How Green Was My.... (Vomit)

Okay... so we had Oscar night again. This time the movie was 'How Green Was My Valley' We watched most of the movie and then the DVD froze and we were unable to finish it.

MAJOR ANNOYANCE... the title of the movie is 'How GREEN was my...' and the movie was in BLACK AND WHITE!!! There was color in the early 40's.. this movie came out AFTER Wizard of OZ and Gone With the Wind.,

First of all.. this movie should have been amazing! It was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck who was an old Hollywood super-producer who made a bazillion movies and won 3 Oscars! It was directed by John Ford who was a super director of the time who won 6 Oscars. It starred a young Roddy McDowell, Maureen O'hara, and Walter Pigeon. That being said... this movie was not good.

The coolest part thus far of our Oscar movie nights is that you can see films and film craft getting better and better as the years go by. After watching this movie it was like film craft had taken a giant step back. There was something fishy... why was this movie a success??

The movie centered around the Morgan family in South Wales. They live in a coal mining town and the father and 4 of 5 boys work in the mine as well. It is an honest job and they are proud of the work that they do. The story is told through the eyes of the youngest boy who is about 12. Tough times hit other towns in the area and miners come into the town willing to work for next to nothing so all of the miners get their pay slashed causing obvious strife and drama.

There is talk of a strike and talk amongst the workers of a union. The sons are hopping mad and they are pro-union which breaks their father's heart. He couldn't believe they had turned into Socialist trash. --side note: this was a book first where unions were a major theme... they really toned it down in the movie because they didn't want to stir up any unpleasantness. This movie came out in 1941.. WWII had started in Europe and the Socialist revolution in Russia was 30 years old so it would have been a hot button issue at the time which is kind of funny considering Russia was our ally in WWII-- Anyhoo... the socialist trash moves out and the strike ensues. Everyone gets all poor and bitchy because they are hungry and they can't buy stuff which sounds kind of dramatic, but it wasn't really. Nothing really happened in the movie. Oh yeah.. the daughter was all hot and bothered for the priest in the town. The BEST scene of the movie is when the priest comes home and she is waiting for him in the dark. This was Victorian times so her waiting in his home or even being alone with him was SUPER SCAN'LOUS!! She professes her love, he professes his but says that he won't marry her because he has to depend on donations to live and he won't have her be all poor and stuff. She kisses him (whore)and then leaves and marries some rich dude that everyone hates and she doesn't love. MUY DRAMATIC!! I joke, but it was actually a really great scene.. love unrequited or requited and denied is just tragic!!!

So... the DVD froze so I don't really know how the movie ends. From the chapter titles we found out that the daughter divorces her husband (the scandal continues!) and comes back to marry the priest, but he still won't marry her. The little boy goes to work in the mine and the father dies in a bid mine explosion. The end.

NOW... once we had watched what we could we watched a documentary about the movie and we were very glad that we did!!!

Darryl F. Zanuk originally wanted this to be a 4 hour epic in gorgeous technicolor in the style of GWTW. He planned on filming in Wales but a little thing called WWII broke out so he had to change plans. The movie was way scaled back and they shot in Malibu. Malibu is green-ish, but if you have spent any time there you realize that the rolling hills are mostly brown which is why they shot in black and white! One mystery solved! We also learned that it was a hit with the public because there was a general uneasiness in the country at the time. The bolsheviks had taken power in Russia, there was this guy Hitler causing all sorts of poo across the pond and one of our major political and financial allies (Britain) was getting the crap bombed out of them. There was a lot of uncertainty in the air: will we go to war? The theme of family togetherness really resonated with audiences at the time and the movie was a massive hit! Second mystery solved, though it is still a bit weird to me because some good friggin movies had already won't best picture so I know that Hollywood knew a good movie when they saw one.. oh well.

A fascinating bit of trivia that we learned from the documentary was that during filming of the movie, the director was actually holding secret trainings where he was training army photographers. Once we entered WWII John Ford enlisted and was a war photographer for the military. He actually filmed the Battle of Midway!! (google it.. pretty huge part of WWII) He used this film footage and made a documentary which won him one of his 6 oscars years later. =)

The best part of this was on Sunday when I went to my mom's house for dinner and told her about it. She instantly remembered that it was the first movie that she saw at the drive in theatre (she was 9!). She couldn't remember what it was about but she remembered there wasn't a speaker so it was incredibly difficult to hear.

I am excited that we are entering the era of movies that my folks probably saw when they were young!! =)

This post is probably boring, but deal with it. I can't be funny all of the time.