1941
Directed by John Ford
Yikes. That was boring. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey boring. It is a film about Welsh miners. Enough said.
I have never been to Wales although I imagine it is nothing like what the movie portrayed it as. There were very annoying songs interspersed in the movie which brought film down from boring to just boring and ridiculous. I also found it a bit surprising how left wing this movie was considering how conservative John Ford was. Maybe he was just too scared to show that during the 40s.
Skip it.
RATING: *----
Interesting Facts:
Filmed in Malibu. I see he was going for authenticity.
Intended to be a glorious epic like Gone With the Wind.
Beat Citizen Kane for best picture. What??? Come on!
Drawn back into the mists of time by Rachel mentioning 'Meshes', i stuck around to see what else there was back here and saw this had no comments..
ReplyDeleteAnd having disagreed with you on that one, I thought it would be good to combine forces to have a dig at this cliche bloated turkey.
I guess that last jibe may be a little unfair.. even Cliches were once new and fresh.. but i doubt that really applies to this one. Set your watch by regular arrival of expected events...Starting with singing miners.. but then right into the doom and gloom.. Strike.. lock out.. accident, daughter dishonoured.. and yes.. all building to the pit disaster... with the only question being who will still be standing by the time that arrives to be killed or maimed in that.
Dire.
This was just terrible. I never seem to agree with the Academy when they vote for Best Picture.
DeleteYeah, this was a nightmare of a movie. Somebody in the Academy must have had a thing with Welsh miners.
ReplyDeleteOne of the weirder choices for Best Picture.
Maybe the weirdest choice.
DeleteSlogging through things like two hours of this, I marvel at myself for having stood up to all five hours of Napoleon.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a stinker. Mrs Miniver won Best Picture the following year, so I wonder if the war was an influence and this subject matter of defending The Land of My Fathers touched the right nerve.
In defence of the scenery, shooting on location in Wales might have been a bit of a problem at the time what with, you know, it being in a world war at the time.
Yeah Best Picture winners seem to be a reflection of the time period rather than the actual best movie of the year. Which I guess is interesting in its own way...
DeleteGreetings first of all, from a fellow 1001 Movies blogger (I'm closer to the beginning of my journey right now, though).
ReplyDeleteThere actually is a reason for why he filmed in Malibu instead of Wales: they actually WANTED to film in Wales, but World War II had just broken out and Germany was doing air raids on England, which made filming on location way too dangerous. So that's why they did black and white in Malibu.
Still, they could at least have found more Welsh actors, but whatever.
Interesting, thanks for sharing! I love finding new 1001 blogs, so I look forward to checking yours out!
DeleteI thought this was one of Ford's best - maybe that says more about me, lol - thought the kid was bit preachy though and a bit wet.
ReplyDelete