How Green Was My Valley
By Kit Macdonald
Richard Llewellyn's 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley is a beautiful, evocative work that tells the story of the life of Huw Morgan, a boy growing up in a Welsh mining village in the late 19th century. John Ford's film adaptation saw the light of day just two years later, and if anything betters the source material, exquisitely capturing the heartache and beauty of a Welsh mining village as it grapples with the changes brought by industrialisation.
Roddy McDowall plays Huw, who must navigate childhood and the challenges faced by his close-knit family in a beautiful Welsh valley that is changing rapidly due to the impact of coal mining. Ford's lyrical and considered treatment took five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The authenticity of the film is all the more remarkable when you consider that the Second World War made it impossible to film in Wales, and that Ford instead had Twentieth Century Fox build an 80-acre replica of a Welsh mining town in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Malibu, California.