on him, but he didn’t revisit it for decades, until I was a boy. We watched it together on TV, and I can still see the stunned look on his face when he discovered it was in black-and-white. He recalled so vividly the lush, green hills and rich, colorful meadows. I’ll never forget it—the power of imagination and memory. Often we remember things the way we want them to be, rather than as they are. Perhaps it’s odd for the color green to be used in the title only to have the picture shot in black-and-white. It was a conscious decision, however, made by producer Daryl F. Zanuck. Originally, he envisioned the project to be epic in length and scope—a four-hour Technicolor saga, filmed on location in Wales. But the second world war was escalating in Europe, which made an authentic setting out of the question. California has hills, but they’re more brown than green and wouldn’t do justice to the picture’s title or Huw’s recollection of it. Once director John Ford came on board, he was happy with black-and-white, which serves not only to help audience members (like my dad) imagine the ideal colors, but it heightens the grittier and darker aspects of the story. Ford was a master in the medium, having just finished The Grapes of Wrath the year before. He took home an Oscar for that film and this one as well (two of the record four he won for Best Director), and at times, the lack of color gives this movie a documentary feeling, perfect for capturing the harsh way of life for an industrial town in the Victorian era. Arthur C. Miller’s award-winning cinematography helps us forget we’re in Southern California altogether. Zanuck may not have gotten his preferred location, but he did get one of the largest outdoor sets ever built—an exact recreation of the row houses stretching all the way from the mineshaft at the top to the beloved valley below.

Much of this film revolves around the struggle for quality of life in a town where there is none, save for the owner of the mine and his family—the “top one percent,” if you will. Zanuck, a conservative, and Ford, a liberal, came together on this film, even with its pro-union theme, perhaps because it’s from the perspective of the Morgan family, who are conservative themselves until they’re pushed beyond the breaking point. The four oldest boys leave the dinner table and the house when they are forbidden by their father to discuss current working conditions or the formation of a new union.

The one daughter among them is the beautiful Angharad, played by 19-year-old Maureen O’Hara. At her oldest brother Ivor’s wedding to Bronwyn (played by Patric Knowles and Anna Lee), Angharad is smitten with the new preacher Mr. Gruffydd (pronounced Griffith in Welsh, and played by Walter Pigeon). He doesn’t feel he could give her a decent life as a modest man of the cloth, and when she is courted by the mine owner’s son, her fate is sealed. She marries him against better judgment, not for love but for the comfort and financial security her own family lacks.

Donald Crisp, Roddy McDowall, and Sara Allgood, the heart of the Morgan family.

While the acting is excellent throughout, the heart of this story lies in three outstanding performances. Donald Crisp, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Mr. Morgan, and Sara Allgood, who received a nomination for Supporting Actress as Mrs. Morgan, leave indelible impressions. The mere sound of their earthy voices is golden, and their scenes together and apart are the most powerful, humorous, gutsy, and at times heart-wrenching of all. Still, it’s young Roddy McDowall, with his wide eyes and eager attentiveness, who carries the film. It’s little wonder this movie made him a household name.

There is much to love about How Green Was My Valley, from the stirring male chorus with their voices raised in song as they march to and from the blackened mine, to the gorgeous cinematography that at times shimmers like a painting while other times seems like photos ripped from the pages of LIFE Magazine. It’s at once poetic yet realistic, nostalgic yet timely, sentimental yet pragmatic. To this day, I find this a compelling film about the importance of family and honor and conviction and values and character, but also about knowing when to change, to grow … and when to leave the valley.

How Green Was My Valley