How Green Was My Valley: 1941 Best Picture

Are we going to find way more Jeopardy! clues on “Citizen Kane” for 1941 then we are on the Best Picture Oscar winner “How Green was My Valley”? Probably, but the latter won Best Picture and four more awards at the 14th Annual Academy Awards, while “Citizen Kane” only got one.

For the first time, but not last, two sisters were nominated for Best Actress: Joan Fontaine for “Suspicion” and Olivia de Havilland for “Hold Back the Dawn”. Joan Fontaine won the Oscar. The second time this happened was in 1966 when the Redgrave sisters, Lynn and Vanessa, were both nominated for Best Actress. Neither won.

Just two years earlier, Olivia de Havilland was competing against Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress for their respective roles as Melanie Hamilton and Mammy in “Gone with the Wind”. Hattie McDaniel won that one. But de Havilland would go on to win two Best Actress Oscars for “To Each His Own” (1946) and “The Heiress” (1949).

Although then 12-year-old Roddy McDowall had been acting in his native England for several years, this was his first American film. He would go on to many more roles as a child actor and to a very successful career as an adult. He remained lifelong friends with Maureen O’Hara who, at 19, played his sister in the film.

On j-archive, It took searching several terms to come up with this many “How Green was My Valley” clues:
MINER CLASSICS $1600: This “colorful” Richard Llewellyn novel set in a Welsh mining community was made into a 1941 Oscar-winning film
OSCAR WINNERS OF YORE $400: John Ford directed this “verdant” 1941 winner about a Welsh mining family
THE MAUREEN CORPS $1200: Born in Ireland in 1920, she appeared in several John Ford films, starting with “How Green Was My Valley”
COMPLETES THE FILM TITLE $400: 1941: “How Green Was…”
THE CINEMA $600: “How Green Was My Valley” won a Best Picture Oscar for this year, the same year “Citizen Kane” was released

It only took 1941 films to come up with all these Citizen Kane clues:
POP CULTURE MUSINGS $400: If no one’s there to hear a man whisper “Rosebud” before dying in this 1941 film, how does anyone know that last word?
ORSON WELLES $200: This 1941 Orson Welles film has set a standard by which all other films made since are judged
TIME FOR A MOVIE REVIEW $400: This 1941 film is “everyone’s default choice for the world’s greatest movie”
MALTIN ON THE MOVIES $600: (Leonard Maltin continues.) I’ve called this 1941 classic “A stunning film in every way” & Orson Welles was only 25 years old when he made it!
BIG-SCREEN STUMPERS $600: For a 1941 film, this man became only the second to be nominated for Best Actor in his film debut
MAKING A LIST $500: This 1941 film topped the AFI’s much-debated 1998 list of the 100 greatest American films
MOVIE QUOTES $200: A headline in this 1941 film reads, “Charles Foster Kane Defeated—Fraud at Polls!”
COMPOSERS $600: The first of Bernard Herrmann’s many film scores was for this 1941 classic
CINEMA $100: A clause in Orson Welles’ RKO contract prevents Ted Turner from colorizing this 1941 film
THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE $600: Made a year apart in 1941 & ’42, they were Nos. 1 & 2 on the AFI’s list of America’s 100 Greatest Movies

Clues on other 1941 films:
“DUM” IT UP $800: In a 1941 film, this circus performer is forced to join a clown act
CARY GRANT FILMS $400: This “Master of Suspense” directed Cary Grant in 4 films beginning with 1941’s “Suspicion”
CELEBRITIES’ FAVORITE MOVIES $1600: (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives the clue) Humphrey Bogart plays a tough private eye who sends his love Mary Astor up the river in this 1941 film
DAY PLANNERS OF THE STARS $400: 1941: make final film, “Two-Faced Woman”. Feb. 9, 1951: Become U.S. citizen. After that: Prefer alone time
DANCE FORMERS $200: This niece of film director Cecil B. had some devilish fun choreographing “Three Virgins and a Devil” in 1941
HEDY LAMARR-VELOUS $800: In a 1941 film, Hedy starred with Lana Turner & Judy Garland as 3 young women who join these fabled broadway “Follies”
NOTHING SPECIFIC $1000: According to the song in a 1941 Ronald Reagan film, it’s what was found “in a five and ten cent store”
ROLE $1000: Dorothy Comingore played a character based on actress Marion Davies in this classic 1941 film
“NEVER” AT THE MOVIES $200: Advice that’s the title of a 1941 W.C. Fields film
LITERATURE $600: In 1941 his story “The Devil And Daniel Webster” was adapted as a film starring Edward Arnold
MOVIE MONSTERS $500: Claude Rains beats Lon Chaney, Jr. to death with a silver walking stick in this 1941 film
LITERATURE ON FILM $400: In a 1941 film based on R.L. Stevenson’s horror classic, Spencer Tracy played these 2 title characters
KIND OF A DRAG $1000: In 1941 film “Charley’s Aunt” he impersonates his aunt from Brazil (where the nuts come from)
’70s THEATER $400: A “Babe on Broadway” in 1941 film, it wasn’t until 1979’s “Sugar Babies” he made a real Broadway debut