Valley of Decision The (1945) – full review!

Directed by Tay Garnett and boasting a screenplay by Sonya Levien (Interrupted Melody (1955)) and John Meehan (Boys Town (1938)) this above average drama features an all-star cast which includes Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver (1942)) Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)) Donald Crisp (How Green Was My Valley (1941)) Lionel Barrymore (A Free Soul (1931)) and Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy (1989)) all of whom had or would receive Best Actor/Actress or Supporting Oscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in their careers. Additionally Gladys Cooper who received Supporting Actress Oscar nominations for Now Voyager (1942) The Song of Bernadette (1943) and My Fair Lady (1964) Dean Stockwell (Married to the Mob (1988)) appearing in his first film and the recognizable Marsha Hunt Reginald Owen Dan Duryea Marshall Thompson and John Warburton also play prominent roles. Even Connie Gilchrist appears uncredited as a live-in cook. Garson received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her wonderful performance and convincing brogue as did Herbert Stothart (The Wizard of Oz (1939)) for his Score.

Pat Rafferty (Barrymore) is a wheelchair-bound old crank who though his former employer continues to pay his salary is still angry at the Scott family whose Pittsburgh steel mill was the site of his unfortunate crippling accident. Barrymore gives a performance not unlike his better known (AFI #6 villain) “Mr. Potter” in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Rafferty is especially unhappy to learn that his daughter Mary (Garson) has chosen to work as a maid following the course previously chosen by her older sister Katie (Geraldine Wall) and has taken a job on the Scott’s domestic staff. Mary will now live at the Scott’s residence instead of with her father widowed sister and her infant son. Rafferty asks her boyfriend Jim Brennan (Preston Foster) what he thinks of this turn of events and learns that he too is working at the Scott mill. Mary leaves her angry father and finds the Scott’s home where she enters via the servant entrance.

The first person Mary meets at the Scott’s is Delia (Barbara Everest) who quickly gives her the rundown on whom she should and shouldn’t take her orders. She is taught not to let the younger Scotts Constance (Hunt) & Ted (Thompson) tell her what to do but to instead deal with them firmly. Mary also meets the toothache prone coachman Mac McCready (Owen) and the fact that there is “an upstairs” and “a downstairs” division in a wealthy household. While waiting to meet her new employer Mrs. Scott (Cooper) Mary witnesses the warm welcome given the eldest son Paul (Peck) who’d been abroad where he learned about open hearth furnaces. She also later meets Mr. Scott (Crisp) and learns he is not “the devil himself” as her father had described him. Mrs. Scott learns that Mary is very wise and trusts her judgment in matters concerning her daughter “Connie” who learns to respect Mary’s rules. Though everyone quickly adopts Mary as one of the family it is Paul who is the most polite treating her with the respect he would an equal. When the Scotts travel to Boston for William (Duryea) to marry Julia Gaylord (Mary Lord) Mary is invited to come along in part to chaperon Connie. On the voyage home Mary meets Giles (Warburton) Connie’s secret love.

One Sabbath day when Paul and Jim are working on an open hearth design at the Rafferty’s where Jim now lives an angry Pat Rafferty returns from church to find an object of his hate in his own home. When Mary can’t calm tensions she leaves with Paul after Rafferty expels him. On the way back to the Scott’s Mary and Paul have some tender moments on a bluff overlooking the black smoke belching chimneys (kind of warms your heart doesn’t it?) by the river – she sings some Irish songs and he learns that she’s overhead him wax poetic about the mill being a living thing. When they finally get home Paul’s girlfriend Louise Kane (Tandy) is waiting for him. Even though they go in the front entrance and Mary goes in the servant’s Louise noticed something in the way Paul & Mary were walking together. Later Mary provides Paul the support he needs to keep trying to make the open hearth concept a working reality at the mill. After his success when Paul declares his love for Mary she points out the impossibility (class difference) of their future relationship and declines his offer of marriage.

When Connie comes home from presumably spending the night at a friends per Louise it is learned that she has married Giles. Though unhappy with this course of events and after making it clear that he would not be providing for him financially Mr. Scott welcomes Giles into the family. As the Earl of Moulton (England) Giles needs no such assistance. Mary and Mrs. Scott who has learned of Paul’s infatuation convince the newlyweds to take Mary to England as Connie’s maid. While leaving Jim tries to get Mary to stay to be his wife but she tells him the reason for her departure. She remains in England for two years refusing to answer Paul’s letters. When Mr. Scott learns the reason for Mary leaving he summons her home and upon greeting her at the station asks her to become his daughter-in-law. He tells her that Paul is meeting with Jim to resolve the strike which has closed the mill. William has hired strikebreakers from up north but Paul convinces his dad to work with Jim. So Ted is sent to stop the scabs at the train station while Mr. Scott and Paul go to meet Jim convinced by Mary’s intervention and the strikers at the mill. Things go badly when Rafferty also comes along and Ted fails to do his job. A tragedy prevents Mary from going through with marrying Paul who eventually marries Louise. They then have a son Paulie (Stockwell).

*** SPOILERS ***

There’s a conflict between Louise who hates the mill and Paul who’s raising Paulie to one day take his place there. Mrs. Scott has remained close friends with Mary through the years and even provided her a dressmaker’s shop (did I forget to mention this was one of Mary’s skills?). When Mrs. Scott is dying she visits Mary against her doctor’s orders to tell Mary that her will gives Mary her one fifth share of the mill. She says that upon her death William will want to sell as will Connie. And that absent Ted who’s run away in shame (his father along with Mary’s and Jim were killed in the aforementioned incident at the mill) won’t care. Mrs. Scott then has an attack and Mary returns her to the Scott home. At Mrs. Scott’s request and Louise’s begrudging approval Mary stays until Mrs. Scott dies a few weeks later. Just as Mrs. Scott predicted William with Ted’s proxy wants to sell before her body is even cold. William tells Connie that $2 million is a lot of money which would help her settle her debts. Everyone learns that Mary is the fifth partner which naturally infuriates Louise who can’t wait to get away from the mill and Pittsburgh. But Mary uses her influence with Connie that she should “give” for once instead of “take” such that she sides with Paul & Mary to keep the mill in the family. Mary leaves and Louise warns Paul that if he follows her their marriage is over. Paul says that’s fine with him but he’ll be keeping Paulie. Naturally he leaves and joins Mary … and we presume they lived happily ever after.

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