Trivia for
How Green Was My Valley (1941) More at IMDbPro »

• This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1990.
  
  
• Plans to film in Wales were abandoned due to WWII; an 80-acre set was built in the Santa Monica Mountains at Brent's Crags, near Malibu. The design of the village was based on the real Cerrig Ceinnen and nearby Clyddach-cum Tawe in Wales.
  
  
• The film was shot in black and white because the color of flowers in Southern California did not match those found in Wales.
  
  
• Darryl F. Zanuck originally intended the film to be a four-hour epic to rival Gone with the Wind (1939).
  
  
• William Wyler was all set to direct on location in Wales, and Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn and Tyrone Power were all being courted for parts in the film.
  
  
• Two major factors entered into the decision to shoot the film in Southern California: (1) the continuous bombing of Britain by the Nazis; (2) the nervousness of Fox executives about the film's pro-union storyline. These factors, and William Wyler's reputation for perfectionism, swayed Fox to keep the filming done in the U.S.
  
  
• William Wyler went off to make The Little Foxes (1941) instead.
  
  
• It only took two months to make the film.
  
  
• Donald Crisp and Sara Allgood were always first choice to play the father and mother.
  
  
• Alexander Knox was Fox's first choice for the part of Dr Gruffyd, later played by Walter Pidgeon.
  
  
• John Ford referred to Philip Dunne's script as "nearly perfect a script as could be possible".
  
  
• For the scene where the miners greet their women by putting their earnings in baskets, actress Maureen O'Hara stopped the scene's filming once she noticed that her basket was a modern Kraft basket and not a basket of the movie's period. Director John Ford was so upset by being corrected in front of the cast and crew that he closed down the set and told O'Hara to wait on a nearby hill until he called for her. Fuming, O'Hara waited an hour before an assistant came to retrieve her but was satisfied to see that the basket had been changed upon her return.
  
  
• The songs sung by the male voices are all authentic Welsh. The song sung at the opening is "Men of Harlech".
  
  
• Darryl F. Zanuck paid $300,000 for the rights to the novel.
  
  
• Cyfartha's final line, "'Tis a coward I am, but I will hold your coat," was added by Ford himself over the objections of screenwriter Philip Dunne.
  
  
• When the movie was intended to be a four-hour epic Tyrone Power was going to play Huw as an adult.
  
  

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