I’ve always had a problem with those who outright dismiss John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley for winning the 1941 Oscar for Best Picture over Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Despite its cinematic brilliance and storytelling bravery, Citizen Kane is at its heart a very cold movie, whereas How Green Was My Valley, brave and daring in its own right, is a heartwarming masterpiece that speaks to subsequent generations in a different, but no less valid way than Welles’ masterwork. After all, when asked to name the movies’ three greatest directors, Welles himself famously said “John Ford, John Ford and John Ford.”

Welsh author Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley was the bestselling novel of 1939, a National Book Award winner in 1940 and Daryl F. Zanuck’s planned answer to David O. Zelznick’s Gone With the Wind. Zanuck hired William Wyler to direct his planned four hour color epic in Wales, but the raging war in Europe put an end to those plans. Forced to film in nearby Santa Monica, there was no way to make Santa Monica look like Wales in color so plans were changed to shoot in black-and-white. No way would Fox’s board of directors allow a four hour black-and-white film so those plans were scrapped as well. Still resistant to making a film about the touchy subject of unions, the board haggled until Wyler withdrew and Zanuck agreed to make the film with Fox’s leading contract director, John Ford.

What is seen on screen is not the complete novel, but it is inclusive of all the novel’s main themes and scenes telling the story of a proud Welsh coal mining family from the viewpoint of the family’s youngest son. Roddy McDowall, contrary to legend, did not make his acting debut as young Huw Morgan, through whose eyes the story is told. It was his nineteenth film. He, Donald Crisp as his proud father, Sara Allgood as his loving but easy to temper mother, Maureen O’Hara as the sister who marries the mine owner’s son but loves the local minister, Walter Pidgeon as that minister who teaches Huw to read and Anna Lee as his oldest brother’s widow all give legendary performances.

Although bathed in the warm glow of nostalgia, the film does not shy away from the novel’s controversial themes with the exception of the relationship between Angharad (O’Hara) and the minister, which is portrayed as an infatuation rather than a clandestine affair. Religious bigotry, teacher cruelty, labor strikes pitting family member against family member and even use of the Production Code forbidden cuss words “hell” and “damn” as uttered by no-nonsense Beth Morgan (Allgood) are all there. The film’s depiction of the plight of coal miners is something that has not changed in the more than seventy years since the film’s release, making the film as relevant today as it was then.

The one Oscar How Green Was My Valley won that I will concede should have gone to Citizen Kane is the award for Best Cinematography. Arthur C. Miller’s haunting imagery is stunning, but it does not match the innovative genius of Gregg Toland’s work.

The Blu-ray release of How Green Was My Valley carries over all the extras from previous standard DVD releases.

A contemporary film about unions, Daniel Barnz’s Won’t Back Down was so viciously attacked by the National Teacher’s Union that it’s a wonder anyone dared to go see it in theatres. It’s not a great movie, but it’s not the union basher its critics claimed either.

Based on a real life incident, the film is about a California school in which parents and teachers unite to present a proposal to the Board of Education that will allow the school to be turned into a charter school in which teachers can be fired for incompetence, something the seniority driven teacher’s union has fought over and over. Both sides of the issue are presented, though some of the union representatives are portrayed as dimwits.

The problem with the film is that it plays like a” this happened, then that happened” TV movie rather than a film with real punch and drive. Maggie Gyllenhaal seems to be slumming as a working class mother with two jobs. Only in the film’s climax does she really seem to get beneath the surface of the character. Viola Davis, on the other hand, is brilliant as usual as the teacher and would-be principal of the re-imagined school. Supporting players Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Rosie Perez and Oscar Isaac are all memorable. Holly Hunter is good, too, but her character does an eleventh hour about-face from rigid administrator to Gyllenhaal/Davis supporter that is not completely convincing. It’s a mixed bag of a film, but one worth seeing for Davis’ performance.

Won’t Back Down is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Chorus girls struggling to make it on the big white way were a staple of movies as far back as the 1920s. Such films as The Broadway Melody, 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 triumphed during the early days of the talkies. The landmark 1975 Broadway musical A Chorus Line seemed to be the last word on the subject, and in fact was until now.

The success of the Fox TV series Glee inspired NBC/Universal and Dreamworks to put together its own musical series, Smash, about the struggles of a new generation of chorus girls and boys. Alas, the stories are the same, only the faces and bodies have changed.

Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty are the competing chorus girls vying for the lead in a new musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. They might have been played by Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell four generations ago. The director, Jack Davenport, might have been played by Warner Baxter. The songwriters, Debra Messing and Christian Borle, might have been played by Ruth Chatterton and Dick Powell. Messing’s husband, played by Brian d’Arcy James, might have been played by George Brent. The producer, Anjelica Huston, might have been played by Kay Francis. The roles played by guest stars Uma Thurman, Bernadette Peters, Marc Kudish and Nick Jonas might have been played by Ginger Rogers, Mae West, Al Jolson and Bing Crosby.

All that is old is new again with a few modern touches. The chorus is now the ensemble. Borle’s character is gay. He is torn between a Republican lawyer and a chorus boy. Guess which one he ends up with? McPhee’s live-in boyfriend is an Anglo-Indian struggling politician who she dreams of as a Bollywood star. Messing messes around with the actor playing Joe DiMaggio in a plot that seems right out of a daytime soap opera.

It’s all highly watchable, but just when you convince yourself that the songs written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman aren’t half bad, Bernadette Peters will belt out Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy; Christian Borle will remind us of Cole Porter’s “Another Opening, Another Show” from Kiss Me Kate and Anjelcia Huston will stop the show talk-singing grandfather Walter’s immortal “September Song” from Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’sKnickerbocker Holiday and you long once more for the real thing.

Universal has calculated that Blu-ray buyers would rather purchase their latest action-adventure film and have released Smash: Season One on standard DVD only.

For a history of the real musical theatre look no further than Broadway: The American Musical, the six part 2004 PBS series hosted by Julie Andrews, which has just received a Blu-ray upgrade.

New releases this week include Blu-ray upgrades of The Quiet Man and Indiscreet.