Best Picture of 1941: How Green was my Valley

The art of storytelling. When it is done incorrectly it can be very dull and very boring. However, when it is done right it can help you to escape to another world. Movie are won great example of this art. There is another great example and that is actually telling a story by word of mouth. That art form is not very common anymore. How Green was My Valley,By 20th Century Fox, is one of those movies that does a superb job of perfecting that art of both word of mouth and movie.

Huw Morgan, the youngest of seven children, is packing to leave his village for the last time. As we see his shadow getting ready to leave he starts to tell us of his life's story. How is beloved valley was not always covered in soot. How it was before the mine came to be as big as it was. He tells us of his family and how close knit they once use to be. However, the ever growing mining company starts changing their wages and causes the sons to be angry about what is happening to them. After starting a strike and having meetings to create a union, it causes a chain reaction for their family and their village. It's the story about life, death, separation, love, and all else family.

This film is not very well known now a days, but when this film won for Best Picture it shocked everyone! The film that everyone thought was going to win that year was RKO's Citizen Kane. The other films that this film beat out was: MGM's Blossoms in the Dust; Columbia's Here Comes Mr. Jordan; Paramount's Hold Back the Dawn; Warner Brothers' The Maltese Falcon, One Foot In Heaven and Sergeant York; RKO's The Little Foxes and Suspicion. This film was also selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1990.

I have to say when I first started watching this film I was so bored. However, as the story went on you see the heart the goes into it. The more you become invested until you are apart of it by the end of the film. This has to be one of the most well written films I have ever seen. This film was not an over zealous film that needed you attention of every minute you were there to understand, This film was not a film that was proclaimed to be the most wonderful in your face story to ever be told. This film does have heart that most movies dream to have.