By Nicholas Stix
Late tonight, my chief of research, though sick with some sort of virus, and thus unable to watch with me, thought of this John Ford masterpiece as a proper Father’s Day movie. It was adapted from Richard Llewellyn’s novel, and is one of Ford’s folklore movies, in which music of the time and place runs throughout the story, as the expression of spirit of the people whose story is told. Other such Ford movies were Stagecoach (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960). (Feel free to add any I’ve overlooked, or have yet to see.)
How Green Was My Valley was nominated for ten Oscars, and won five. However, although it is a top 100 masterpiece, the only Academy Award it deserved was for Donald Crisp for Best Supporting Actor, as the family patriarch. It actually deserved more nominations than it got—Walter Pidgeon for Best Actor; Roddy McDowell also for Best Supporting Actor, along with Crisp; and Maureen O’Hara for Best Supporting Actress, along with Sara Allgood, who played her mother. However, the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White, should have gone to some fellows who worked on a little picture you may have heard of, named Citizen Kane: Orson Welles; Greg Toland; and Perry Ferguson, Van Nest Polglase, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, respectively. Orson Welles got gypped out of two Oscars (Best Picture and Best Director) for Kane, but won an undeserved Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, even though he hadn’t contributed one word to Herman J. Mankiewicz’ script. So, he didn’t get the two Academy Awards he ought to have won, but won one he ought not to have won. It’s a funny, old world!
And now, without further adieu, we bring you John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley!
Upload by Canal de SrRaRo.
No comments:
Post a Comment