American Cinematographer - September 1991 - 43

is bom. Huw

gives up a chance to go to college and
works in the mines to help support the wife and baby.
Meanwhile,

an

unhappy Angharad returns

from South Africa amidst vicious

rumors

of the in¬

nocent relationship between she and

the preacher. Mr.
Gruffydd denounces the gossipers from the pulpit and
then resigns.
As he is leaving, the shrill blast of the mine
whistle signals another mine disaster. There has been
a cave-in and Mr.
Morgan is trapped below. Huw and
Mr. Gruffydd go down below to look for him. They
find him buried under tons of debris and dying. The
elder Morgan dies in Huw's arms.
Outside the mine, Beth Morgan, the wife and
mother, waits with Bronwen. "He came to me just
now," Beth says, "Ivor was with him - they spoke to
and told

of the

glory they had seen." This is a
moving moment, beautifully played by Sara
Allgood and directed with sensitivity by Ford.
After the cage in the collery reaches the top
with Huw, Mr. Gruffydd and Morgan's body, we hear
me

me

very

Huw's voice on the soundtrack:
"Men like my father cannot die. They are with
us still - real in memories as
they were in flesh -

loving and beloved forever."
This

scene

dissolves into

a

series of shots of

the Morgan family as we have seen them in the film,
with Huw's voice-over continuing: his mother, the

Morgan brothers, Angharad, Mr. Gruffydd, Bronwen,
and Mr. Morgan and young Huw coming up the
hillside as they did in the opening of the film.
we are
was

"Is he dead? For if he is, then I am dead, and
dead and all of sense is a mockery. How green

Line.)

Arthur Miller remembered how this ending
about: "While we were shooting at the villa lo¬

everything seemed perfect. Only one other time in my
career had I felt that way and that was when I
photo¬
graphed Peter Ibbetson back in 1921 with Wally Reid
and Elsie Ferguson.
"One day before we began shooting Ford had
me make a test of the entire
Morgan family together.
He lined them up in their wardrobe and I panned

cation, Howard Jones, USC football coach and a friend
of Ford's, visited the location. He, Ford and I took our
box lunches up to the top of the hill to rest and eat
under a large shady tree. After Ford had questioned

Jones about his football team in general, Jones asked
Ford if he thought he had a good picture in the making.

Ford replied, 'Everything seems fine but the picture
tells a sad story of a family whose happy life has been

practically destroyed by dire circumstances. The father
had been killed in a mine disaster as well as one of the

who left his

bride

widow. The

daughter
foolishly marries a man she doesn't love and the grown
new

a

sons

leave to seek their fortunes in America. I have to

find

some

way to bring the family together as far as
the audience is concerned for them to really enjoy the

picture.'

McDowall being

directed by John
Ford in a

soundstage coal
mine. Assistant
cameraman

Paul Lockwood

is about to slate
the scene with
the automatic

slating device

"John Ford was my favorite director," Miller
remembered. "When you made a picture with him
there were no problems. On How Green Was My Valley

gone."

sons

picture was shown, some members of the cast drew
applause during the review and the audience left the
theatre in a happy frame of mind."
(Ford apparently liked this technique so well
he was to use it again, notably in 1955's The Long Gray

valley then, and the valley of them that have

my

came

One was a sloping hillside with a lone tree, and
there were others. Ford played scenes in front of these
and in this manner he reviewed the cast. When the
screen.

on

the matte

box.

Joseph

LaShelle, ASC
operates the Fox
and
Miller is
camera

watchful.

down the line. I wondered about it until I realized he
wanted to see how they looked together, if there was

family resemblance.
"Each day Ford had the entire cast on the set,
in proper costume, made up and ready to go if he
needed them," Miller said. "They were supposed to
have learned their entire part. He may or may not
decide to use them that day. He was always after a
natural, spontaneous performance and as far as I could
see never did any lengthy rehearsals. He told the actors
what to do and expected them to do it-the first take!
"Ford could be very sarcastic with an actor if
he felt he was not getting a natural performance. I had
seen this happen to several actors on other pictures I
a

"A few days later the blue sky was filled with
huge billowy clouds. After looking at the magnificent
sight for a short time, Ford asked me if it would be
possible to make those clouds appear larger on a
process screen if we played the actors in front of them.
We photographed a few cloud formations and pro¬
jected them on a large fifty-foot process screen. The art
director built several compositions in front of the

My Valley who felt Ford's sar¬
casm more than once. Loder had a habit of
asking Ford
should he do this or that. Take off his cap or some small
bit of business. When an actor asked him something

September 1991

American

had been with him

on.

John Loder was

one

of the ac¬

tors on How Green Was

Cinematographer

37
American Cinematographer - September 1991

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