How Green was my Valley

I saw this film many, many years ago and thought it junk. It was, I thought, rather offensive to Welsh people like myself in that it depicted us as rather quaint, a bit foolish at times, foreign. When I saw it again many years later I liked it a lot. It had those magnificent scenes, characteristic of John Ford's Westerns: scenes that spread the action out of doors, scenes of great drama in court rooms - here in the chapel, scenes of brawls (mostly drunken) - here in the school yard. Then the scenes of the devastation down the mine when there is an explosion and the boy, Huw, goes down with the preacher, Mr Richards, to rescue Huw's father with, outside, the crowd of womenfolk and children waiting in anguish for their loved ones. "Kameradshaft" is supposed to be the greatest mining disaster film but its political message is too strong and contrived for me, and, cinematically, Ford's work is simply better.
This time I found it terribly sentimental in places and I found it difficult to place it in South Wales - not least, probably, because Ford had used a predominatly Irish cast (though most did their best to imitate Welsh accents); but it is a great film in that it's a film on a big scale with a big story and its full of life; it has the energy and drive of great stories which take in all aspects of humanity from the story of Huw's sister's love for the new preacher who cannot commit himself to the horridly real expulsion of a young woman from the chapel by the deacons for giving birth to an illegitimate child; from the birth of union activity to the emigration of two sons to America and other places looking for work.
I regard it as one of John Ford's "Irish Films" in that it wallows in sentiment that is a bit fake. When he was once asked about his films he replied "I just make Westerns". But like all expatriots (or those who like to think they are similar since they have family roots elsewhere) he saw Ireland through rose-tinted glasses: unreal, much loved but a sentimental love. His Westerns he saw them without the clutter of fanciful baggage.
There are some fine performances in the film: I think it is one of Walter Pigeon's finest performances and as for Donald Crisp, who won an oscar for it, one of his best and,surely, his funniest.